No, Trump is NOT a fascist trying to become dictator of the US. The explanation is far more mundane.

[DetlefK]

What do we know about Trump?

What does he enjoy, what does he like?

Well, former staffers from his White House report that he enjoys it when other people engage in rivalry. He enjoys watching them fight and backstab and plot against each other, trying to DOMINATE each other.

That is what Trump likes. Dominating other people and watching people dominate each other. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, what he does not enjoy is the hard work you have to put in until you get to dominate someone. Trump outsources that to his lackeys and his money.



So, why is Trump sending stormtroopers to democratic cities to crack down on someone-anyone?

BECAUSE TRUMP IS BORED. HE HAS LOST ANY REMAINING INTEREST IN GOVERNING AND IS MERELY TRYING TO HAVE SOME FUN ON HIS WAY OUT.

Look at his businesses and his wives. Whenever there is trouble, Trump simply walks away instead of putting in work.

Look at his many campaign-promises he made in 2016. Apart from his immigration-promises and his promises to cut personnel from the US-government, he has basically achieved nothing.
No healthcare.
No booming economy. (Even before COVID-19 the Trump-economy was barely mediocre.)
No wall paid for by Mexico.
No reduction of US-debt.

And what about current events?
When told about russian bounties in spring 2020 HE DID NOT CARE.
And staffers from the WH have recently reported that Trump has stopped entirely working on COVID-19. HE DOES NOT CARE ANYMORE.

THREE TIMES so far Trump has been asked about his plans for his next term and he was never able to give an answer. Most recently Trump gave an interview to Sean Hannity and when asked about his plans for his next term, Trump responded with some generic mumbo-jumbo how everything will be great and what little specifics he gave were basically talking-points from his 2016-campaign.



TRUMP IS NOT A FASCIST!



Fascists have beliefs, a plan, an agenda, goals. Trump has none of these things. Trump is not a fascist.

Trump is some bored lazy-ass who pits people against each other because he enjoys watching them fight.

He just wants to watch the world burn because he thinks it's funny.

[The Magistrate]

1. Excellent Points, Sir

It rings true.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. In many ways that's what makes him dangerous

If he had ideas, those ideas could be debated. But he doesn't have ideas so it's very difficult to debate the Trump administration. He also has realized that he can't (won't) be held accountable. He can literally do whatever he wants.

I agree that he gave up on the presidency a long time ago. It's too much work to do a good job. I also think he is not well. I think that has distracted him because he probably had thought he would live forever.

So we have to hold on and be diligent and vote them all out.

[Rollo]

3. So.... Trump is an insult to fascism?

[Mike 03]

4. This post overlooks something very obvious.

Trump is surrounded by people who are none of these things, who have found someone highly susceptible to influence and easily manipulated at a time when both the interests of Trump and the interests of far right powers within the Republican party have come into perfect alignment. Authoritarianistic aims is the only hope of survival for these people, so expect them to execute authoritarian policies.

When two such entities find their goals in alignment, it is a moot point how "bored" or stupid Trump is. John Yoo isn't stupid. William Barr isn't stupid. Stephen Miller has totalitarian aims, and so do many of Trump's most prolific donors. It is a movement with tremendous money and evil ingenuity behind it.

In my opinion, people downplay the significance of what is unfolding at tremendous risk.

Listen to people like Timothy Snyder.

Check out this NYT piece:

American Catastrophe Through German Eyes

Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his ‘Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/opinion/trump-germany.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[Hugin]

11. I've offered before, the Venn diagrams of the far right and Trump overlap almost...

completely.

The far-right hates everyone who isn't exactly like them and Trump hates anyone who isn't him.

That's what makes this whole thing tick.

[Nevilledog]

30. +1

[Siwsan]

5. I don't worry about trump* nearly as much as I worry about the people manipulating him...

both domestic and foreign.

[Mike 03]

7. +1

[tanyev]

15. Yes, and all they have to do is tell him how wonderful he is.

A very easy mark.

[KG]

6. he's just a sad. stupid. man.

i see many motivations attributed to him that he really doesn't posses.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Trump is a pawn.

A very stupid, dangerous pawn.

