For most the announcement by three internationally known academics on Fascism, including the famed Yale Professor Timothy Snyder, that “We have written on Fascism and are leaving” was met with bored indifference. However it stirred a debate among opinion makers and academics. By Trump’s own admission and policy documents he is definitely creating the most autocratic Presidency in American history. So the question is are these authorities right and if so can the Trump regime succeed? One fact is for certain he is the most powerful leader since WW11 in terms of influence and power akin to FDR, Stalin, Churchill and Hitler.
For Fascism to morph from a democracy a number of circumstances have to be present. In effect it is a coup.
TRUMP AN ASPIRATIONAL FASCIST?
Ruth Ben - Ghiat ,who has written the definitive volume on dictators, has likened Trump to Mussolini and argues that Project 25, which is the Heritage Foundation’s detailed handbook to turn the Federal Government on its head and concentrate power in the executive is comparable to the Italian dictator’s Laws for the Defense of the State. Trump’s “Agenda 47” is also considered by some as Fascist.
Retired General McCaffery observed that the 47th President statements were reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Retired General Kelly Trump’s former Chief of Staff is one of the many others who maintained that the President fitted the definition of a Fascist. In a poll that preceded the 2024 election 49 percent of the electorate agreed that the Republican candidate was, “a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents”.
For those that need reminding Trump still does not accept that he lost the 2020 election where he had a multi faceted approach to staying in office which terminated with his followers storming the Capitol where President Biden's election was being ratified. Trump's Vice President who was guiding the process was threatened with death while Trump watched for hours. In coming into office in 2025 he immediately pardoned 1600 insurrectionists who had stormed the Capitol and called the date, January 6, “a day of love”. Had the January 6 rioters succeeded in preventing Biden being ratified the situation would have been ripe for a coup.
So let’s go the whole hog and compare Trump’s America with that of Hitler’s Germany and see why Fascism is not likely going to be the outcome.
HOW A DEMOCRACY MORPHS INTO A FASCIST GOVERNMENT.
Jay H. Ell believes there are a number of components that stack up before a democracy can morph into a Fascist government. These include a once in a generation charismatic gifted leader, a torrid economic and social situation, a victim ethos, a pariah demographic to blame, a belief in an “Ubermensch”, a weak constitutional order with an objective particularly to break the rule of law, weak institutions and territories to conquer. Also the process has to be rapid.
No one can argue that Trump isn’t a phenom. He has literally taken over an established party in a two party state in the most powerful nation in the world and turned it into a cult. Hitler revolutionized the campaigning of his time. Trump too went from place to place and utilized modern day communication systems like the internet and reality TV while in Germany it was the sound systems, radio and the news reel. Without revolutionary media systems there could not have been a threat to the established constitutional order of the two countries.
With regard to the economic situation Trump inherited the best post Covid financial situation in the world but with his rhetoric mesmerism he persuaded enough of the electorate that he could return the economy to pre Covid levels. Post WW1 Germany was chaotic with grotesque inflation and over 30 percent unemployment. Hitler had no need to create a false reality.
Both leaders wailed that their nations were victims. Germany apparently lost the war as a result of traitors from the inside while America had been played for as suckers by the world who rip off America with their subsidized cheap goods. Both used social Darwinism to define who the real citizens of the country were and are. In Hitler’s Germany it was the white Aryan race and in Trump’s America it is the white Christians. Jews were also central to both polemics - in Germany they were the cause of the decay of the culture and professions, exploitative capitalism and Godless Communism while in America they were ostensibly the reason, as a result of unchecked campus anti semitism, to takeover and defund the Universities blocking even their medical research.
The bogeymen in Germany were first and foremost the Jews, the gypsies, the feebleminded and the opposition traitors. In America it is the immigrants those legally and illegally here, the "lunatic scum" left and the "USA hating" Judges . Elimination of the bogeymen became the obsession of both Hitler and Trump. Hitler when the war was lost rather than feeding his troops and supplying ammunition reserved all his coffers for “The Final Solution”. Trump insanely is risking the American economy by the forceful, sadistic and cruel removal of millions who don’t fit his definition of being an American. He favors the white Afrikaners. That coupled with his paranoid introduction of tariffs and the ever growing deficit will put the country into at least recession territory.
America and Germany both wanted to expand their territories.“Lebensraum” as Germany labeled it. Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal are the stated objectives of Trump’s America.
