Fascism is in Fashion

 As we get to the end of this endless campaign, lots of folks are using the F word.  No, the other one.  For instance, see Drezner and Bulwark. We have the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Trump's former Secretary of Homeland Security/Chief of Staff John Kelly saying it.  And now, Kamala Harris is saying it.  I used to be a skeptic, because I thought Trump was truly awful but not so coherent as to have an ideology that encompasses all of the stuff that are the ingredients for fascism.  The distinction I made before was that Trump was autocratic to his core--that rules don't apply to him or those around him, that he is above the law, that he wants whatever power he needs to do the things he wants to rule and defy institutions and rules and processes that get in the way.

Kelly said he looked up fascism and found it to apply: "It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy."

Well, yeah, this seems to fit.  My hesitance was that I thought that fascism involved a bit more than that, focusing on the reorganization of society, the incorporation of the elite capitalist class inside the government, and such.   But that was pedantry.  To be fair, again, if Trump has no attention span and no discipline can he really be Hitler?  Well, given that Hitler was prone to rages and obsessions, i guess the answer is sure.  

No, Trump hasn't written it all down a la Mein Kampf.  Indeed, I have long been suspicious about whether he read his copy of that book that he happened to keep handy (on the bedside table!).  On the other hand, folks around Trump have written it all down--Project 2025.  I haven't read all of it, just the stuff that I was mean enough to assign to my US Foreign Policy class.  And yeah, the stuff in there and the stuff that Trump has consistently talked about in this campaign definitely rhyme with Mein Kampf: massive deportation to name one.  The fear mongering, the hate aimed at immigrants, the hate aimed at trans people. This is all very, very familiar to those who study the rise of Nazism.  

So, if it goose steps like a Nazi, if it rants like a Nazi, then it is probably a Nazi.  

However, if one is not convinced by this and I have people on my facebook page commenting on my massive deportation spew that Trump is not serious, is not competent enough to execute a somewhat final solution to the immigrant problem, then one can just simply focus on one word: catastrophic.

That is, Trump, if elected, will be catastrophic for the US, for Canada, for the world.  Just a very short listicle to hit the highlights:

1. Much more political violence as his followers get pardoned and encouraged.
2. An even more stacked judiciary that ends regulation--kiss food safety, for instance, goodbye.
3. The criminalization of being a woman of age to carry a child.
4. Massive deportation--whether in full or in part, will be cruel, capricious, and destructive.
5. Politicization of the military--that Trump will be promoting only those who are more loyal to him than Hitler's generals were to Hitler (his role model on this!)
6. Huge tariffs will lead to inflation and unemployment and retard economic growth.
7. The end of civil servants as the government from top to bottom will be full of Trump toadies.
8. The end of NATO.
   

That's just a start. The key is this: whether Trump fits all the ingredients for fascism or not (and I now think he does), he is an autocrat-wannabe, and so it will be even more awful than the last time.  Trump has basically two motivations: graft and resentment.  Last time, he didn't really know what he was doing, only had a small team of arsonists, and his resentments were mostly focused on Obama. This time, he has an entire army of arsonists assembled by Heritage and others and a blueprint and he is far more resentful.  Oh, and the Republican Party is now fully his.  So, yeah, catastrophic.