Trump Just Broke Through the Last Level of Neo-Fascism
Never mind his latest Twitter storm of complaints and threats. Or do mind them, because their very desperation proves that it’s dawning on the Undapper Don that his chances of staying in the White House much longer are, as the mayor of Munchkin City put it, morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably dead. He’ll see for what will probably be the first time in his life that there’s no judge he can buy (including the one he assumed he was buying, who has at least shown herself to be above mob-style corruption; hey, we’ll take it), no fixer he can bribe, no idiot cousin he can put on the payroll to fix things.
When they start writing histories of the Trump era, I think the one-line summary will be something like this: While some portion of his appeal was based on legitimate grievances of working-class people against elites, he awakened an authoritarian impulse among the citizenry that was far larger and more rabid, and more easily triggered, than most of us ever imagined.
What do I mean by neo-fascism? It’s a fairly obvious set of criteria. Here are five essential ones, though there are others: blind loyalty to a leader who’s really more of a national father figure; belief that the leader is the state; belief that opposition to the leader is opposition to the state, and thus treason; conviction (instilled or ignited by the leader) that the source of the problems facing the good wholesome ethnic majority is some Other or collection of Others who must be ostracized if not banished; agreement that the rules and constraints of democratic order are sometimes useful and should be obeyed as long as one can obey them and win, because doing so confers a certain legitimacy, but if they have to be cast aside to hold power, then cast aside they must be. These principles animate every fascist regime in human history. They are at the heart of Trumpism, and they have drawn many more adherents than I’d have thought possible in this country.
I think the writer makes some other good points in the article'
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-just-broke-last-level-085740834.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump fits nothing of a father figure. Domineering Leader for the week, maybe.
Of course I had a great Father Figure I could trust and depend on. Grandfather, too. So I had a double does!
are more. A ruling cabal may just exploit and abuse their populations, require obedience to laws and service whenever needed, but otherwise pretty much leave them to live and die as they can.
Fascism, and the relationship of followers and leaders is different. As Mussolini put it, fascism is the state, liberalism is the individual. Trump wants commitment of "my people" to him and the state, and fascist followers aggressively demand similar loyalty and conformity from others. Or else. Strongman Saddam Hussein didn't care what his people were thinking or doing as long as they didn't cross him. Trump would have his huge military parades and expect his people to turn out for huge ostentatious displays of uberloyal nationalism.
Also, fascistic leaders do typically partner with and use business/corporations as engines of wealth, but it's an uneasy relationship. Fascist dictators need business people, but they don't trust them and their fealty to the state instead of their profits.
Leaders like Putin in contrast gather a cabal of powerful criminals/business people who support them in power in a mutually beneficial partnership of predators.
Generally speaking, I guess. 
thought they could contain and use Hitler's movement and were destroyed by it.
Also, of Charles Koch's "What a mess." If he isn't afraid of all they helped cut loose, including ascendance of Christian nationalism and the "new right's" anti-globalist and intensely bigoted vision of "separate but equal" nationalism, which Trump seemingly ascribes to, he's as slow a learner as Germany's were. I'd give Bannon's "new right" intensely ethnonationalist authoritarian states no time at all to set off the biggest world war yet.
unprecedented and unimagined growth of wealth and wellbeing (albeit not distributed as it should be) and great things are well within reach, actually may force themselves on us, as they have been, if we don't destroy ourselves to stop it.
Our crisis fatigue often slides our thinking into feeling the situation is too big to fix.
But humans made it and humans need to mend it, not end it.
I hope Americans will hang in there, not just over the vaccine, but political engagement.
I keep trying to read about the future, just to nudge others out of the dark now.
Thanks for your posts. I always appreciate your perspective.
Generalissimo Donaldo Trumpo!
