Are We Dealing in Fascism?
Where do we go from here?
The word fascism has been thrown around a lot in recent years, as has the term far-right, right wing extremism, and Christian nationalism. These terms seem to have their ebbs and flows in and out of media presence, but over the last week or so they have been ramped up. What is the reasoning behind this rhetoric being directed towards Trump’s policies? And how much legitimacy rests within the fear of right wing authoritarian regimes coming to power at home and abroad?
First of all, the constant comparison of Trump to Hitler, and the interpretations of Elon Musk’s gesture of thanks as a Nazi salute have to stop for a genuine conversation to take place. These comparisons delegitimize the actual experiences of people who lived through Nazism, Hitler’s reign, and the Holocaust. It is vitally important to learn from history, because those that do not are doomed to repeat it, but these misinterpretations are damaging our understanding of that period in history, not helping us to learn from it.
On another note, is there credence to the argument that we are living in times of heightened potential for authoritarianism? I would argue yes, but it’s not so simple.
As I argued in my last Op-ed, the election of Donald Trump in 2024 was not a revolution against democracy, but a revolution towards a bureaucratic lining that surrounds our democracy, and many western democracies for that matter. The reason this stokes fear for many who oppose Trump is that there are genuine arguments to suggest that this bureaucratic lining is vital to the health of a democracy; however, much of these agencies that define this lining are not embedded in our constitution, and the restructuring of these agencies has been a topic of political debate for much of the last century in American politics.
The restructuring of these agencies, and the throwing out of these agencies in some cases, does pose an important question: well, what will replace them? When Trump fired 17 inspector generals due to perceived corruption, and there are legitimate arguments that many were at least complicit to a culture that allowed for corruption, will the result be a rooting out of corruption or an exchange in the type of corruption. In other words, will these roles be filled purely with Trump loyalists?
From what we have seen so far, I would argue yes. However, that yes is more towards the idea that they are loyalists committed to Trump’s vision for a fundamental restructuring of how our agencies operate, and a vision for change amongst these agencies that has been advocated for across the political spectrum for many decades. To analyze further, we can look to the appointment of Elon Musk as the head of a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Over the course of the last week, DOGE has investigated and found countless misuses of funding by USAID, including $24,000 of direct subscription payments to Politico that resulted in a total of $8.2 million being directed from the U.S. government to Politico over the course of the last 12 months alone. While Politico claims these are mostly subscription based, and that they get the majority of their funding from the private sector, it still opens up a door for misuse of funds. Politico is supposed to be a watchdog organization, whose job is to investigate the federal government and different points of power throughout society. The existence of this funding paints a picture of a more ideological form of corruption where it is in the interest of Politico to maintain particular belief systems and ways of interpreting corruption that align with the ideological goals of federal agencies like USAID. This particular type of indirect misuse of funds is a key aspect of populist frustration towards the relationship between many large media outlets and our federal government. The partnership is ideological and maintains the current system of mainstream informational interpretation, one that has largely ignored or scorned the cries of populist frustrations in recent years.
On the other hand, how much misallocation of funds is DOGE actually finding when our government is spending over $6 trillion per year? Will this have a legitimate impact on our government’s problem of overspending?
This week, representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) criticized in an instagram live video these attempts by DOGE and the Trump administration to root out corruption. In her claims, she brought up a noteworthy piece of analysis that these aims do not extend to the ‘military industrial complex’, and that the misuse of funds directed towards military contracting companies pose a much larger threat to the proper use of public funding. Furthermore, she noted that Elon Musk’s SpaceX receives large sums of money from this sector under the guise of funding for national security, and that DOGE has no incentive to uncover misallocation of funds in that sector, even though military spending accounts for almost $1 trillion of government spending.
The fruits of DOGE seem to remain unknown as they have only begun their investigations, and the department pledges to root out misuse of funds within Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which combine for roughly $2.75 trillion of government spending. It all depends on how they will define misuse of funds and whether or not these cutbacks will extend to necessary programs for people in need.
