I. You Don’t Need to Invade Poland to Be a Fascist
Throughout the Trump years, there has been a tedious academic and anachronistic discourse about whether he or the conservative movement around him is fascist or authoritarian. This in turn—especially as more have ascribed the label in the wake of January 6th, including leading historians on the subject—has led to endless pearl-clutching at the notion that Trump could ever merit the description. The fault of this prudish mindset comes from an elementary understanding of history connecting the concept to the Nazis and WWII, especially because American nationalism since that era has meant that thankfully, most people of all ideological stripes think the Nazis were bad.
At its most fundamental level, fascism is a hyper-nationalistic right-wing ideology that rejects the rule of law, democracy, and constitutional order, often harkening to glorified pasts and claimed traditionalist values. Fascists employ violence and create a cult of personality around their leadership.
Fascists took power in Europe long before the gas chambers and Blitzkrieg that dominate public memory. A good exercise is to look at the rise of Hitler: it would be absurd to suggest that fascism only exists when it is in power because it is separate and not dependent on dictatorship and autocracy – even if those might be goals. Was Hitler a fascist when he led a failed coup in 1923 and was jailed? Was he a fascist before that? It seems the pedantic retort by Trump apologists and dithering armchair observers in this debate inevitably lands on something akin to a declaration that Trump can only truly be a fascist if he invades Poland or seeks to establish a thousand-year Reich.
Thinking that all fascists from now until forever are destined to be Hitler also betrays an extraordinary lack of imagination and historical context. There is a range of terrible externalities in between “not a fascist” and the Final Solution that authoritarians can unleash (i.e. see Francisco Franco, Augusto Pinochet, etc.). The point is not that Trump’s election guarantees democratic collapse or certain despotism – it is that the risks of a second Trump term are so clear and present, that the risk of democratic collapse or constitutional crisis is undeniable.
Trump has threatened more than a hundred persons with prosecution during his campaign. He has vowed to sick the Justice Department on his political enemies. He has repeatedly called his political opponents “enemies within” worse than any foreign adversary, and “scum”. He called for terminating the Constitution. He has promised to use the US military to break dissent and protest. He has said that Jews will be partly to blame if he loses election. He and his stooges have gleefully paraded plans about creating concentration camps for alleged “illegal aliens”.
It is unacceptable to minimize or excuse this rhetoric. It is especially disconcerting that a nation so steeped in the glorified symbolism and self-righteous meaning of WWII, wrapping itself in slogans like “never again,” is on the cusp of electing such a patent authoritarian. If Trump wins and carries out any of his stated authoritarian ambitions, would anything be more laughable than expressing surprise?
What is truly shocking over the past few years is the speed at which the Republican Party evolved from a point of understanding (especially following January 6th) that Trump was a disgrace who brought the GOP down, to the inexplicable sanewashing and normalizing any and all of his objectively disturbing conduct. The Republican Party and its media propaganda are now cultish Trump loyalists where dissent is suppressed or purged.
Here’s a simple inexorable truth: if a person talks like a fascist, attempts a coup to overthrow the Republic, and whips up an armed mob to storm the capital to help facilitate that coup, they are a fascist and a traitor to everything this country stands for, full stop. Every elected Republican official who assisted that effort is likewise. This isn’t a hard question or reasonable to dispute, and those who have tried to spin this otherwise are cowardly rubes. An inane post-hoc mentality has developed in the cowed Republican Party, the MAGA faithful, and for those looking for any crumb to excuse Trump, that the failure of Trump’s coup blunts the seriousness of it. The hand waving of this event descends into logical fallacy: the fact that the coup failed means that the coup was never a threat.
When German conservatives in the 1930’s sold out their country to fascists, they could at least attempt to justify their Faustian bargain by pointing to total economic collapse, massive social and political unrest, and the rapid rise of a literal Communist Party. Fascists thrive on crisis, and they exploited the major ones of the time to full effect.
What can Trump apologists point at to justify themselves in 2024? The US has the best economic performance of any advanced economy in the world and stronger economic growth than during the Trump years. We have robust employment and more people working than ever. Wage growth—even accounting for inflation—has improved, particularly for lower income brackets. We have an industrial and energy policy that blows the Trump years out of the water. Inflation has been snuffed without triggering a recession or high unemployment. The economic story post-pandemic in this country has been nothing short of miraculous and has heralded the best economy in a generation. Fun fact: when Reagan was poised to win in a landslide in 1984 and win 49 out of 50 states, both unemployment and inflation were higher than they are today. On the flipside, Trump has campaigned on policies (tariffs, mass deportation, gutting health care, tax cuts for the rich) that would decimate the US economy.
Don’t just take my word for it. John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general and Trump’s former Chief of Staff, called Trump “fascist to his core” and claims Trump praised Hitler. Lifelong Republicans across the country are lining up to endorse Harris despite their disagreement with her policy views because of the threat they believe Trump poses to the nation. For instance: Waukesha’s mayor; Wisconsin’s longest serving state senator; Liz Cheney and freaking Dick Cheney; one can Google a long parade of other more or less prominent Republicans. Perhaps even more telling is the silence from others. Only half of Trump’s former cabinet have endorsed him. Former Vice President Mike Pence is not endorsing Trump (can’t imagine why).
