Christopher Browning, an historian of Nazi Germany, has heretofore resisted calling Donald Trump a fascist because he felt it was an imprecise use of the term. However, he is worried about the future.
I still deny that Trump’s presidency was fascist; but I’m concerned that if he wins another trip to the White House, he could earn the label.
Christopher Browning
Appeasing Dictators
Browning says that fascists like Hitler and Mussolini were “ardent militarists and imperialists.” War was an essential component of their program. Trump in his first term, he says, was an “illiberal populist” more like Hungary’s Victor Orban or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Rather than attack and conquer their neighbors, they are content to dominate and oppress their own people.
Trump, Browning says, has little ambition outside of the US. He is an isolationist. Trump deferred to Putin, admired Kim Jong Un, signed a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, and “petulantly sought to downgrade U.S treaty obligations to NATO.” Recently, Trump has disparaged Taiwan (opening the door for Xi Jinping to invade the island), and has promised to cut off aid to Ukraine if Zelensky doesn’t concede to Putin.
In my view, Trump is worse than an isolationist. He is a capitulationist. He wants to surrender US world leadership to autocratic strongmen from other countries. He is a fanboy of the world’s dictators.
Past theatrics and future threat
Beyond the lack of imperialist ambition, Browning does acknowledge that Trumpism has many of the other qualities of Fascism.
Trumpism did exhibit distinct elements of the fascist style of politics: the inflammatory rallies; the incessant mongering of fear, grievance, and victimization; the casual endorsement of violence; the pervasive embrace of conspiracy theories; the performative cruelty; the feral instinct for targeting marginalized and vulnerable minorities; and the cult of personality.
Christopher Browning
Fortunately, Browning says, “Trump himself was too lazy, inexperienced, and unprepared to set about systematically constructing a true dictatorship.” The Trump presidency was focused on “the theatrics of satisfying his constant, insatiable need for attention and adulation.” But a second Trump term would be a threat to democracy because the Republican party has now become wholly corrupted.
The MAGA Republican Party of his making has openly explored ways to transform states where they control all branches of government. States that were once pluralistic democracies with at least some chance of a transfer of power are coming to resemble one-party regimes directed by a minority of the population.
Christopher Browning
Just as state Republicans have become more ruthlessly autocratic in their methods, a new Trump presidency would be much more efficiently goal-oriented at the federal level. A huge transformation of the administrative state is being deliberately planned. The government agencies and civil service he has decried as the “deep state” would be purged or politicized, and the “retribution” he has promised against his enemies would also be carried out. The “unitary executive” theory long promoted by some Republicans would become the reality of an unabashed authoritarianism.
Christopher Browning
Trump 2.0
Trumpism is now more than simply a cult of Trump worshipers. It has unleashed fascist forces in America that will outlast him. Should Trump NOT get the 2024 Republican nomination for President (perhaps because he is in prison), the Republican party will not suddenly become a law-abiding, truth-telling, compromise-seeking, reasonable center-right party. The remaining Republican candidates are all afraid of, and beholden to, the group of newly-empowered racist, misogynistic, uneducated, FoxNews-brainwashed, bullies that have taken over their party.
The worst of these remaining candidates is Ron DeSantis, who, while in the Navy, participated in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. DeSantis, who is smarter and more disciplined than Trump, is a dangerous authoritarian idealogue who has already created his own little fascist kingdom in Florida.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s putative rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, has turned his state into a laboratory for testing how a determined, calculating, uninhibited authoritarian can maximize executive power. In many respects, he has already accomplished at the state level what Trump did not have the discipline and focus to do at the federal level. And DeSantis has created a blueprint for other Republican state leaders to follow.
Christopher Browning
Will history repeat itself?
Gone are the days of FDR and Harry Truman and the War overseas. This time the threat is from within our own borders. The mob is being constantly stoked by the right-wing media. The threat of political violence is increasing. The fascists already control the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. Plans to corrupt the civil service and purge government agencies of the “disloyal” have already been made.
Despite these ominous threats, nearly half of our citizens apparently stand ready to vote away our democracy in 2024 – just as happened in Germany in 1932. A large majority of the American members of my Church seem likely (perhaps blindly) to vote against democracy in 2024.
Despite the June 2023 LDS Church statement that “voting a straight ticket” can be “a threat to democracy,” those Utah voters who have decided to abandon Trump seem to be jumping directly to supporting the arguably more dangerous Ron DeSantis.
We have been given many scriptural examples of what happens when we give power to corrupt and selfish politicians – especially in the Book of Mormon. I don’t believe God will spare us from the disastrous consequences if we deliberately choose to ignore His warnings.
He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.
2 Nephi 26:29
Sources:
Christopher R. Browning, “A New Kind of Fascism,” The Atlantic, July 25, 2023. (Also on MSN.com).
Elaine Godfrey, “Trump Begins the ‘Retribution’ Tour,” The Atlantic, March 26, 2023.
Brian Klass, “Rule by Law in Florida,” The Atlantic, March 26, 2023.
Julian Borger and Oliver Laughland, “Ron DeSantis in Guantanamo: how questions about his past haunt the Florida governor,” The Guardian, April 28, 2023.
Michelle Price and Sam Metz, “Desantis, in deeply conservative Utah, says he’s driven more by faith in God than by politics,” Associated Press, July 20, 2023.
Scott Taylor, “First Presidency letter emphasizes Latter-day Saints’ participation in elections and civic affairs, reaffirms political neutrality,” Church News, June 6, 2023.
In Nibley’s important “Freemen and Kingmen” essay, he talks about how Amalekiah “did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from their towers, against the Lamanites” (Alma 48:1) He saturated the airwaves, so to speak…” (Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, 332-333.) He also points out that the Nephite Kingmen consisted of “rich Nephites who were outraged by what they considered interference by “Helaman and his brethren” in their private affairs. Other king-men included monarchists, influential and intriguing families, a self-styled aristocracy, social climbers, “lifted up in their hearts” by their new wealth (Alma 45:24), haughty and aspiring judges, power hungry local officials–including ‘almost all the lawyers and high priests’ -men taking advantage of church positions (3 Nephi 6:27), and many ordinary church members beguiled by the impressive rhetoric of Amalekiah. Only one comprehensive label fits that combination.” (Nibley, 371).
“A large majority of the American members of my Church seem likely (perhaps blindly) to vote against democracy in 2024.”
Trump is our fascist dictator on the make. It’s obvious. Why hasn’t our Church clearly said so? I don’t understand. Scenario: Trump is elected then convicted. The result will be a constitutional crisis like we have never seen. There will be fighting in the streets. What will the Church do then? It will do what it thinks it has to do – swear loyalty to Trump as in “obeying and sustaining the law.”
BTW, our Democratic Party is not helping by its attempt to smear and discredit RFK Jr. Biden looks really, really bad.