Fascism under Donald trump

The word fascism has been heavily bastardized by modern media and the alt-right. The term fascist put in simple terms is just an ideology containing certain principles and if a person meets these specific principles they are considered a fascist. In recent history, society has used historian Lawrence Britt's “14 defining characteristics of fascism” to determine who falls under the category of fascist. Britt is the author of the highly acclaimed book ‘Fascism anyone’ and is an expert in this ideology. In this article, I will be going through each characteristic and summarising simply how Trump fulfils each one.

Powerful and continuing nationalism:

This is a very prevalent characteristic throughout Trump's campaign and first term of presidency. This presents itself in the consistent use of patriotic slogans, songs and merchandise. The idea of patriotism is heavily pushed throughout his rallies, press conferences and speeches. Specifically, at a white house conference, he addresses the “liberal indoctrination of the youth” describing it as a “crusade against American history”, basically delving into the ideas of the growing liberal young population. He not only heavily criticized the education of the youth but also pushed his aim to enforce “patriotic education'' which will teach a “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history”.

Disdain for the recognition of human rights:

Trump's disdain for human rights has shown itself in very obvious ways. The issue of the concentration camps at the border is one very high profile example of Trump's ignorance towards the UN’s list of basic human rights. The United Nations declared that they were “deeply shocked” by the “outrageous conditions'' in the concentration camps and highlighted the fact that they break international law. The concentration camps aren't the only example of Trump ignoring basic human rights, Trump’s ignorance rears its ugly head again through the fact that many Americans are living without food, shelter or medical care which are all mentioned in the UN declaration of human rights.

Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause:

We can see this characteristic in the way that Trump panders to his audience by vilifying Muslims, immigrants and anyone centre-left - leftist as the main issue with American society. Not only does he vilify immigrants for coming to the United States but he also vilified BLM by calling it violent when in reality only 7% of protests have turned violent and at its core, it is a movement of people trying to make America better. By referring to a large group of people and labelling them dangerous he is able to form a loyal base of nazis, white supremacists and Klu Klux Klan members which is shown in the KKK’s endorsement of Trump’s presidency and Trump's hesitancy to denounce white supremacy.

The supremacy of the military:

Trump’s neglect of national issues while also providing a 738 million dollar military budget is one example of how he enables military supremacy. This characteristic is not only shown in funding, however, it is also shown in the way that the school to military pipeline is glamorised by advertisements and other military propaganda. The school to military pipeline is when military recruiters go to schools in low-income areas and try to glamorise the military for students who had no way of going to college and felt they had no other choice. The recruiters highlight the ‘benefits’ you receive when you join the military such as housing, medicare and skills training in order to deceive the vulnerable students into thinking that's their only opportunity to have those benefits in life.

Rampant sexism:

Only around 25% of the people Trump has appointed to office have been women. In comparison to 37% under the Clinton administration and 43% in the Obama administration, This characteristic is also very evident in the way that trump addresses women including statements such as “grab her by the p*ssy’ and when he spoke about Hillary Clinton "If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”. These statements are only two examples of the tens of things he's said about and to women that are unacceptable for a man running a country.

Controlled mass media:

Trump has his entire base convinced that any media that has anything negative to say about Trump is “fake news” which is a more subtle way of controlling the media. He also has a large arsenal of reporters behind him only saying positive things for the most part. His main tool of control is to discredit any statements that don't come directly from him and his team. His supporters have even fallen away from fox news due to their lack of blind love for Trump.

Obsession with national security:

This characteristic speaks for itself. We have seen this through the massive increase in the military budget and a large amount of fear-mongering Trump has instilled into the country. The United States military budget was at an already high 600 billion dollars in 2016, by 2018 it hit 649 billion dollars. This was dedicated to upkeeping military bases in other countries and continuing to use this intimidation tactic across the middle east and the rest of the world.

Religion and government intertwined:

Through the timeline of the Trump-Pence administration, there have been at least 26 threats to the separation of church and state. Some of the main examples of this are the use of religion as an excuse to discriminate against the LGBTQIA+ community, Trump's military ban against trans enlistees, all of the ‘Muslim bans’ and the Health and Human Services Refusal of Care Rule which allowed health care providers to turn away people based on religious. Trump also cited Christianity as one of the main motivators in his decision making which is a clear violation of the separation of church and state.

