Highlights: Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders.
As a political philosopher who studies extremism, I believe people should be more worried about this.
Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is guilty of “treason,” Trump said in September 2023, just for reassuring the Chinese that the U.S. had no plans to attack in the waning days of the Trump administration. And for this, Trump says, Milley deserves death.
But it is not just government officials whom Trump suggests be targeted for extrajudicial killings. Mere shoplifters should be killed too. “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving,” Trump said to cheers at the California Republican Party convention in September.
This rhetoric may seem like crazy bluster, which is no doubt why many people appear prepared to ignore it. But put in its historical context, what Trump is doing is echoing views that are part of a long tradition of illiberal and outright fascist thought. For fascists have always seen the use of violence as a virtue, not a vice.
In all fairness, I think his rhetoric has been indoctrinated into him by actual fascists he kept/keeps around him, and the Republicans (and a lot of people that are supposed to be against it) facilitate him using it. So while he’s definitely a fascist, I don’t think he’s an ideological fascist.
And that’s why, I think, it echoes instead of copies outright.
While you may doubt his genuine commitment to the ideology, the end result will be the same.
As I said to another person, it speaks to his motive. He’s motivated by money, and one can’t effectively fight an enemy they pretend is something else.
A fascist is a fascist, I agree, but it’s best that we know what drives him.
Money is just a means to power, and that’s what fascists crave. It may be a circuitous route, but he gets there in the end.
I agree that it’s self-feeding, and fascists will get to the causing of suffering in the end, but what drives that cycle is different, and how you break that cycle is different.
For Trump, it’s Money at all costs. For ideological fascists, it’s Power at all costs.
Respectfully disagree that it’s not an ideologically held belief. But, really, it’s a distinction without a difference.
Mostly agreed, except it speaks to his motive. He’s not motivated by power, he’s motivated by money. He’ll use that money for power plays to get more money. He’d feed the homeless or kick a puppy every morning if it made him more money.
Both kinds of fascists are dangerous, but it’s always best to know your enemy.
Yes, let’s not call a murderer a murderer simply because it wasn’t the killing part that he enjoyed…
Nah, Trump IS a fascist.
Which is exactly what I said. It was literally in the penultimate sentence.
“Echoes” is not equivalent to, “literally is”. It is equivalent to “sounds like”.
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Yes. Very good. Because I was speaking about his rhetoric, not whether or not he’s a fascist, which I already stated in the second to last sentence that he is.
Penultimate = second to last.
And I’ve been using that word wrong for years.
There is no such thing as an “ideological fascist.” It was purely opportunistic and self-serving when Mussolini did it, and it’s exactly the same now that Trump’s doing it.