Ultimately, where anyone ends up on the “fascist” question regarding Trump is not dispositive. The consequences are what speak for themselves. There is an Ernest Hemingway quote in ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ that strikes me as apropos: “There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.” In an election where the result of whether a fascist takes power hinges essentially on a coin toss because of the stark polarization in the country, one has to wonder what it would take for Trump voters to finally come to realize they backed a fascist, or worse, whether they would even be bothered at all if they did.
II. The Moral Urgency of Voting for Kamala Harris
The great travesty of the coverage of this election is that because Trump garbles out delusional vitriol in his stream of consciousness, most outlets work to sanewash and tease out any kernel of substance from his cesspool of a campaign. This is almost always executed in a manner devoid of proper context so as to give their readers the narrative of an exciting horse-race and just another day in the USA, lest they be accused of bias.
Trump is a convicted felon awaiting sentencing, with scores of other serious felony charges pending against him. What has driven me mad throughout the eternal length of this campaign is the severe lack of extrospection to prepare the public for what will happen if Trump loses. Why would anyone in their right damn mind think Trump or his sycophant cadres would say “wow, good campaign, Kamala, we lost,” and then fade off into the sunset with the prospect of prison time and being condemned as the biggest losers in the history of modern American politics? Get fucking real. He and the MAGA propaganda machine are hard at work laying the failsafe groundwork to poison public trust and challenge the election results with the same bad-faith bullshit playbook from 2020. And like January 6th, what do we think would happen when Trump’s most faithful learn that another election has been “stolen” and the country is doomed?
Even more horrifying to contemplate is what happens if this election is truly as close as the polls make it seem. If the election comes down to a single state, or if the margins are razor thin, Trump and his goons have every incentive and intention of causing any chaos necessary in courts or at polling locations to stop ballot counting or claim a disputed result. Imagine the Brooks Brothers riot in the 2000 election but on steroids, and with more fanaticism. With everything on the line, team Trump will marshal anything necessary and never accept defeat. The Trump campaign would love nothing more than to sew enough anarchy to somehow kick the election to the Trump fawning Supreme Court à la Bush v. Gore. The best-case scenario is for Harris to make a surprise blowout victory with comfortable margins, and woe to us all if it isn’t. With how crazed the Trump machine has become, the prospect of another coup and major political violence that dwarfs January 6th would be extremely unsurprising and dare I say likely.
Another infuriating point about the whitewashing of Trump, his coup, and the characterization of Trump-support as just another respectable and reasonable choice in a normal election, is that a fascist who attempts a coup will not hesitate to attempt another. Indeed, he has thus far evaded any accountability for his first coup for four years. He will double down and disregard the rule of law whenever convenient. You don’t flirt with putting fascists in power, because by the time they kick the guardrails upholding our legal and economic system, it is likely too late. You can’t just assume institutions and democratic ideals can be put back together after a wrecking ball blows it apart.
The Harris campaign has made the wise decision to not make the lynchpin of her campaign a purely anti-fascist pitch. But the fact that it is not politically savvy to constantly point out the blindingly obvious threat Trump poses to our constitutional order does not lessen the fact that it should be the singular issue in which every single person should vote on. All other issues flow from our democracy and are secondary. Concerned about Gaza? Healthcare? Abortion? Great, but the value of your voice in those policies greatly depends on existing in a democracy. If democracy fails, you no longer clearly have a choice or are given the illusion of choice. Is a pissed-away protest vote or non-vote in dissatisfaction with some of the items on the Harris campaign’s agenda worth the possibility of the failure of the system? The answer is no. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has so brilliantly put, in a two-party political system, voters should think about which candidate’s government they would prefer to organize under, and what conditions that government would create.
Harris and the Democratic party, like almost every other governing political party around the world has felt the past couple years, faces the headwinds of a discontented population that suffered inflation and other post-pandemic disorder. Despite this, she has made an extremely impressive comeback and galvanized a serious effort to make bipartisan appeal to as many voters as possible with an extremely well-run campaign. We will know whether this was sufficient soon enough.
There is much to like in the Harris platform that substantially distinguishes her from her fascist opponent. The subject of what a second Trump term would actually mean in terms of policy is dire, but one I have not dwelled on much here. It is an alarming symptom of polarization and a poor media ecosystem that anyone can claim to be an undecided voter if they claim to believe in anything. Harris has rightly seized the cries of liberty and freedom for her platform that are being targeted by Trump and the forces around him.
Harris is procedurally and substantively the only qualified and moral choice for President because Trump is a fascist who threatens the bedrock of our political system. In the face of fascism, it is immoral to cast a vote for anyone other than Harris, or to not vote at all.
Given the toss-up ratings of the Senate and House of Representatives that will produce slim margins for either victorious party, a Harris administration would likely not be dramatic in terms of a program or wide sweeping agenda. But the prospect of a Harris administration nonetheless remains a deeply radical one in principle just as the founding of the United States itself was: a vote for Harris is an explicit affirmation and commitment to self-government of the people and by the people rather than by dictators and kings. A Harris presidency would be the clearest signal, as Lincoln wrote, of whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. A Harris victory would be nothing short of revolutionary by sounding a decisive blow to the fascist rabble opposed to our fragile democracy, and force a much needed reckoning in the Republican Party that has fomented it.
As AJ Thinks 