[Hugin]

9. I posit that Old Yeller may not be...

a fascist. (An '-ist', he isn't? I'm doubtful) But, he would like to be a dictator, if he didn't have to work for it.

But, the Triumvirate of Barr, Pompeo, and Mnuchin, who have seized power and are essentially running the US in the vacuum created by a negligent and mentally unfit would-be dictator, are definitely fascists and openly so. They know that in order to enact their agenda and retain their status/power, Agent Orange needs to remain where he is. So, they're setting about installing him permanently as if not a fascist dictator at least a fascist flavored dictator.

I'll grant you with Trump the cruelty is the point. He gets bored and thinks 'Let's you and him fight' in the juvenile equivalent of a kid running his model trains into each other.

[HAB911]

10. Correct, BUT

His followers ARE and they are using him as he uses them

TRUMPISM IS FASCISM

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

12. I still think he's enough of a fascist pig to call him a fascist pig.

But, this article agrees with you:

How fascist is Donald Trump? There’s actually a formula for that.
Grading the billionaire on the 11 attributes of fascism.

Fascism was born in Italy during World War I and came to power with the ex-journalist and war veteran Benito Mussolini in 1922. Since the 1950s, dozens of top historians and political scientists have put fascism, especially the Italian and German versions, under the microscope. They’ve come up with a pretty solid agreement on what it is, both as a political ideology and as a political movement, factoring in all the (sometimes contradictory) things its progenitors said as they ascended to power. As a political ideology, fascism has eight main traits. As a political movement, it has three more. So: Just how fascist is Trump? On the fascist meter, we can award him zero to four “Benitos.”

They rate him on the following:

1. Hyper-nationalism.

2. Militarism.

3. Glorification of violence and readiness to use it in politics.

4. Fetishization of youth.

5. Fetishization of masculinity.

6. Leader cult.

7. Lost-golden-age syndrome.

8. Self-definition by opposition.

9. Mass mobilization and mass party.

10. Hierarchical party structure and tendency to purge the disloyal.

11. Theatricality.

See the article for the individual scores they give.

Add all this up, and you get 26 out of a possible 44 Benitos. In the fascist derby, Trump is a loser. Even Spain’s Francisco Franco and Portugal’s António de Oliveira Salazar might score higher. While there is a strong family resemblance, and with some features an uncanny likeness, Trump doesn’t fit the profile so well on those points where the use of violence is required. Projecting an air of menace at rallies, uttering ambiguous calls for assassinations, tacitly endorsing the roughing-up of protesters, urging the killing of terrorists’ families and whatever else Trump does — while shocking by the standards of American politics — fall far short of the genuinely murderous violence endorsed and unleashed by authentic fascists.

In a more nuanced approach, we might weight the various traits of fascism differently, but it’s not obvious how best to do so. Hyper-nationalism, for example, is more consequential than the youth fetish and perhaps ought to be taken more seriously. But it is also less distinctively fascist, being common to many types of political regimes. A longer list, too, might add refinement and complexity. But Trump does not do nuance. A crude, quick and flippant assessment is what he deserves. He is semi-fascist: more fascist than any successful American politician yet, and the most dangerous threat to pluralist democracy in this country in more than a century, but — thank our stars — an amateurish imitation of the real thing.

[Silent3]

23. +1 n/t

[Blue Owl]

13. The Man-Toddler Totalitarian

n/t

[lame54]

14. Trump is rubber stamping...

A Miller/Bannon wet dream

[yardwork]

16. Trump is the puppet of fascists.

[Swede]

17. People that know him have said he is mean and vindictive.

Very dangerous in a president.

[eShirl]

18. Fascist is as fascist does. n/t

[tinrobot]

19. You forgot his huge need for revenge.

He may be bored, but, if anything, the guy is about getting back at those who did him wrong. He will burn down the country on the way out just to satisfy that need.

He will be most dangerous in the days after he loses.

[ananda]

20. It's not mutually exclusive.

Trump can be a fascist who also enjoys destroying things.

[imanamerican63]

21. Isn't that exactly what Hitler did to become a "dictator"?

He is following the path to dictatorship and from orders of Putin!

[DetlefK]

24. Yes and No. Hitler was elevated to power by others but he was a hard worker:

Hitler went into politics when he watched communist protesters in the streets of Vienna after WWI. Basically, this weird new ideology was upending the simple and straightforward imperial world-order he was accustomed to.

