There's a Word for What Trumpism Is Becoming

[Nevilledog]

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David Frum
@davidfrum
Over the past few days, Trump & his supporters have moved to ever more explicit justification of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Is it time at last to use the F-word?

There’s a Word for What Trumpism Is Becoming
The relentless messaging by Trump and his supporters has inflicted a measurable wound on American democracy.
theatlantic.com
8:50 AM · Jul 13, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/theres-word-what-trumpism-becoming/619418/

“I became worse.” That’s how double impeachment changed him, Donald Trump told a conservative audience in Dallas last weekend, without a trace of a smile. This was not Trump the insult comic talking. This was the deepest Trump self. And this one time, he told the truth.

Something has changed for Trump and his movement since January 2021. You can measure the difference by looking back at the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Trump made three statements about those events over four days. He was visibly reluctant to speak negatively of the far-right groups. He praised “fine people on both sides” and spread the blame for “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.”

Trump’s evasions triggered a national uproar. As Joe Biden complained in an essay for The Atlantic at the time:

Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.

But if Trump refused to single out the far-rightists for criticism, he also refrained from praising them. Whatever he felt in his heart, he was constrained by certain political and practical realities. His non-Twitter actions as president were filtered through bureaucracies. He had to work with Republican congressional allies who worried about losing seats in Congress in the next election. He himself was still basking in the illusion of his supposedly huge victory in 2016, and hoping for a repeat in 2020. Outright endorsement of lethal extremism? That was too much for Trump in 2017. But now look where we are.

*snip*

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. What has taken Frum so long to recognize the obvious?

Many of us, myself included, had predicted the movement toward fascism since David's old friend, Bush 43 was in office. And we really turned up the volume when Trump began campaigning. Now, only now, has Frum the Wordsmith come around to what the GOP has been fomenting for decades.

[JHB]

3. It took him so long because he's been in denial that it's more than just Trump...

...and that he himself has actively aided and abetted it.

Which he's still doing, by the way.

[Midnight Writer]

6. I believe you have hit the nail on the head.

They have been building up to this for decades, now they are embarrassed by their man's loutish behavior.

The thing is, if it was a Scott Walker or a Marco Rubio pursuing the same agenda, Frum would be right on board.

[BComplex]

10. Bingo. David Frum is every bit as guilty as the worst fox cultist.

He's part of what turned the democratic party so far to the right we almost fell off a cliff, and it allowed the right to move to fascism.

[themaguffin]

16. Not sure that he didn't recognize. I think he was an early never trumper.

[Grasswire2]

2. Observe Hungary, Poland and Turkey

That's our future, unless someone can stop him.

[CrispyQ]

5. DiFi doesn't think our democracy's in any danger.

"If democracy were in jeopardy, I would want to protect it," Feinstein told Forbes' Andrew Solender. "But I don't see it being in jeopardy right now."

WTF?

[Grasswire2]

7. when is she leaving? nt

[leftieNanner]

11. She was reelected in 2018

And she has made noises about running again in 2024!!

Let's hope she doesn't. California has a chance to put a young progressive Democrat in her spot.

[Grasswire2]

12. She could leave any time. Just resign.

Seriously. How can a progressive state like California allow her to keep that seat?

[belpejic]

14. DiFi probably doesn't know what year it is nt

[lagomorph777]

17. Tell her it's 2025 and she retired a few months ago.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Yes TFG supporters are facists which is why they are so freaked out by anti-fa

[Thomas Hurt]

8. no kidding? I call it christofascism though since the evangelical right has been...

the main driving force behind our journey to a christian theocracy.

[sop]

9. Trump supporters are a violent, ignorant, uncouth, bloodthirsty rabble. They don't read Frum.

[spanone]

13. Becoming? No frum, it's already here and established.

[Hortensis]

15. Frum's been sounding the warning of rising RW extremism and

authoritarian populism for years now. But fascism is only one of several forms RW authoritarianism might take. One of the most extreme, archconservative, yes.

So it means something real when experts on this subject say we're seeing the trumpists evolving toward fascism.