Fascist Side Trips: Militarism and More Unreality
Plus: Governor Glenn Youngkin helps out.
So this example is focused on something that Trump said in an interview over the weekend which suggested militarized politics and violence and includes a guest appearance by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin who is willing to contribute to propaganda and unreality. We also see clear us versus them politics. These all link to my discussion in Defining and Discussing Fascism (Part I).
First, Trump.
And here is some specificity as to whom he thinks is the “enemy from within.”
Then, Youngkin.
The really important part starts around 2:20. I have provided the full clip for context.
He is not only ignoring what he has seen and heard, but he is making excuses for Trump. Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes and ears! Let’s take the propaganda train to unreality while I try and scare you about immigrants.
I would also recommend Tom Nichols’s piece, Donald Trump’s Fascist Romp. I would note that, like me, Nichols was initially reluctant to use the term “fascist” to describe Trump but, like me, argues that it is now utterly appropriate.
Some of the people who watched Youngkin’s appalling dishonesty immediately thought of one of the most famous passages from George Orwell’s 1984: “The Party told him to reject the evidence of his eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
But this interpretation gives Youngkin too much credit. Orwell’s dictators were able to terrify people with torture and deprivation into accepting the government’s lies. Youngkin, however, is not a terrified subject of an authoritarian regime: He’s just an opportunist. Like J. D. Vance, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Youngkin is demanding that everyone else play along and pretend that Trump is just a misunderstood immigration hawk, and then move on—all so that Youngkin can later say that he was a loyal Republican when he contends for the leadership of the GOP after Trump is either defeated, retired, or long gone.
Agreed.
To recap.
First, Trump talks about using the National Guard and maybe even the military against American citizens (in the clip above he states that the real threat is the “enemy within” and differentiates them from immigrants). He even specifically names a political rival in his answer–an elected official! This is all the language if us v. them and is a promise to militarize politics and use violence.
Second, Youngkin denies that the words mean what they mean (an appeal to unreality) and engages in propaganda to help his side.
How do I put this?
The people who spent YEARS lying about Russian collusion and smearing Trump as a traitor, who censored and suppressed a legitimate news story to help defeat Trump in 2020, who launched multiple politically-motivated prosecutions to throw Trump in jail, who lied for YEARS about the serious physical and mental decline of Joe Biden, who handed the Democratic nomination to someone who never received a single primary vote, and who have spent YEARS prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters to an extent that is completely out of proportion to any crimes supposedly committed…are now calling Donald Trump a fascist, after he’s already been called a fascist virtually every day since he got elected?
The inability to recognize when one’s own behavior is contributing to a negative feedback loop is a sign of either profound immaturity or mass delusion.
Speaking of mass delusion…RyGuy, bro, you are lost, son. Sheesh
@TheRyGuy: You never actually address the contents of the post.
You are whatabouting (and making up your own reality) Trump threanting to use the military against American citizens.
If you can’t address the content of the post, your comments will be deleted. You are free to rant about whatever you like in the Open Forum.
@TheRyGuy:
Au Contraire, there is ample evidence that trump is at least Putin’s useful fool. Speaking of mental decline, your boy is far worse than Biden, who is simply old.
@DrT
R’s like Youngkins, Sununu and Haley are fooling themselves, they have no future in the trumpist R party. The probable future for a victorious trump in Nov is he being ousted through the 25th amendment, with power consolidated by his now disloyal inner circle. Beware the Ides of March Donald.
Thank you for making the case succinct and clear, again. I would only add a side note: Tapper did a decent job staying on Youngkin regarding the reality of what Trump actually said, but by virtue of focusing on getting Youngkin to admit/deny Trump’s fascism, Tapper allowed the “immigration hawk” points go unrebutted. It simply isn’t true that there have been “3 ½ years of unprecedented and unrestrained flow across our border” that has put the American people in unique danger. There are definitely issues with illegal immigration, but the border isn’t “open” and the immigrants aren’t predominantly violently dangerous.
Also, this is a nitpick, but Tapper ends this segment literally hand waving away that Youngkin is going to keep denying Trump’s verbatim threat. Not exactly champions of the truth behavior from Mr. Tapper there.
Thus, as nice as it is that we get a small taste of a leader being forced to confront the Reality of how Trump truly intends to use the government, in the end we’re left with a whole, heaping serving of the Unreality of the threat posed which Youngkin alleges makes a fascist ruler acceptable or even necessary.
BTW, delete future RyGuy posts if he can’t be responsive, but please leave that comment at the top. You will never find a better example of compliance to The Party essential command to “reject the evidence of his eyes and ears.”
@TheRyGuy: PUT DOWN THE BONG! You’re perfectly baked now.
So, to summarize, Trump’s critics are responsible for turning him into a fascist demagogue who can’t wait to shred the Constitution and turn the military against his political rivals.
Got it. Good to know he has no executive function whatsoever. It’s a lucky thing, I guess, that previous Presidents who came under harsh criticism didn’t snap in this way.
From Trump to Bartiromo:
Dr. Taylor, I’d be interested in your thoughts (in the comments here or a future post perhaps) on what I see as an essential element of Trump’s rhetoric that doesn’t fit so neatly into Stanley’s 7 indicators:
His solutions are all easy.
The magic elixir promises are key to what Trump is selling. This is, of course, Unreality. Immigration policy and global economics are extremely complicated. Mass deportation would be grossly inhumane, more Wall and deportation camps will likely require seizure of private lands, and the upfront costs of the operation, plus the back end costs of the loss of cheaper labor will hit our pocketbooks hard. Executive control of The Fed and across the board tariffs will require significant legislative heavy lifting.
