Rehabilitating Presidents’ bad deeds is an American tradition at least as old as I am. Apparently, we don’t like thinking that these harmless-looking old men did truly monstrous things while they were holding the highest office in the land. Maybe we look at them now and think they couldn’t possibly have overseen a domestic spying regime and unprecedented government secrecy (Obama), manufacturing false evidence to start a war and codifying torture (W), transferring wealth to the wealthy while creating draconian crime laws (Clinton), or, cripes, just about everything that Reagan did.
Traditionally, we wait a little while before whitewashing their reputations and try to make them respectable to a broader audience. It’s sort of an unspoken thing, and I guess unspoken things don’t apply to one Donald J. Trump because dang, folks are already trying to make a softer, cuddlier Trump and he hasn’t even conceded defeat yet. “He’s not evil, he’s just a regular president with some quirks and a unique style of communication, and he’s definitely not a fascist.”
Yeah, no. Dude is straight-up a fascist.
I wanted to get this into writing because, if left to the fuzzy memories of days gone by, this attempt to revise the history of the Trump administration might go unchecked. Memory is not reliable, and history books have done a terrible job of detailing the flaws of past presidents and I can say that because I’m old enough to have voted from some of ‘em who have since had their halos polished. There are no angels in the Oval Office, but even with that caveat, Trump is an entirely unique species of evil.
Helpfully, the Washington Post took it upon themselves to ask “Is Trump A Fascist?” back in 2016 and then to revise their findings in August of 2020. Unhelpfully, they graded him on a pretty subjective scale of one to four “Mussolinis.” Sigh. There’s still some good stuff in the article, but I’ll summarize it: In 2016, they said “eh, not really” and in 2020 it was more of a “well, there are still a couple of boxes his doesn’t tick but it hasn’t been for lack of trying, so he’s not a fascist, but he’s still the greatest threat to our democracy in a long, long time.”
I don’t find the idea that “Well, he’s tried to do fascist things but people around him stopped him” to be especially exonerating. That’s especially true since those people tend to get fired for preventing him from sending active duty U.S. troops into U.S. cities to put down protests.
In a somewhat-functional government, it takes time for fascism to take hold because you can’t replace everyone in the bureaucracy overnight with people who are loyal to Dear Leader. It takes time, so it’s not surprising that there are still some checks and balances against his fascist impulses.
That’s not to say the process isn’t moving along at alarming speed. The President has been systematically removing people who aren’t, above all else, loyal to him personally. That’s not normal, and it’s not healthy. Ideally, you want people who put the country first. Failing that, you usually wind up with party apparats. Demanding loyalty to one’s person is, in fact, a sign of fascism and I’ve never seen anything remotely like it in my adult life. EDIT: I could do an entire post of the abuse of the Department of Justice and the office of the Attorney General. This tidbit is going to be relevant for the next few months, I reckon.
Of course, that’s not as shocking as when he said that the Constitution grants him the authority to do whatever he wants. Again, this is not normal behavior from a president and not something you can just write off as “one of his quirks.” This is a claim to absolute power. This is a big deal. It’s also, sing along as I’m sure you know the words, fascism.
It’s a good thing we have the courts, huh? Or, at least, we have the ones that haven’t been filled with Trump loyalists, right? It turns out that he doesn’t believe that he can be prosecuted, either. So, he’s answerable to no one and is filling all the positions that might challenge his authority with people loyal to him personally.
Can we talk about the rallies? Those are weird, right? I don’t remember any other president holding rallies for themselves throughout their entire term. I must emphasize that these aren’t “America” rallies or even “Republican” rallies; they’re just Trump rallies.
Those rallies turn into militias… fuck it, no, they’re not “militias,” they’re just gangs…flying the Trump flag and going into cities. They say they’re going to “keep the peace,” but they always seem to provoke violence rather than reduce it. The President encourages them and invariably takes the side of his supporters when there’s an incident, no matter who fires and who takes the bullet.
Finally, the really weird thing about rushing to rehabilitate Trump is that he’s not gone yet and I won’t believe he’s gone until Biden in inaugurated. He’s filing lawsuits, sending out false information to his supporters, and basically doing everything he can to undermine confidence in the results of the election. Presumably, the game is to create enough chaos and manufacture enough uncertainty in the results that the Supreme Court will have a pretext to step in and hand him the job.
So, yeah, the dude is a fascist. He’s not the most effective one ever, but he’s come a long way in four years and if he wrests another four somehow, it’s hard to see how it won’t be significantly worse. Don’t let anyone tell you “he was pretty much like other presidents.” It’s not true, and anyone hawking that line is trying to sell you something.
-RK
P.S. Kids in cages. I’ve heard people say “Well, if Trump is a fascist for putting kids in cages, then so was Obama!” A couple of notes on that one. First, while it’s an unquestionably monstrous thing to put kids in cages regardless of who is doing it, that’s not really a measure of “fascism.” Secondly, when the courts told Obama he had to stop doing it, he did, because he wasn’t a fascist. Fascists don’t believe the law applies to them. Trump just kept on doing it. Ergo…
P.P.S. You wanna argue that Bush did more damage? I don’t agree, but there’s certainly an argument to be made there.