Hitler went to Munich and became a political activist, joining the soldier-corps that had formed in the wake of the riots in Germany after the Kaiser had stepped down after WWI. With his ability to deliver bombastic speeches, he quickly rose in the ranks of the national-socialists.

He tried to launch a coup but was imprisoned. In prison he wrote "Mein Kampf".

Afterwards, he again went into politics, this time in the Reichstag for the NSDAP. Both, the Communists and the Nazis did their best to sabotage the democratic and parliamentarian procedures whenever possible, leading to permanent filibuster and nothing got done. Meanwhile the streetfighting arm of the NSDAP, the SA, literally got into streetfights with Communists.

As the government dysfunction caused by the Nazis and Communists went on and on, the german people got angry and voted the Nazis into power. Eventually, the NSDAP won the majority and got to nominate the Chancellor. The leaders of the rabid NSDAP wanted to placate the ultra-rabid streetfighting wing of the NSDAP and made Hitler Chancellor, because they thought that this uneducated primitive nobody would be easy to manipulate.

Imagine the surprise of the NSDAP big-wigs when the anti-government hatred they had preached for years suddenly circled back and gave Hitler the perfect excuse to oust them from the NSDAP-led government.





Unlike Trump, Hitler never tried to make money of his office. He was a pure ideological extremist. Eva Braun once tried to talk him into selling commemorative post-stamps to make some money for himself on the side, but he balked at the idea, thinking that it would sully his position as Führer.

The other politicians and officers of the Third Reich were ABSOLUTELY MASSIVELY corrupt, but Hitler himself was a single-minded, focused fanatic who didn't care about money.

[imanamerican63]

25. Good points!

Thx!

[ProfessorGAC]

28. Great Post, Except...

...Goebbels did use government money to buy millions of copies of Mein Kampf.
They were given as state "gifts" to newlyweds, to elementary schools, joiners of the Hitler Youth etc.
The royalties made Hitler a very rich man.
He actually used his own money to buy that estate in Bavaria.
So, he did use his position to profit.
Other than that, I strogly agree with what you wrote.

[dawg]

22. Keep telling yourself that.

Maybe it makes some people feel better not to believe it, but Trump *is* a fascist.

Yes, he's a shitty and incompetent fascist.

But the dirtily little secret of fascism is the fact that they were almost *all* shitty and incompetent men. (Even the one with the funny mustache who had the "brilliant" idea of invading Russia and fighting a war on multiple fronts against much larger adversaries.)

[HotTeaBag]

26. I agree, he's a terrible authoritarian.

Too lazy and cowardly.

He will be more relieved than we will when he's voted out - he doesn't want to deal with the mess he made. All he wants is to go back to his previous life and criticize Biden's every step on Twitter as Joe works his ass off to fix what he himself has broken.

He'll still get the same undying admiration from his 'base' when he's no longer President - the very ones who he'll no doubt be fleecing though new 'business' ventures upon leaving office - TrumpTV will be just the beginning of the new grift.

[Grammy23]

27. In an abusive relationship, the most dangerous time for the victim is when the victim decides to

leave the relationship. tRump is a bully, abusive, especially to those he believes are weak and vulnerable. He has a track record of being abusive to wives and probably girlfriends. As we prepare for an election in November., remember that if we elect Biden, we are rejecting tRump. His hatefulness and desire for revenge seems to be escalating as polls warn of a landslide vote for Biden. He cannot tolerate the idea of being rejected, cast aside and becoming a has been.

Don’t be surprised at anything our abuser in chief does as he is facing a defeat that may be one for the record books. We are tired of his BS. Even people who voted for him last time are tired of it. So he already knows he is probably in his last days as POTUS. He also knows what he may face after the new POTUS is sworn in and he has to leave. Expect abuse, violence and retaliation against any and all who reject him. Between now and January will be the most dangerous time — for all of us.

[GeorgeGist]

29. Where anyone can grow up to be President.

Rings hollow now.

[LeftInTX]

31. He's a dumpster fire

He's a combination of authoritarian anarchism who wants to burn everything down via use of authority. Whatever that is...
He's plain old disgusting