Trump is a fascist.

[Malthus]

Subservience to a group is all very well, but only between consenting adults. 

[crazy canuck]

Dguller's observation is more to the point.  It really doesn't matter if Trump is himself a fascist.  He certainly appeals to fascist tendencies which a demagogue like Trump has apparently no hesitation to exploit.

But what the hell are "fascistic tendencies"?

Looking at that fairly vague Fascist checklist", I (more or less) agree with a couple of those nine points, namely:

"The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it."

It should perhaps not be a surprise that a career public servant thinks that people of a country owe a duty to that country?  And that duty, while perhaps not superior, is equal to the country's duty to it's citizens?

and

"Dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences."

Again it should perhaps not be a surprise that myself as a classical conservative think that we should try to be a more cohesive and unified society, that in some cases excessive liberalism harms this country, and that while welcoming immigrants (and refugees) we should make some attempts to encourage people to integrate into our society and adopt Canadian values?


If someone speaks to those points does that mean they are appealling to "fascistic tendencies"?

Just to be clear BB, this is one of the points you said you agree with, in bold

That bolded point is the bedrock of fascist belief. It is not just a duty to country but that the individual is subordinate to the state.

[jimmy olsen]

I wonder how much of this stuff he feels strongly about himself and how much he is just saying to appeal to the worst of people (the Republican right) and try and trick his way into government so he can pull some dodgy libertarian bollocks.

Trump has never flirted with anything resembling libertarianism. He was for a strong state when he was a liberal democrat and he's for one now.

[jimmy olsen]

When a politician explicitly calls for the state to round up 11 million people, and they call for the state register a religious minority for government surveillance, and they call for protesters to be beaten, what else can you call him?

I don't see how calling for enforcement of existing law makes one a fascist.

I'm sure there's still a law on the book in some state from the colonial era that says Indians are to be shot on sight, and if a governor actually enforced it with the national guard, will that just be "enforcing the law"?

To round up 11 million people (and that's not even counting all their children who are citizens who Trump says he will send back with them) and deport them, would require turning the US into a police state complete with concentration camps.

[MadImmortalMan]

Wouldn't be the first time we had camps. 

[jimmy olsen]

Above all, what does Trump believe in? Draconian immigration stances get the headlines, but what Trump's career has really been about, and what he continues to lobby for today, is capitalism. He strongly advocates capitalism and is proposing slashing taxes to an even more massive extent than most of the "starve the beast" advocates in the republican party.

He doesn't actually believe in that though. If one assumes the political stances he held for decades before he decided the GOP base was gullible enough to elect him are his real beliefs, his real economic beliefs are closer to Sanders than to Clinton. He was for universal single payer health care.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm sure there's still a law on the book in some state from the colonial era that says Indians are to be shot on sight, and if a governor actually enforced it with the national guard, will that just be "enforcing the law"?

Your excellent analogy has devastated me.  The rolly eyes was the coup de grace.

To round up 11 million people (and that's not even counting all their children who are citizens who Trump says he will send back with them) and deport them, would require turning the US into a police state complete with concentration camps.

You mean like deportation centers?

[jimmy olsen]

This guy's got it.

http://theweek.com/articles/590497/donald-trumps-alarming-skid-toward-outright-fascism

Donald Trump's alarming skid toward outright fascism

Ryan Cooper

I made the case just a couple months back that Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is a sort of fledgling Mussolini, nurturing an incipient fascist movement. As the first primaries approach, and Trump's lead in the polls is actually widening, his development toward outright fascism is progressing faster than I feared.

As of August, Trump had most of the ingredients for a fascist movement: the victim complex, the fervent nationalism, the obsession with national purity and cleansing purges, and the cult of personality. He was missing the organized violence, a left-wing challenge strong enough to push traditional conservative elites into his camp, support for wars of aggression, and a full-bore attack on democracy itself. He's made much progress on all but the last one.

It's clear now that the Paris attacks enormously energized the Trumpist movement. He's now speculating openly about invading Syria. Trump's proposals have gone from overt prejudice to things literally taken out of late Weimar history — closure of mosques and a national Muslim database. The rank-and-file have both fed off and stoked this behavior. When a lone protester started chanting "black lives matter" at a Trump rally, Trumpists jumped him (he was luckily not badly injured). Trump later said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up." Hours later he lied about witnessing Muslim crowds celebrating 9/11, and retweeted nonsense racist garbage from a literal neo-Nazi.

Conditions are clearly fertile to start organizing a Trumpist paramilitary wing, a key fascist institution. A pack of heavily armed white nationalist militants recently popped up at a mosque in Irving, Texas, announcing their intention to intimidate local Muslims. Trump's personal security squad is already made up of goons, assaulting people and threatening reporters. With an incomprehensible number of guns floating around the country, all Trump needs is a Röhm to get the organizing started — except probably with Carhartts and camouflage instead of imitation military uniforms. (After that, watch for the next step: starting fights at Bernie Sanders rallies.)

