On Tuesday, the New York Times published a long interview with Donald Trumpās former chief of staff John Kelly, who Googled an online definition of fascism before saying of his former boss:
Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, heās certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictatorsāhe has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.
Also on Tuesday, the Atlantic published a report that Trump allegedly said, āI need the kind of generals that Hitler had.ā
The revelations have dominated discussions on Fox News, and prompted two-dozen GOP senators to call for Trāhaha, just kidding.
Instead, Democrats and their supporters once again contend with a muted reaction from the media, the public, and politicians, who seem unmoved by Trumpās association with the F-word, no matter how many times Kamala Harris says āJanuary sixth.ā
One exception was Matt Drudge, the archconservative linkmonger who has been hard on Trump, who ran a photo of the FĆ¼hrer himself. This proved the rule, argued Times (and former Slate) columnist Jamelle Bouie: āgenuinely wild world where, on trump at least, matt drudge has better news judgment than most of the mainstream media.ā
Debates about Trump and fascism have been underway for a decade now, and applying the label seems unlikely to convince or motivate anyone. But the lack of alarm underlines a deeper question that doesnāt require a dictionary to engage in: Why do so few Americans, including many on the left, seem to take seriously the idea that Trump would use a second presidency to abuse the law to hurt his enemies?
Maybe itās because Democrats have studiously avoided confronting Trump about some of the most controversial, damning policy choices of his first term, or the most radical campaign promise for his second. You simply canāt make the full case against Trumpāor a compelling illustration of his fascist tendenciesāwithout talking about immigration. Immigration was the key to Trumpās rise and the source of two of his most notorious presidential debacles, the Muslim ban and the child separation policy. Blaming immigrants for national decline is a classic trope of fascist rhetoric; rounding our neighbors up by the millions for expulsion is a proposal with few historical precedents, and none of them are goodā¦
But itās really not, though. Itās used a lot nowadays because the people the term gets applied to keep doing more and more fascist shit!
(Okay, Iāll sort of agree that itās āoverusedā by people on the right ā but thatās not because theyāre confused about what it means; itās because theyāre deliberately trying to destroy the meaning of the term to deflect from their actual fascist behavior. In fact, arguments like yours only help them do that, so itās time you quit talking now.)