THE MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GERMANY IN 1930’S v AMERICA IN 2020’S
Where America and Germany differed markedly in the attempt to create a dictatorship was the chaotic political, constitutional and economic situation Germany was in. America on the other hand, about as divided as ever. but with a relatively stable political, constitutional, institutional and economic situation. Also if the American economy goes sour the current perception is that it will be Trump that was responsible.
Germany had 9 political parties and each of these had paramilitary organizations. The Nazis and Communists were fighting in the streets The Chancellor wasn’t elected by the Legislative Reichstag and in any case no party or coalition was ever able to gain a majority. The President, Hindenburg, nominated the Chancellor from the Center Right even though they were never ever the majority party in the 1930’s. The President was also entitled to shut down the Reichstag and call an election.
In 1930 the Nazis moved from being in the 9th place in the 1928 election, 2.6 percent of the electorate, to 2nd with over 18 percent.
In March 1932 there was a Presidential election and Hitler ran only to be defeated by 6,000,000 votes by Hindenburg. The next month, April 1932, saw Hindenburg calling another Reichstag election. Hitler won the most votes with 37 percent and the Communists come second with 14 percent. Hindenburg dissolved the legislature again in November 1932. This time the Nazis won with 34 percent. The President once again didn’t appoint Hitler as Chancellor.
In January 1933 the economic and political situation worsened and Hindenburg reluctantly anointed the Nazi leader as Chancellor. Hindenburg declared yet another election but before it could take place the Reichstag was set on fire. An emergency was declared the constitution suspended and the rest is history. Trump had to wait 4 years after January 6 before he could have an election because that is what the Constitution said.
SO WHERE IS TRUMP ON THE SCALE OF TRYING TO CREATE A FASCIST STATE?
It would have made more sense for Trump to take the slow path as did Erdogan, Orban and Modi to competitive authoritarianism to centralize power in America. Even his alter ego Putin bided his time. However he is 78, supposedly on term limits and at this stage of the game cannot prevent the midterm elections in 2026. He signed over a hundred Executive orders on day one and has appointed an ignorant, unlawful cabinet whose only unifying feature is blind loyalty to him and is in a race against time and reality.
So the 47th President is on tear with every Fascist move in the book from grabbing people off the streets and even those checking in with immigration authorities, questioning habeas corpus, intimidating judges, instructing the Justice Department to investigate his enemies, shipping the victims to foreign concentration camps, neutering liberal universities, suing the conventional media, using the Internal Revenue Service to investigate opponents, bye passing the Legislature by firing constitutional appointments and departments, ordering private corporations on how to run their businesses and on the verge of being found in contempt of court.
Trump has one problem - a 250 year old Constitution that is still intact with regular elections going on all the time. There are 94 District Federal Courts, 12 Appeal and the final arbiter the Supreme Court. Trump has had a torrid time in the courts, which is a co - equal branch of Government, even though the Supreme Court has given him plenty of slack. Lately the center piece of his policy, "wonderful" tariffs has been declared unconstitutional. Bizarrely he is trying to weaken the Courts in the budget bill, to ban them from issuing contempt citations against him!
There is strong citizen involvement in American civic affairs and every day sees protests. The Resistance is gaining strength, see blog: April 26, “Trump - The Resistance Begins”. Trump has no insight as to the chaos his tariffs and budget might wreak.
The polls for a President at this stage are the worst in history. In the most recent bye election for the Mayor of Omaha Nebraska followed a familiar pattern since 2024 and saw a 12 year old Republican incumbent who had safely won her elections thrashed by 10 points by an African American candidate. Matters are only going to become worse as the contents of the Budget Bill become public and the impact of tariffs are felt. In addition 400 Presidents of Colleges are supporting Harvard in their litigation against the Trump regime while law firms have been created to challenge Trump abuses of power.
What is really going to be fascinating will be the events of June 14 where Trump’s Defense Department is organizing a military parade in Washington at a massive cost. It is also the President’s birthday. Indivisible and other protest organizations are calling a “National Day of Defiance - No Kings Day”. The infrastructures of these organizations are massive and growing. That day will truly be a test of the sentiment of the electorate.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Unless there is some unforeseen change in the public sentiment the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives in November which will, hopefully, herald the beginning of the end of this nightmare.
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