But, there is also a lot of Anti-Intellectualism in the simple solution rhetoric. “Trump Was Right About Everything” does a lot of work here, as Trump wants to be seen by Trumpists as not one of the elites (who run things and don’t know what they’re doing), but as the guy they like at the end of the bar (who seems to have uncanny wisdom). Trump butted heads with the moderator at the Economic Club of Chicago yesterday with his contention that he is right and all economists are wrong about the way tariffs will simply resolve our every economic woe.
Finally, there is also Propaganda in the most important piece of the “solutions are easy” rhetoric – Trump himself is the easy solution. Vote for Trump and simply by virtue of his Self in Power, the economy will be great, wars will end, women will feel safe again, and white men won’t feel so bad about themselves.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Certainly worth giving this guy another shot at it – this time we should unchain him.
@Scott F.:
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken
The aesthetic stance of strength is so important here. So many of these dramas play out as “Trump is strong and has Democrats scared”.
No. Trump is an old, tired, grandpa who likes to yell a lot, because that’s the only way people will pay attention to him. His ideas aren’t good, they are just loud. But he turns, “Can’t you shut that guy up” into a demonstration of “strength”.
We’ve seen a constant escalation of rhetoric over the last few months. My read of the tea leaves is that Trump thinks he’s losing, and he needs to do “more” of what he’s been doing. He needs to “try harder”.
It’s a common pattern. We had to train people out of it all the time in the dojo. Our description of how to be powerful is “do something different”. But “try harder” is do the same thing, only louder. Which is what Trump is doing.
I watched some clips of the dance-along yesterday, and I don’t think Trump lost the thread so much as he thinks he’s losing and kind of doesn’t want to play the game any more. He just wants to have some fun at the rally, which he has always loved doing.
@TheRyGuy:
Considering you wrapped up your first comment to OTB with the following (and really haven’t been interested in ever seriously engaging with the posts…), perhaps… just perhaps… you shouldn’t be commenting on how others have an “inability to recognize when one’s own behavior is a negative feedback loop.”
Oh… or wait… do you mean you are *intentionally* contributing to a negative feedback loop?
BTW what is your problem with James? Because man do you tend to fixate on him.
@Jay L Gischer:
IMHO, I don’t think he really wants to be POTUS again either, at least in terms of the day to day requirements of the job. He wants the pardon power, so he can stay out of jail and he wants the trappings of the office to aggrandize himself. But, he’s not going to even try to run the country. He will have some fun cosplaying as king, while delegating (even more than he did his last term) all the lifting to JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Elon Musk.
Dear Dr. Taylor:
When you re-read the histories of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s rise, the striking thing is how many damn fools thought the fascists could be harnessed to serve their, rather petty, ends.
Then: Leopard, meet face.
Also, the equally daft far-left, who thought fascism was a sign of the collapse of the liberal-capitalist order, and the destruction of the social democrats and centrists would herald the invertible triumph of the Communist vanguard of the proletariat!
Oops.
I’d like to thank you for a very interesting summary in the first post in this sequence.
I caught it too late to reply under that, but I’ve got some thoughts I’m still trying to marshal, which I’ll try to put in when you post the next major installment.
Hope they won’t annoy too much. 😉
(Briefly, I think you are correct in a lot of respects, but I think both you, and still more Professor Stanley, are missing some critical European contexts of fascism.)
@TheRyGuy:
How do I put this?
Trump and various campaign operatives most certainly were meeting with various Russian officials; some were even bragging about their contact with Russian operatives. They knew that Russia planned to interfere with the 2016 election; and they and Trump were fine with that. Donald Trump Jr. even met with a known Russian operative at the Trump Tower.
@TheRyGuy:
I am hardly a Democrat partisan (I speak not of domestic US policy, but in re. some aspects of foreign policy, I’m liable to lambast Obama and Biden admins: regretfully, but there we are) but your critique is objectively nonsense.
Trump himself may not have been colluding with Russia, but it’s pretty plain some in his circles were.
(Waves hello at Flynn, Manafort, and probably Giuliani)
Be this Hunter Biden’s laptop, perchance?
Because if that was “censored and suppressed “, it was among the most piss-poor examples of censorship and suppression I’ve ever come across.
And no-one ever really followed up the obvious op that was going on, e.g. the mysteriously untraceable Mr Michael Aspen and the vegetable aisle of Italiano Supermarkets, 1c, Via Maggio, Lugano, Switzerland?
With bonus Falun Gong!
And given the record of Biden’s public speeches, it’s pretty obvious he has not been in “serious … mental decline”.
He is, obviously, getting no younger, and is showing signs of being weary. But, rather like Churchill in 1955, realised that and decided to step aside.
The Democrats do not seem to me to be under any obligation to conduct their candidate selection according to your preferences.
The prosecution of the January 6 riot/insurrection participants seems to me rather mild.
Frankly, had this been done in the UK, most would have been shot, either by the police, or by the Brigade of Guards.
And the remnants tried for treason; with the applause of the majority of Conservatives, I should expect.
The fascistic fall-back on illegality and force is no trivial matter.
I really suggest you might usefully read some histories of Italy in the 1920’s and Germany in the 1930’s.
Short version: it did not end well.
It is patently obvious that Joe Biden won the election in 2019.
Anyone who attempted to overturn that, or who continues to deny that, is either a fool or a villain.
@JohnSF:
Another useful exercise, perhaps even more useful, is to look at other fascist states of the time which did not take part in WWII. I’m thinking about Spain and Portugal in particular.