I use this particular example to reveal the complicated nature of the emerging federal government. Rooting out corruption and the misallocation of American tax dollars is essential, but if there is an ideology attached to the definition of misuse, then we may end up with a very similar, or more corrupt, set of federal agencies and bureaucracies.
Furthermore, this particular example gets to the heart of my initial question: how legitimate are the concerns that these changes are opening an authoritarian door? And how does the word fascism enter this conversation?
A broad-based definition of fascism is a far right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interest for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy - says Wikipedia.
To compare, I will give my analysis of the ideology that has resulted in Trump coming to power, and it is a generalization of course, so not all of his supporters fall into this category, but it seems to be the dominant theory: a populist right-wing government that is becoming more centralized, driven by a charismatic leader, with a focus on growing the military for national security, but theoretically opposed to the suppression of opposition, a rejection of the belief that there exists a natural social hierarchy, and the manifestation of individual interest for the perceived good of the nation, with a less restrictive regimentation of society and an economy where the free market is dominant (with the exceptions of foreign interests in our economy - tariffs).
The differences are in the details, and those details make a massive difference. For some reason, right wing politicians and their supporters around the world are constantly being grouped together as far-right, which is an attempt to ignite a connection to the term fascism. However, the belief structure that has led to this wave of populism is not interested in the core tenets of fascism (regardless of what you you may hear from oppositional media) which are centralization, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural hierarchy, the regimentation of the market structure, and the subordination of the individual. In reality, these are some of the core aspects of governing that modern day populism is actually most opposed to.
That being said, when a door opens and a charismatic leader, with right wing social ideology, comes to power in a democracy, there are certain weaknesses that can be exploited if the public and supporters of the movement do not hold their leaders accountable to their actual belief structure. This is true for any leader seeking large-scale change to the governing structure.
Fundamentally, I argue that populists on the left and right agree on a lot more than they disagree on. Frustration towards threats on individual rights, as is perceived to have taken place by many Trump supporters following the lockdowns of 2020 and the online censorship that took place, can very easily become a frustration that breeds retribution towards those they believe allowed it to happen. When in actuality these frustrations should take the form of a deeper rejection to threats on individual rights across the board.
Retribution in politics can blind those who bestow it where one’s pain results in a reciprocal attempt to generate the same pain in another. I see signs of this taking place, and this is the heart of my worry. When you group in all undocumented immigrants with violent criminals, when you call all who oppose you left wing radicals, when you pass laws that forgo due process of the law for individuals residing within our border, I feel retribution in action, not the protection of individual rights. When you go after educators and dissenters who disagree with you, and begin to control the public places of discourse, I worry that doors are opening that incentivize the expression of frustration, ultimately overtaking the initial desire for justice. And many fear that this is the ideology creeping into our federal agencies.
Where do we go from here?
I urge those on the left to stop their comparisons of Trump to Hitler because it only breeds further frustration amongst supporters of the new regime, and destroys avenues for productive conversation. I urge people like Bernie Sanders to reach across the aisle on issues where he can find agreement with the populist frustration in areas like healthcare and the misallocation of taxpayer dollars. Finally, and most importantly, I urge Trump supporters to not become consumed with their frustration and ability to inflict it on others, to hold their leader accountable when he crosses the line, to listen to considerate opposition when they worry about particular rhetoric or the opening of doors that are hard to shut, and to reject laws that violate due process under the Constitution of our law.
If we do these things, if we can generate a public conversation that is in tune with reality and opposed to the emotional pull of fear-mongering, then maybe we can direct this thing called democracy (the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people) to warmer waters. Maybe we can find a common thread in our frustration across the aisle, and garner a people who are opposed to further violations of individual liberty, whether it takes the form of a vaccine mandate or deportation without due process. We will have our disagreements, that is natural and beneficial, but we can also see the humanity within one another and allow ourselves to consider that maybe another’s perspective is as legitimate as our own and worth listening to. It is us who have the last say, this is democracy in action after all. We are the people.
C.K.
“I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.” -Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from a speech entitled: ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ - 1967.