TRUMP’S BABY FASCISM
“Baby fascism” is a way of identifying nascent fascism, fascist tendencies, or fascist parallels. It’s a way of naming a trend while reserving the unqualified or unmodified label “fascist” for truly appropriate cases.
I’ve heard right-wing friends refer to some leaders on the left (like Bernie or AOC) as “Stalinist” or “Maoist” (associating them with movements that oversaw the mass murder of tens of millions), and so I understand how unhelpful it can be to use these historical terms casually. But can we talk about, say, some of the recent anti-speech, safetyism, and identitarianism, of the left as “baby Maoism?" Yes, I think that’s not only fair but helpful. (Surely, noticing similarities between our moment and moments in the past, properly qualified, is conducive to learning from history so we don't repeat it?)
So let’s not say Trump is a fascist -- he’s a baby fascist.
As the late Philip Roth said when asked about Trump in relation to his alternative history novel, 'The Plot Against America,' in which Charles Lindbergh wins the presidential election and forms a quasi-fascist government in the U.S.,
"As for how Trump threatens us, I would say that, like the anxious and fear-ridden families in my book, what is most terrifying is that he makes any and everything possible.”
I agree with Roth. Let’s not say Trump is a fascist, let’s just say he makes fascism (more) possible.
I’ve just re-read Timothy Snyder’s recent op-ed in Foreign Policy Magazine, which refers to baby fascism in the U.S. And I’m persuaded by the central argument in Snyder’s ‘The Road to Unfreedom’ (2018), which details the similarities between the rise of neo-fascist rhetoric in contemporary Europe, particularly by Putin in Russia and Crimea, and Trump’s rhetoric. (I have intended to create a series of posts about Snyder’s book for some time, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe I should make the time.)
We should notice that Trump’s baby fascism was there from the start, from the “America First” slogan, recalling the America First Committee which included antisemitic and pro-fascist leaders (the launching point of Roth’s novel), to his retweeting a Mussolini quote -- "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep,” from an account called “@ilduce2016,” which Trump defended (on NBC's Meet The Press), thusly: "Mussolini was Mussolini... What difference does it make? It got your attention, didn't it?" -- to retweeting content from various European ultranationalists and American white supremacists, including one called “WhiteGenocideTM,” which is full of anti-Semitic content.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has retweeted 90 or so posts from 49 QAnon-supporter accounts. We should keep in mind that Q believes in "The Storm" (in the words of Travis View, who reports on Q for WaPo), which is a great national purification in blood “when tens of thousands of people, including Hillary Clinton and James Comey, and [John] Brennan, and maybe even Hollywood celebrities, and other high-level politicians and journalists even, are going to be arrested, and rounded up and possibly even sent to Guantanamo Bay. Or be subjected to basically military tribunals, where they will be tried for their heinous crimes,” including Satan-worship and pedophilia. (The ADL has documented the antisemitism among a number of Q supporters related to this theory of a global cabal and the need for national purification.)
To connect the baby fascism claim to the recent Trump EO that authorizes Operation Legend, I’d like to repeat some observations I made in a previous post, but this time with related insights from Snyder.
FIRST, the EO authorizes a militarized and composite force of federal agents dressed and armed like troops, who report directly to a Trump-appointed idealogue outside any military chain of command -- with no accountability to, or coordination with, state or local government -- to confront ANTIFA-types in places like Portland. Effectively, a national police force under the control of the president.
Snyder notices parallels with the Einsatzgruppen:
quote/
Like the special response teams, the Einsatzgruppen had an unclear legal status. Their chain of command led through an ideological and party leadership that melded loosely, and only at the top, with the state. It is an awkward similarity that the Department of Homeland Security is directed by a myth-besotted ideologue who was never confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The people beating Americans are unaccountable to them.
/quote
SECOND, this force, poised to deploy into cities across America (sort of a private army if you squint) is composed of a group of federal agents of unknown composition under DHS. Many are dressed in camo, looking more like troops than law enforcement, in some cases are using unmarked vehicles and have refused to identify themselves to the public, which opens a space for unauthorized militias to act similarly. Without full disclosure and transparency, how would citizens tell the difference?
Snyder explains:
quote/
That the men in mismatched shoes and ill-fitting uniforms lack identification and insignia recalls virtually every authoritarian regime. It is a basic feature of a state under the rule of law that a citizen can recognize legal authority and tell the police from the thugs. It is the nightmare moment of repression to be seized by unknown men. When the government itself elides the distinction between those who protect the law and those who break it, when it makes itself into a paramilitary wearing the wrong kind of camouflage, it invites others to do the same. It is not so hard, after all, to rent a van, play dress up, and start hurting people. When citizens do not know whether they are being intimidated by governmental or nongovernmental forces, the situation is rife for the kind of escalation that fascists liked.
/quote
THIRD, the language of the EO is rich in political pathos, referring to (1) “a deep ignorance of our history” (ignorance is not a crime), to (2) a “desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, remembering, or understanding” (desire is not a crime), and to (3) an influential activist for one movement that has been prominent in setting the agenda for demonstrations in recent weeks,” who allegedly “declared that many existing religious depictions of Jesus and the Holy Family should be purged from our places of worship” (declaration is not a crime).
Again, Snyder:
quote/
Fascists thrived in crises and indeed sought them out. The unforgettable example is the Reichstag fire, which Adolf Hitler recognized right away as his great opportunity. As the German parliament burned, the Nazis mischaracterized the event, speaking of a vast left-wing conspiracy to destroy the country, the race, and so on. Something not so dissimilar is taking place now, as Attorney General William Barr and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf rationalize the use of force against Americans on the basis of a dark fairy tale about what the protests mean. The Nazis claimed that their main rival, the Social Democrats, were ultimately to be blamed for a terrorist act; Trump’s fundraising messages say the same about his own political rivals. By deliberately provoking protesters, Trump and his allies are working to create their own Reichstag moment. The difference this time, of course, is that everyone knows that this is what is going on.
/quote
So, I believe we can meaningfully talk about Trump’s “baby fascism.” In fact, I believe we *must* talk about it.
[CORRECTION NOTE: I’ve edited this post to correct errors related to a factual mistake on my part. I had misread the title of the recent EO -- “Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence” -- and the language in the transcript, which talks about both Operation LeGend, authorized on July 8th, and the Portland EO issued two weeks later, on July 22nd. I had thought, mistakenly, that the EO was an *extension* of LeGend.]