In a CNN forum Wednesday, Kamala Harris called Trump a "fascist," the first time her campaign has used this term in public, though the accusation has been widely employed by Trump opponents and even some staff members for years. In the latter camp is Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly, who recently told the New York Times that the former president once said that he wanted "the type of Generals Hitler had," who, ironically, thought the Nazi leader was a moron and tried to assassinate him on multiple occasions. Of course, that's not what Trump meant, and he in fact stated that he wanted generals who reflexively obey their commander in chief, no surprise there.
In any case, it's worth a look at exactly what those still capable of being triggered by Trump say they object to in his "fascist" behavior. One concerning episode is Trump's having claimed that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the United States; another is his saying he would be a dictator from day one; a third is the fact that the Supreme Court he appointed three judges to has given him (and U.S. presidents in general) immunity and nearly unlimited executive power when acting as president; a fourth is that he wants to use the U.S. military against "the internal enemy," including the "radical left," by which he means President Biden, vice-president Harris and their supporters, and anyone else he wants to associate with them; a fifth is that he intends to purge the federal government of disloyal members and fire the special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is in charge of two federal criminal cases against Trump. Also deeply concerning is Trump's having inspired the January 6, 2021 coup attempt against certifying the 2020 election results, as well as his current threats to not respect the 2024 election results if he isn't declared the winner.
Admittedly, these are serious concerns, even for the untriggered. No sane person wants a return to the days when "civilized blood" was taken seriously as the justification for white supremacy, though we should note that many U.S. presidents we are still taught to admire not only accepted such ideas as a matter of course, but acted on them with supreme viciousness, until the U.S. was literally torn in half and nearly collapsed. Nor do we want Trump or any other U.S. president working to establish a personal dictatorship, though we should recognize that the reason Kamala Harris and her backers are worried is not because of any damage he may do the American people, but because he threatens what the late Edward S. Herman called the "dictatorship of money." That dictatorship rules with a savage disregard for democracy that makes Trump look like the merest juvenile delinquent. So we can dismiss the remaining charges against Trump with the restrained observation that purges and loyalty crusades and coup attempts are staple items in Washington's arsenal whether nominally headed up by the Democratic or Republican Parties.
But to return to the "fascist" point - the most glaring omission from the indictment against Trump as an unprecedented evil is the signature feature of fascist rule - the mass murder of a despised minority group. Is the Orange Menace guilty of such? He is not, though it must be conceded that his constant inflaming of sectarian passions could culminate in such a horror in the future. But as of now, he is not guilty.
As we know, however, the current Biden-Harris administration is actively engaged in mass extermination via complete military and economic support for Israel's wholesale murder of Palestinian Arabs, including shooting children in the head, gunning down surgeons at the operating table, hunting down and assassinating journalists, blockading and starving the entire Gazan population while leveling hospitals, schools, and sewage treatment plants, promising its victims a rainy winter of being awash in raw human waste and unretrieved corpses, with no capacity to stop the inevitable epidemics of disease that will ensue, and on and on and on.
If "fascism" is still taken to be the ugliest form of political rule that can exist (the U.S. allied itself with despised Bolshevism to defeat it), current Democratic Party policy in the Middle East would appear to qualify for that designation. Which means that voting against it precludes voting for Harris. On the other hand, a vote for Trump is also out of bounds as he considers Democratic policy in Gaza to not be "fascist" enough.
Redefining the term to exclude wholesale massacre of a despised minority group would be a pointless task, as this is the heart of what "fascism" is taken to be. Suffice it to say, then, that if one insists on not "helping fascism" then one has to vote for a non-"fascist" candidate - Jill Stein, Cornel West, Claudia De La Cruz, or Chase Oliver.
Or one can try to argue that Trump poses a danger worse than "fascism," as dissident intellectual Noam Chomsky has done.
Sources:
David Brooks and Jim Cason, "Trump Is A Fascist, Ex Staff and Democrats Say," La Jornada, October 25, 2024 (Spanish).
For more on what fascism means historically, see Frank Scott's, "Fascism Should More Appropriately Be Called Corporatism," Legalienate, April 10, 2020.
For Chomsky on Trump, see "Trump is 'undeniably' the worst criminal in history," London Independent, June 24, 2020
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