Corporate power is protected:

Throughout the entirety of Trump's presidency, there have been over 100 regulation rollbacks in full effect. These rollbacks have not only impacted the environment and socioeconomic status, they also enhanced the power of corporations such as A.T. & T, Verizon and other corporations who support Trump and donate money to his campaign. Some of the most notable rollbacks include:

• Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule: an Obama era regulation requiring communities to analyze racial residential segregation and submit plans to reverse it as a condition of receiving federal housing aid. This regulation was repealed.

• The Endangered Species Act: provided a framework to conserve endangered or threatened species and their habitats. This Act was revised and rules were added that weakened the ESA and its impact.

• Clean Power Plan: A rule requiring coal-burning power plants to reduce carbon emissions. This regulation was repealed.

Suppression of labour-power:

Trump's anti-labour union, anti-worker position has never been subtle. His strong position on these ideas has been demonstrated through many of his actions. The main actions include.

• Control of national labour relations board: The chamber of commerce, a powerful lobbying group wrote out a list of ten policy changes it wanted to be met in early 2017 and in a little less than three years these changes were made. This demonstrated the shift in who the NLRB’s loyalties lie with and how they started to serve employers of the employees.

• Denying 8.2 million workers an estimated 1.2 billion dollars in overtime pay

• Making it harder for businesses to be held liable for wage theft:

• Making it easier for businesses to dismantle unions:

Disdain for intellectuals and the arts:

There are two ways we have seen this characteristic manifest itself in trumps presidency. Trump ignored scientists and claimed they were fraudulent liars who just wanted to discredit him and Trump's elimination of arts and humanities endowments. Trump had regularly ignored climate science, the science regarding the pandemic and pleas for extra funding into humanities and arts courses. He felt that he was constantly being attacked and therefore would not listen to anyone other than himself and a close nit group of scientists who lied for his benefit. This disdain towards truth and science caused significant issues with the pandemic. It caused Trump to exit the Paris climate accords and push further away from resolving the USA's climate issues.

Obsession with crime and punishment:

During the uproar caused by the police's violence towards George Floyd, Trump continuously threatened to deploy the military and police. These threats were not only horrendously insensitive, but they also highlighted Trump's immature obsession with the military and control of crime and punishment. Throughout Trump's presidential term, he tweeted over 60 tweets using the word crime. Whether he was commending someone on how tough they are on crime or calling fellow politicians weak on crime, he seemed not to be able to let it go. Crime rates are relatively low compared to previous years, yet Trump's obsession with the idea of crime was amplified while he was in government.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

Though corruption in Trump’s campaign is not surprising, it is shocking how obvious and rampant it is throughout his presidency. During the 2020 election, Trump appointed Louis Dejoy as the new postmaster general. This decision was highly scrutinised due to their friendship, lack of experience in that field and his history of support and giving money to the republican party. Trump appointing a friend of his to be postmaster general during one of the first elections where mail-in ballots are being predominantly used and continuing to discredit the ballots and push the narrative that they are being corrupted ultimately caused many issues within the government. This is one of the many examples where Trump has supported people only because they were friends or supporters of the republican party.

Fraudulent Elections

Throughout the 2020 election, this characteristic has been obvious. Trump, from the beginning of his campaign, discredited mail-in ballots. He did this even though the military has historically used mail-in ballots, the president uses mail-in ballots and any person unable to attend the polls have also always used mail-in ballots. We can speculate that Donald Trump made these claims to set the stage for him to contest the results of the election in the supreme court. During the timeline for the election, Trump announced that he made his good friend Louis DeJoy the postmaster general, then Trump took out a smear campaign against mail-in ballots and from this, we can predict that due to the percentages of people who vote for each party and in which way they vote, Trump is aiming to create a platform to claim fraud. At its highest 80% of Democrats said they were going to vote by mail and republicans distrust of the mail-in ballot due to Trump's statements meant that most republicans were voting in person. This means that on election night the votes looked overwhelmingly pointed towards Trump's re-election. The mail-in ballots had a large effect on these results but due to Trump's appointing of Amy Coney Barrett and his vocal distrust of the ballot he has set up the perfect situation for him to contest the results in the supreme court and have the election handed to him. He has proven this further through his claims of having won the election while Biden was in the lead and the ballots hadn’t even been counted yet. As we have seen, Trump has claimed multiple times that he had won and refused to accept defeat. Even now in 2021, he continues to push this idea of the fraudulent election.

In conclusion, we cannot call trump a fascist, however, we have pointed out that he fits the characteristics of a fascist and his pitfalls as the president of the United States. In all of this, we are giving you the opportunity to come to your own conclusions and form your own opinions. And we would love for you to share them in the comments below.