What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Thanks for that "informed piece". Very well written. From the article:

"He has told his supporters to rough up reporters and suggested during the 2016 election campaign that his followers might like to make use of the Second Amendment of the US constitution (the right to bear arms) against Hillary Clinton. He has also described white supremacists as “good people”. "

And:

"Trump by contrast has encouraged a warped vision of personal freedom: a society in which people aren’t subject to government regulation or supervision, where anarchy and confusion reign, self-restraint is abandoned, violence is unchecked, and self-aggrandising corruption permeates politics."

And:

"Trump only has regard for those he ­considers to be “winners”, and cannot bear the idea of defeat. Refusing a visit to a war cemetery in Paris in September 2020, he remarked that soldiers who died for their country on the field of battle were “losers” and “suckers”."

And:

"During Trump’s disastrous four years in the White House government posts have been left unfilled, senior officials have been routinely fired and the commander-in-chief has spent much of his time playing golf."

And:

"Election officials, among them long-term Republicans, have resisted his attempts to intimidate them, while the mainstream media has refused to broadcast his falsehoods, lies and misleading claims unchecked."

And:

"The shocking scenes at the Capitol on 6 January, and the spectacle of Trump lauding those who attacked police and trashed Democratic Party congressional offices as patriots, underlined the real threat he and his followers pose to democratic norms and the rule of law."

And:

"Banning dangerous and irresponsible figureheads like Trump from social media is a start – they incite violence and purvey misinformation to a degree that makes Goebbels look like George Washington (the first American president, who was said never to tell a lie). Trump’s incessant and false claims that the election was rigged have convinced many Americans that their votes no longer count for anything. This lack of democratic faith, not a violent seizure of power, is the real threat to the American republic."

For sh*ts and giggles, I read it. It was written by a historian whose speciality was Hitler. Hitler takes up an awful lot of room in this article, maybe more than Trump. As I already noted, it's 3 years since it was published. It was also published in the immediate aftermath of Jan 6th, and no body knew the full story. We still don't because Trump has delayed and postponed all the trials relating to it. Always amazes me that. I knew if I was running for government and I was being "hounded" or the victim of a "witch hunt", A: I would want those trials to take place ASAP so I can get on with campaigning and working, and B: Make sure I could testify, as I would be innocent. Just like Trump is (ahem)

Anyway. The story: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us/2021/01/trump-fascist

A number of prominent commentators, including the ­historians Timothy Snyder and Sarah Churchwell, the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and the Berkeley public policy professor Robert Reich have been arguing for some time that Donald Trump is a fascist. The writer Rebecca Solnit has even called Trump’s ­supporters “Nazis”.

Look at his contempt for democracy, they say; his attacks on the press and the judiciary, his rabble-rousing, his intolerance of all who oppose him, his authoritarianism, his self-identification with foreign dictators and strongmen, his nationalism and “America first” foreign policy. Look at the way he spurns international organisations, treaties and agreements, his racism and encouragement of white supremacist groups, his incitement to violence on the streets of the US.

Certainly, these carry strong echoes of fascism. Hitler and Mussolini attacked the free press, poured scorn on the judiciary, urged their followers to attack and kill their opponents, and put a murderous racism at the heart of their ideology. They tore up treaties, abandoned international organisations, undermined and ultimately destroyed parliamentary democracy, and promoted a cult of their own personality that seduced millions of citizens into accepting them as great redeemers.

Okay so so far the writer is saying, "Sure, they LOOK the same, but wait!

The temptation to draw parallels between Trump and the fascist leaders of the 20th century is understandable. How better to express the fear, loathing and contempt that Trump arouses in liberals than by comparing him to the ultimate political evil? But few who have described Trump as a fascist can be called real experts in the field, not even Snyder. The majority of genuine specialists, including the historians Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman, Stanley Payne and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, agree that whatever else he is, Trump is not a fascist.

Ok, cool. Someone is going to explain to me what fascist is! Excellent!

Fascism and Nazism were the creation of the First World War, which militarised society and – in the minds of their leaders and supporters – discredited liberal democracy by associating it with armed defeat. In Germany, the defeat was catastrophic, entailing large territorial losses, the emasculation of the country as a great power, and the payment of huge financial reparations to the Allies. Italy was on the winning side in 1918, but the expected gains from banding together with Britain, France and the US failed to materialise, and the country left the war with what historians have called “the mentality of a defeated nation”.

