Is Trump a fascist?

[water505]

I'm interested in learning why anyone thinks he is.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Fascist-lite, perhaps. Trump does not have anywhere near enough brains or imagination even to comprehend actual fascist ideology. But he does show certain signs.

And, yes, fascism actually does have some serious intellectual content, though it's not the sort of thing to interest the street-level Blackshirts and Brownshirts.

The ideological component of fascism has often been neglected in favor of psychohistories of fascist leaders and morbid prose poems about national character. This is understandable, since one of the defining features of fascism is ideological syncretism. Usually, this has meant combining "socialism" with some form of nationalism, but even this minimum requires qualification. The study of fascist ideology is made even more difficult by the fact it was most systematically expressed where it had the least influence, in France and Britain. (Eatwell is not an admirer of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, but he does give him credit for producing the best thought-out fascist party-platform. The best platform so far, that is.) In any case, at the local level, fascism often had little theoretical content, beyond the privilege of beating people up with impunity. Nevertheless, fascism does have an intellectual history, and the phenomenon as a whole is not so diffuse as to defy definition.

Fascism would not have been possible without Friedrich Nietzsche. There has been no lack of anti-theistic philosophers both before and after Nietzsche, but he is almost alone in honestly facing the consequences of living in a world in which everything is permitted. Most thinkers have sought to preserve some fragment of the intellectual structure that depended from the hypothesis of the Christian God, and so they appeal to reason or history or science. Nietzsche would have none of it. If the skies are really empty, then there are no imperatives. There is, however, life, which in the case of human beings expresses itself not just as biology but as the will. Now Nietzsche, unlike Schopenhauer and unlike many of his own followers, recognized the will is itself a composite entity. It is not a primary physical force, and it is not a god. It does, however, actually exist, and its exercise is all the meaning that life can ever have.

The proposition that the meaning of life is the exercise of the will leads to two kinds of conclusions. The most obvious, and the most popular, is the cult of cruelty. Naturally, the street-fighters who normally figure in the public activities of successful fascist parties are rarely well-read in the literature of philosophical nihilism. Nevertheless, even the nihilist violence of the German SA and the Italian "squadristi" chimes with high theory. Fascism promotes ruthlessness for the same reason that it promotes conspiracy theories: for a fascist, nothing is going to happen unless some will makes it happen. One suspects this consideration is also a factor in the usual fascist suspicion of free markets.

The other conclusion to which an ontology of the will leads is the transformation of politics into art. Whole societies become instruments for the expression of the will of elites, or often of a single great individual. In fascist theory, this is all that politics ever was, no matter what purportedly disinterested purposes the ruling elites of the past believed they served. The difference that Nietzsche made was that this reality could become conscious.

Fascism is not quite coincident with the great man theory of history. Since human beings are social animals, the will is to some extent a social phenomenon. Thus, reality is an intersubjective construct, a fable that people make up amongst themselves. The construct is not entirely arbitrary. Most fascists have also posited a strong racial or biological element conditioning the way that leaders and their peoples behave. Still, even in highly racialized forms of fascism, the leader stands to the people as the will stands to the individual. Politics, then, is not an arbitrary art, but an art whereby the leader makes the unconscious will of the people explicit.

In addition to Nietzsche, the other seminal influence on fascism whom Eatwell discusses at length is Georges Sorel. Now Sorel is remembered as the chief theorist of socialist syndicalism, and like Nietzsche his thought has influenced people who are not fascist by any definition. Nevertheless, he seems to have been a primary source of the nuts-and-bolts of practical fascism, which was chiefly concerned with integrating restive populations of industrial workers into fragile national communities. (The widespread use of the word "community" to refer to classes of people who could not possibly know each other is mostly Max Weber's fault, though to me it has long carried fascist undertones. Well, that is another story.)

