During Trump's first term, I knew many people that called him a fascist. I wasn't biting. Extreme terms get thrown around a lot during political discourse: Fascist, Nazi, Commie, etc. I remember actually looking up fascism in the dictionary and going through it carefully to see if it actually applied. He came close, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't there ... not yet. We had a Congress controlled by an opposing party and a court that wasn't stacked yet. We might have become a fascist state had we not the controls in place to prevent it.
If you haven't figured it out yet, the F word I am talking about is Fascism, not that other one.
I hate to sound like a high school term paper, but here we go, Google AI defines Fascism as follows:
extreme nationalism, glorification of a dictatorial leader, and the belief in a natural social hierarchy. Key characteristics include militarism, suppression of opposition, and the subordination of individual interests to the state. Other traits include a disdain for human rights, identification of enemies or scapegoats, and the control of media to promote propaganda.
Let's go through this.
1) "Extreme Nationalism." All politicians cling to nationalism to one degree or other. Trump's extreme nationalism is obvious in his "America First" trope. As if we are not in a global community. When our neighbors and alleys succeed so do we. His nationalism is odd. He basically says, America used to be great, at some unspecified time in history, but not now, and only he can fix it.
Trump's nationalism has an old name: isolationism. We've seen this before and we know it doesn't work. He seems to want everyone to fail, even our neighbors and allies, while America succeeds. Going after Canada based on fabrications, weakening NATO, pulling out of agreements like the Iranian deal and the Paris Accord and threatening Greenland ... these seem more like the acts of a mad king than an American president. While he tries to gain points with the idiot fringe of his base of supporters, he aliens everyone else.
When our allies and neighbors succeed. A rising tide lifts all boats.
2. The "glorification of a dictatorial leader." Trump has been kissing the asses of dictators since his first day in office. On the day I started this entry, he pardoned the President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking and has been sitting in jail for two years. Trump let him out 43 years early. Trump never met a dictator he didn't like. Meanwhile, he promotes his own supremacy. Have you ever seen Trump admit he was wrong? Admitting you are wrong is a difficult thing for any leader, they all have problems with this, but not to the extent that Trump does. He will double down when cornered and lie through his teeth.
3) "The belief in a natural social hierarchy." This is the toughest one, because Trump is unpredictable and often contradictory. He often agrees with whomever he talks to last. He is not ideological but transactional. The natural hierarchy he clings to is hard to tamp down because of this.
This MAGA movement got going during Barrack Obama's presidency. By promoting a lie questioning his citizenship, Trump was able to tap into some racial tensions that no one else dare touch. Clinging to such bullshit is an old habit of his. Remember the Central Park Five? He paid $85,000.00 for a full-page ad in four of New York City's most popular newspapers with the title: “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” The boys were eventually exonerated.
He seems incapable of gaining any political cache without dragging someone else down. At the bottom of Trump's hierarchy is the vulnerable, political or otherwise. If he can take someone down and benefit from it, he is all over them like flies on shit. They are usually non-white, immigrants or women.
At the top we can find wealthy white guys (Peter Thiel, Musk, Epstein.)
The Trump hierarchy looks like this:
- (top) billionaire and millionaire scum and foreign dictators,
- (2nd tier) MAGA ass-kissers and sycophants,
- (3rd tier) MAGA base,
- (4th tier) everyone else who is male and white and
- (bottom tier) people who are of color or non-MAGA women.
4) "Militarism." Trump's first term was not very militant at all. I remember saying it was the one thing I did like about him, he had no love of war. But his second term has been so different. We are currently very close to being at war with Venezuela and at least 163 people have died in 21 strikes on vessels apparently importing drugs into the US. This is the greatest abuse of power of any US President in my lifetime, perhaps since Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears. We'll never know for sure if there were any drugs on any of these boats. These attacks were all illegal, they were not enemy combatants, and we are not at war with anyone in the Caribbean. Congress did not approve the attacks. If there are illegal drugs being imported on these ships, we have a legal process for this. We wait for them to come into our waters, and we get a warrant, seize the ship and search it. If the drugs are found, we arrest them and they face trial. Killing people without doing so, without due process, is called murder no matter who does it.
Then we have this disastrous war in Iran. There is a reason why countries want nuclear weapons ... so that they don't get treated like Iran is being treated. If they had nuclear weapons, Trump would be their chums just like North Korea and Russia. This is such a waste of life, money and resources.
5) "Suppression of opposition." Trump tends to demonize his opponents labeling them with silly monikers and catch phrases. The moniker disappears if that person becomes his ally. We don't hear him calling Marco Rubio "Little Marco" anymore, because he is now Secretary of State and an ally.
But this is not suppression. The off-cycle Gerrymandering that the Republicans are doing/attempting in Florida, Texas, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri is suppressing entire of swaths of Americans. These votes aren't being taken away but are being made meaningless. Redistricting during a non-census year is unprecedented.Trump has cut election security and cyber-security. He said that Senator Mark Kelly, (a possible 2028 Democratic nominee), should be "hanged." He's accused Democrats of "seditious behavior, punishable by death." Our country has a long history of political violence. This kind of shit from a president is so irresponsible. His approval rating is at 28%. Who the hell are these people that approve of this crap?
6) Subordination of individual interests to the state. It is clear that Trump is more interested in boosting his own coffers and his own ego than helping out the average American. He has made $45 million selling his $WLFI crypto coin and his $TRUMP meme coin since taking office in 2025. In that time he has made $23 million in licensing his name overseas. He was paid $28 million for the "Melania" so-called documentary, made over $90 million in legal settlements and was gifted a $400 million plane from Qatar. His net worth has improved, overall, roughly $2 billion since his second term began.
By the way, how have you been handling the $4 per gallon gas prices?! That is not going away soon. If this bullshit war stopped today, the prices will not be coming down quickly. The Middle East has been devastated by this war. Oil is a global market. The president can't do shit about it.
7) Disdain for human rights, identification of enemies or scapegoats, and the control of media to promote propaganda.
I would be repeating myself if I went through all of this, but we haven't talked about the media yet.
Trump has sued both CBS, BBC and ABC. His administration has gone after Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, 60 Minutes and The Wall Street Journal. The fourth estate has never been more embattled and more in danger of being irrelevant. In the meantime, less responsible media outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Republican part (Fox News, Breitbart New Network, Newsmax, etc.) It is very Orwellian.
The idea that individual rights are subordinate to the state is right out of Orwell's 1984, aka the Fascism handbook. How did Orwell know so much? He witnessed it as a citizen of British owned India; fascism is merely colonialism turned inward. He witnessed it in Burma when he worked as a policeman, witnessed it as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War and as a writer during World War II. He would recognize Trump for what he is. Every Trumper I talk to justifies his actions as the ends justifies the means, that lying or breaking the law for the betterment of society is justified if it gets them to a place where they want America to be.
The slogan "Make America Great Again" implies that America is in decline, that there is a time in the past when America was great. When was that exactly? 1940's with its World War and internment camps? The Jim Crow Era or before then, when slavery was legal? If/when someone calls Trump a fascist, they are no longer being hyperbolic but just stating the obvious. America, what have we done? Thought we were better than this? Guess again.