No, no definition there yet bar "militarised society" They already have that with their 5th amendment. America also hadn't suffered a huge military defeat since Vietnam. It could be argued that America in 2016 had "The mentality of a defeated nation". Money was tight, no-one seemed to have an easy life, gas prices were rising. I mean you could argue that Trump and co attempted to discredit liberal democracy by associating it with policies that are against a Christian faith, abortion, trans individuals, LGBTQ community, (blue hair!) Anyway, I'm sure the next paragraph will define what fascism is, so we know how Trump definitely isn't one.

What drove fascism and Nazism was the desire to refight the First World War, but this time to win it. Preparing for war, arming for war, educating for war and fighting a war defined fascist theory and praxis. Hitler’s aim of conquering territory was put into effect immediately in 1933, as he rearmed Germany and set it on a path to invade neighbouring countries. By mid-1940, Nazi Germany had conquered Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and most of western Europe. The Third Reich lived for war, breathed war and promoted war without limits. Similarly, Mussolini’s central aim was to create a new “Roman empire”, beginning with the conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36 and continuing with less successful attempts to subjugate countries around the Mediterranean, disastrously in the cases of Yugoslavia, Greece and North Africa.

Nope, nothing there. (There's very little Trump in this why Trump isn't a fascist piece). We go on.

For all of Trump’s hostility towards countries he perceives as enemies of the US, notably Iran, there is no indication that he sought a war with any foreign power, still less that he has been consumed by a desire for foreign conquest and the creation of an American empire. He is an isolationist, busy withdrawing US troops from foreign adventures, from Syria to Afghanistan. “America first” is not about launching foreign wars but disengaging from them.

Ah, I should have had patience. OK, I get what the author is saying now. Trump didn't seek a war with anyone. Except of course, we know now, that he unequivocally supports Russia over his NATO allies. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato/index.html

There's also the small matter of Donny not supporting Ukraine, but supporting Russia in that war. (I wonder why: https://www.politico.eu/article/why-donald-trump-hates-ukraine-us-congress-kyiv-war/ )

So maybe the author should not be looking at Trump trying to create an American Empire, instead refocus the argument on Trump trying to expand Russia instead.

Also: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/01/20/trump-the-anti-war-president-was-always-a-myth/

Anyway, on we go. Tell me author, why isn't Trump a fascist?

Trump’s encouragement of violence against his opponents at home has been unsystematic. He has told his supporters to rough up reporters and suggested during the 2016 election campaign that his followers might like to make use of the Second Amendment of the US constitution (the right to bear arms) against Hillary Clinton. He has also described white supremacists as “good people”. But this bears no comparison to the hundreds of thousands of armed and uniformed stormtroopers and Squadristi that the Nazi and fascist leaders deployed on to the streets daily in the 1920s and early 1930s to intimidate, beat up, arrest, imprison and often kill political opponents.

So he's not a fascist because he didn't go far enough. FFS, clutching at straws here.

(I'm gonna skip over a lot here)

Hitler and Mussolini sought to transform their countries into perma-war states: a combination of education and propaganda on the one hand, and street-level violence and intimidation on the other, aimed to forge a new kind of citizen, one that was aggressive, regimented, arrogant, decisive, organised and obedient to the dictates of the state. GM Trevelyan poured scorn on Mussolini’s efforts to turn Italians into second-rate Germans, as the historian put it; but even in Germany this endeavour failed, except with a minority of Hitler’s most ardent followers.

The society Hitler wanted was portrayed in the final minutes of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), with endless serried ranks of uniformed SS troops marching across the screen like well-oiled automata. The reality was different, as the majority of Germans retreated from this dehumanising prospect into their own private lives.

Trump by contrast has encouraged a warped vision of personal freedom: a society in which people aren’t subject to government regulation or supervision, where anarchy and confusion reign, self-restraint is abandoned, violence is unchecked, and self-aggrandising corruption permeates politics.

Trump only has regard for those he ­considers to be “winners”, and cannot bear the idea of defeat. Refusing a visit to a war cemetery in Paris in September 2020, he remarked that soldiers who died for their country on the field of battle were “losers” and “suckers”.