The attacks also increased Trump's effective elite support. Many mainstream reporters have been working hard to normalize Trumpist ideas by attacking their colleagues for "unfair" treatment of Trump (like seeing what sort of Nazi ideas he'll disagree with). CNN's editorial practices are basically overt anti-Muslim bigotry. Other reporters, like Chris Cillizza, shrug and argue that refugee-baiting is simply smart politics. As Carl Diggler explained, "it would be a death sentence for any candidate to abandon these voters by coming out against the pogroms and race war they fervently want."

However, conservative elites are still pretty suspicious of Trump. Barring a recession (gulp), he probably would not do well in a general election, and so most conservative elites seem to be hoping that Marco Rubio will eventually consolidate the anti-Trump Republican vote to challenge Hillary Clinton. But should Trump win, and I see absolutely no reason at this point to think he is not the tentative favorite, things could change quickly. Should Clinton win the nomination, her milquetoast, status quo platform will be quickly internalized on the right as a devious plot to destroy (white) America. I would thus wager that most of the elite conservative power structure would back Trump versus Clinton if they each secure the nomination.

That brings us to Trump himself. As the pseudonymous blogger Billmon observes, Trump has instinctively discovered the Joe McCarthy sweet spot for maximum attention and momentum. It is pitifully easy to roll the mainstream media with a constant stream of insane, racist bile. Outlets are either too cowardly to call a spade a spade, or are simply wrong-footed by Gish Gallop tactics. Left-leaning media, meanwhile, has no purchase in the fever swamps. And conservative media, clearly taken aback at Trump's massive success with conservative base voters, are largely reduced to either studiously ignoring him, validating parts of his arguments, or howling about "illiberal" college students as a distraction.

Trump was writing pro-Obama blog posts in 2009. He is pretty clearly in this for the self-aggrandizement and ego trip, not because he's wants to achieve anything in particular. That's likely why he has not yet attacked the fundamental idea of a democratic electoral system (the last major missing fascist ingredient) — it simply hasn't occurred to him yet.

Yet the seeds he is sowing are poisonous indeed. Violent white nationalism has not been so effectively mainstreamed since the 1920s. If Trump wins the nomination and the economy turns down next year, I'd give him a decent chance of victory. Even if he is only a sort of "fascist idiot savant" without much true organizing ability or program, he clearly has a good instinct for the basic psychological impulses underlying previous fascist success. It's time to start taking this seriously.

[Jacob]

Can we agree if the next steps from Tim's article are followed, namely the creation of Trump loyal paramilitary organization and the starting of fights at Bernie Sanders rallies that it's accurate to call Trump a fascist?

If not, what additional ingredients are missing before the label could be reasonably applied?

[grumbler]

Can we agree if the next steps from Tim's article are followed, namely the creation of Trump loyal paramilitary organization and the starting of fights at Bernie Sanders rallies that it's accurate to call Trump a fascist?

If not, what additional ingredients are missing before the label could be reasonably applied?

Fascism is an ideology, not a set of political tactics. Ryan Cooper is selling clicks, not news analysis.  His work is LOL-worthy, but I believe Tim thinks he is deep.

[Admiral Yi]

Can we agree if the next steps from Tim's article are followed, namely the creation of Trump loyal paramilitary organization and the starting of fights at Bernie Sanders rallies that it's accurate to call Trump a fascist?

If not, what additional ingredients are missing before the label could be reasonably applied?

I think it's a pointless exercise.  Do we know once he does those things that reoccupation of the Rhineland and extermination of the Jews is inevitable?

I think it's more useful to focus on what he does and says that puts him beyond the Pale (or the things that don't). 

[jimmy olsen]

Can we agree if the next steps from Tim's article are followed, namely the creation of Trump loyal paramilitary organization and the starting of fights at Bernie Sanders rallies that it's accurate to call Trump a fascist?

If not, what additional ingredients are missing before the label could be reasonably applied?

Fascism is an ideology, not a set of political tactics. Ryan Cooper is selling clicks, not news analysis.  His work is LOL-worthy, but I believe Tim thinks he is deep.

I don't think he's "deep". I think he's accurate.

[LaCroix]

deporting all illegal immigrants isn't fascist (unless fascist-like methods were used), but it'd be an incredibly stupid move due to the harm it would cause to the economy.

[Barrister]

Can we agree if the next steps from Tim's article are followed, namely the creation of Trump loyal paramilitary organization and the starting of fights at Bernie Sanders rallies that it's accurate to call Trump a fascist?

If not, what additional ingredients are missing before the label could be reasonably applied?

As grumbles said, that would be a question of tactics, not ideology.

I said what I thought would be necessary for Trump to be a fascist - to call out the glory of national struggle against other countries.  Instead he's called for the opposite - essentially American isolationism.  He's all for turning Syria over to the Russians, for example.

I'd disappointed that my suggestion of the "demagogue" label didn't garner much attraction: it seems most appropriate to me.

[Eddie Teach]

I'd disappointed that my suggestion of the "demagogue" label didn't garner much attraction: it seems most appropriate to me.

Demagogue is fine, but doesn't describe any particular ideology.