This mentality contrasts strongly with the central role of self-sacrifice in fascist ideology. Hitler regarded himself as a gambler: “I always go for broke,” he told Hermann Goering in 1939. There could be nothing but either total victory or total defeat. Suicide in the event of failure was always an option in his mind. Hitler and his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels constructed a cult around Nazi “martyrs” such as Horst Wessel, the 22-year-old stormtrooper killed by communists three years before the Nazi seizure of power. They also honoured the men shot dead by police in the beer-hall putsch of 1923, parading the “blood flag” brandished by the would-by putschists at ceremonial commemorations every year.

Self-sacrifice for the nation was so central to Nazi ideology that when it became clear at the end of the Second World War that Nazism had been defeated, a wave of suicides swept the entire Nazi establishment, beginning with Hitler, Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Goering, and ­cascading down the ranks.

This to me is nuts. Trump doesn't believe in self-sacrifice for himself, but you know as well as I do that he will sacrifice anyone and anything to get what he wants.

I think it's funny that the author states, "There could be nothing but either total victory or total defeat." Trump will only ever see total victory. He is completely blind to defeat. so when the author writes, "Suicide in the event of failure was always an option in his mind". That to Trump is not an option. How can it be an option, when there is literally no such thing as failure? Whats weird here is that this author is making it seem like Hitler and Mussolini were the reasonable ones!

Anyway:

Beyond differences in ideology and temperament are the contrasts in state organisation. In Germany and Italy during the 1930s and 1940s, businesses became helpmeets of the “corporate state”. Unions and labour organisations were crushed, while firms and captains of industry generated vast profits, only so long as what they produced served the party and the army.

I don't think even you can argue that Trump is a friend of the unions. As for, "captains of industry generated vast profits, only so long as what they produced served the party and the army." yeah, we can replace the word Party with the words "Trump family" and "the army" with "MAGA"

Both Hitler and Mussolini ensured a near-total “coordination” of social institutions and voluntary associations, as everything from football clubs to male voice choirs was absorbed into the structures of the fascist state. This social policy was maintained by huge bureaucratic regimes, providing jobs for thousands of their followers hungry for income and status after years of hardship and privation.

During Trump’s disastrous four years in the White House government posts have been left unfilled, senior officials have been routinely fired and the commander-in-chief has spent much of his time playing golf. The kind of hyperactive dynamism that characterised fascist regimes was entirely absent. Congress has prevailed over Trump’s attempts to sideline or undermine it, and judges, including his own Supreme Court appointees, have adhered to and interpreted the law in ways that have sometimes thwarted Trump’s ambitions, notably rejecting his legal challenges to the presidential election. Election officials, among them long-term Republicans, have resisted his attempts to intimidate them, while the mainstream media has refused to broadcast his falsehoods, lies and misleading claims unchecked.

"The kind of hyperactive dynamism that characterised fascist regimes was entirely absent."

LOL - He can't be a fascist, because he was sh*t at his job. Nice argument. As for the next section, congress (Republican controlled until the end of 2017, had to adhere to the well written laws that provide checks and balances. Wow. What a win. (NO WAY is Trump a fascist if he can't get 500+ people to break the law.) As for the MSM, is the author mad? Does he not think FOX news is part of the MSM?

The damage Trump has done to American democracy is considerable, but the past four years of mayhem have demonstrated the resilience of American institutions, the law and the constitution. American democracy is damaged, but it survives.

Indeed. And a good reason as to why the man should never hold the keys again, now he knows how to disengage the brakes.

Democratic culture in the European countries where fascism prevailed after 1918 had shallow roots. The German judiciary was overwhelmingly hostile to the Weimar Republic, and the idea of an unbiased, non-partisan press was too new to establish itself as an accepted feature of political life. The ­legitimacy of the German political ­system in the 1920s and early 1930s was weak, and the corrupt Italian polity was widely discredited.

A substantial portion of the American population – and, indeed, a majority of members of the Republican Party – refuses to accept the election of president-elect Joe Biden. But that does not mean they want the constitution to be overthrown, merely that they don’t think it’s been employed fairly.

Well, just as well they are all free to take it to court to contest. (Oh they did, and nothing was found, except for how deep Mike Lindell's pockets go.)

The shocking scenes at the Capitol on 6 January, and the spectacle of Trump lauding those who attacked police and trashed Democratic Party congressional offices as patriots, underlined the real threat he and his followers pose to democratic norms and the rule of law. Armed insurrections are threatened by ultra-right groups across the country for Biden’s inauguration.

Uh huh, but somehow this is not fascistic in nature. I'm sure he'll explain why.

But 6 January was not an attempted coup. Nor is one likely to occur on 20 January. For all of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, the attack on Congress was not a pre-planned attempt to seize the reins of government. Trump is too chaotic and undisciplined to prepare and execute any kind of organised assault on democracy.

And here is where it's good to be a bit further down the road. We know now that it was a pre-planned attempt to sieze the reigns of govt. It was just a really bad plan executed by incompetents.

The storming of the Capitol has been compared to Hitler’s infamous beer-hall putsch on 9 November 1923. On that occasion, Hitler gathered his armed and uniformed supporters in a beer-hall in Munich, from where they marched towards the city centre. Germany was in crisis: inflation was out of control and the French had occupied the Ruhr earlier that year.

Hitler thought the conditions were favourable for a coup d’état and he proclaimed the formation of a “national dictatorship” headed by himself. But the coup went wrong, the putschists were met by a hail of police bullets, and Hitler was arrested and imprisoned for five years of “fortress confinement” (he only served nine months). The original intention was to seize the government in Munich and, as Mussolini had done in Rome in 1922, march on the capital. But the putsch was confused and chaotic and doomed to failure before it had begun.

***

Hitler drew two lessons from the debacle. First, seizing power by force in an open and direct confrontation with the government was not going to work; the ballot box not the bullet was the way to power. The second lesson was just as important: the beer-hall putsch was unsuccessful not least because Hitler had failed to secure the support of the political elite, the army, business, the civil service and the police.

He would not make the same mistake again. Between 1932 and 1933, he used his electoral success, which had elevated the Nazis to become the largest party in Germany, as a basis for negotiating with these groups to secure their backing for a coalition government that he would head. A vital factor was the redundancy of the legislature: disrupted by warring factions of uniformed Nazis and Communists, the Reichstag only met on a handful of occasions in 1932, and government legislated by decree. Exploiting this situation and unleashing his violent Brownshirts on to the streets, Hitler transformed the chancellorship into a dictatorship within a matter of months.

And here endeth the history lesson.

Is the storming of the Capitol on 6 January, like the beer-hall putsch, a beginning rather than an end? It seems clear that Trumpism as a political force in American life isn’t going away soon. Many of Trump’s supporters will continue to dispute the legitimacy of Biden’s election and to regard Donald Trump as the real president of the US. But there are signs that the events of 6 January have shocked many Republicans into abandoning Trump and his most fanatical supporters. The GOP may split; Trump may become the leader of a hard-right third party run from Mar-a-Lago. Time will tell.

I think it's fair to say time did tell and boy, did this dude get it wrong. They all either knelt down and kissed the ring, or walked away from the republican party.

But time is against Trump. Hitler and his followers were young men in 1923. They could afford to wait. Trump is in his seventies and can’t. A successor may emerge, but it seems unlikely that he would match Trump’s crowd appeal. Questions are being asked about the failure of the police to prevent the storming of the Capitol, but there is little evidence that the forces of order – the administrative and legal arms of the state, as well as the military – will prevent a peaceful transfer of power on 20 January. The situation in the US today is more like Munich in 1923 than Berlin ten years later.

Again, hindsight and knowing what we know now. The questions being asked all lead to, "Why did Trump delay the authorisation of the forces?" And we all should know the answer to that. Because they supported him.

To state these obvious facts is not to ­encourage complacency. It means that rather than fighting the demons of the past – ­fascism, Nazism, the militarised politics of Europe’s interwar years – it is necessary to fight the new demons of the present: disinformation, conspiracy theories and the blurring of fact and falsehood.

Preach! I didn't think we were going to agree on anything! (But we still need to keep an eye on fascism and Nazism. Demons of the past they may be, but they lay hidden in the shadows still.

Banning dangerous and irresponsible figureheads like Trump from social media is a start – they incite violence and purvey misinformation to a degree that makes Goebbels look like George Washington (the first American president, who was said never to tell a lie). Trump’s incessant and false claims that the election was rigged have convinced many Americans that their votes no longer count for anything. This lack of democratic faith, not a violent seizure of power, is the real threat to the American republic.

Preach!

Whether the US and its citizens succeed in preserving democracy and its institutions depends to a large extent on whether they succeed in identifying what the real threats are and developing appropriate means to defeat them. Imagining that they are ­experiencing a rerun of the fascist ­seizure of power isn’t going to help them very much in this task. You can’t win the political battles of the present if you’re always stuck in the past. 

Ah well. It was too much to hope for 3 Preach!'s in a row.

But seriously, @[Deleted User] you can see I have just gone through this and for the life of me I cannot see a definition of fascism anywhere. Or for that matter, how "the article (you) quoted perfectly summarizes (your) position and reasons as to why Trump isn't a fascist." The only reason I'm seeing is that Trump is an idiot and not as good a fascist as Hitler and Mussolini were. Is that really your argument? Trump isn't a fascist, but a fascist-lite?

Did you miss this:

It's a ****ing cult

You have no idea about my "position". I haven't offered any opinion about Trump and/or fascism.

You stated that the article was an "informed piece". I simply quoted verbatim from the "informed piece". Those quotes represent the opinion of the author of the "informed piece" regarding Trump. You say it is "realistic". I agree.

@[Deleted User]

One more question, why do you insist on having an incorrect bastardisation of a quote in your sig? I mean, I'm not going to give you the benefit of doubt here that you didn't know that as I've seen another poster point it out.

The actual quote is, “Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.”

It's actually so well known people do those motivational pictures with it

The actual quote can also be quite apt for Trump.

“Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity." Trump has never been clear. Even today he did a u-turn on what he'll do with contraceptives.

"Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity." And we all know, Trump sees himself as the cleverest man, the most profound, everyone should look up to him in the room. Even when there's actual experts in the room, he refuses to defer to their expertise. "Maybe we could shine a light, or inject bleach into us. It's a good idea" What Trump is striving for is the obscurity of facts. Don't mistake this as plain English where Nietzsche is saying, "Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity (for themselves)"

"For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound." And this is the nub, isn't it? If Trump muddies the water so much, that you can no longer see whats going on, well, that must be great. Trump (more than likely someone like Steve Bannon) is a genius at throwing sh*t non-stop to muddy waters. And his followers lap it all up. As has been pointed out,

Trump is a hateful , horrible excuse for a human being with nothing close to a redeeming feature who would happily burn the world to the ground as long as he got what he wanted out of it.

We can sit here and dance on the head of a pin arguing whether it is more accurate to call him a Fascist or an Autocrat or a Dictator or whatever you like but it doesn't change the core facts.

He's a criminal, a scam artist , a serial adulterer and a sexual assaulter worthy of nothing but scorn and vilification.

Can you disagree with any of that? But let's be realistic here. If that had been any other politician in the last 50 years, they would be long gone. Definitely not up for re-election as president anyway!

"It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.”

They are really, aren't they? No-one likes to do their homework, and no-one likes to read links that informs them that their dear leader, is a fascist and that they themselves possibly may be a little more fascist than they thought they were.

Is this the new level Trump supporters have gotten to?

Yes he is a terrible person, sexual assaulter, attacks democracy etc etc etc.

But...calling him a fascist, which incidentally most people don't and the MSM certainly rarely label him as such, is a step too far and I must support him to stop this terrible injustice.

Amazing how so many women will endorse and vote for a rapist who wants to take away the reproductive rights of women and boasts about it at his rallies that he got Roe vs.Wade overturned.

Opposed the equality act, joked about Mike Pence hanging gay people, banned transgender people from the military, started rolling back discrimination protections. Tbh, it's a pretty long list so I've included a pretty lengthy summary. Now I'm pretty sure you're gonna declare as a gay person, you're fine with all of this and you've made it clear that you very much so favour targeting trans people.(Or you'll go the route of saying LGB to avoid admitting their part of the community)

https://www.hrc.org/news/the-list-of-trumps-unprecedented-steps-for-the-lgbtq-community

I thought I had dreamt that bit about "having the back of our allies", the same guy who said if a country hadn't paid their dues to NATO he would let another country invade them?

I have to ask, what the hell happened to Nikki Hailey? Someone who was defiant and likable and people were still voting for her in primaries even after she stepped back to turn into someone not kissing the ring she's blowing smoke up it.

The popular vote is going to be at least 55% to Biden this time, no question.

Trump, expert in debt.

Multiple bankrupt, despite claims of being a financial genius.

Ran up the deficit manyfold despite campaigning on halving it.

Trump, friend to allies.

Vowed to shaft those who didn't contribute to the UN.

Happy to throw Ukraine to the Russians.

Yeah but the trial against him will be over in a week or two. Declaring allegiance now, which is what she has basically done achieves nothing for her. Why not just keep schtum until the verdict comes in?

Can you give an example of one?

You support them, but won't say what they are.

Very courageous.