Sorel's socialism was of the sort that combined plans for the betterment of the masses with considerable contempt for their intelligence, indeed contempt for almost everything about them as they actually existed. Sorel believed that the masses could be integrated into a social force only through slogans and myths. Sorel's favorite myth was that of the "general strike." Actual general strikes, in which the whole of a country's organized labor force walked off the job at the same time, have been tried a few times, with mixed success. The myth of the general strike, however, is like the vision of Judgment Day. It is the goal in whose name organizers organize, it is the reason to pay union dues. It is an ultimate threat, like the strategic doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, that creates a world by defining its limits. It is not entirely dishonest; the leaders may believe it in a heuristic sense. Such subtleties, however, are not for the people they lead.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the political systems of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was precisely their use of myth and symbol. (As Salvador Dali once remarked, Nazism was essentially surrealism come to power.) The widely-bought if sparsely-read "Myth of the Twentieth Century," by the Nazi Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, seems to have used "myth" in a Sorelian sense, the myth in this case being the origin of the Aryan race in Atlantis and its leading role in later history. More generally, both the Nazi and the Italian Fascist regimes seemed to be exercises in government by grand opera. (Götterdämmerung and Don Giovanni, no doubt.)

The myths used to organize the elites were not necessarily those provided for the masses. The Nazi leadership in particular cultivated a sort of occultism (though if figures like Julius Evola are any indication, this enthusiasm was not absent from Italy, either). The people, however, were pushed with more conventional forms of nationalist xenophobia and pulled with quite prosaic promises of economic improvement and social welfare (promises on which both regimes could in large measure deliver). This difference of integrative principles was consistent with the fascist notion of society as an organic entity. Organism implies differentiation, so it was only proper that elites and masses be organized through different means.

 

[nerfhearder]

He hasn't held office yet so it's impossible to know. His campaign talk and president-elect talk haven't been consistent nor is he really very good at explaining what he means when he tweets shit.

 

[phrodeau]

I doubt that he can spell the word.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I doubt that he can spell the word.

Oh, yeah, about that . . .

 

[Conager]

He hasn't held office yet so it's impossible to know. His campaign talk and president-elect talk haven't been consistent nor is he really very good at explaining what he means when he tweets shit.

As a guy who cannot post under 140 characters on the most mundane of subjects, I really don't see how twitter is going to be an effective medium for substantive policy discussion.

Either Trump is going to have to find someplace else to express himself or the Twatter is going to have to let him have Presidential character-limit-override privileges.

It worked just fine for the last Administration. All they really had to say was "Those mean old Republicans won't let us do what we want to do. #partyofno #obstructionists #iwonwhyishenotking"

 

[Wrong Element]

I'm interested in learning why anyone thinks he is.

OK. From over a year ago:

As for the thread topic, let's go over some of the key elements of the Trump campaign/philosophy:


* A cult of personality, stressing his unique ability to bend others to his will
* A focus on slogans and symbols
* A pledge to restore a mythical "national greatness," combined with an objectively weird insistence that the country is currently very weak and vulnerable
* A reflexively belligerent stance towards other nations
* Scapegoating of racial and ethnic minorities


Anything vaguely German sounding about all this? I may have to do some research.

 

[phrodeau]

He isn't likely to ever allow firearms in Trump Tower.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...rackers-Trump-Tower-NYC-Police-406292065.html

 

[Conager]

He isn't likely to ever allow firearms in Trump Tower.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...rackers-Trump-Tower-NYC-Police-406292065.html

What if the guns have no triggers?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Wrong Element has nailed Obama to the wall on this one:


* A cult of personality, stressing his unique ability to bend others to his will
* A focus on slogans and symbols
* A pledge to restore a mythical "national greatness," combined with an objectively weird insistence that the country is currently very weak and vulnerable
* A reflexively belligerent stance towards other nations
* Scapegoating of [whites]

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Wrong Element has nailed Obama to the wall on this one:


* A cult of personality, stressing his unique ability to bend others to his will
* A focus on slogans and symbols
* A pledge to restore a mythical "national greatness," combined with an objectively weird insistence that the country is currently very weak and vulnerable
* A reflexively belligerent stance towards other nations
* Scapegoating of [whites]

Your idea of Fascism aint in my Fascism book.

The average family is a fascist operation.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Is Trump fascist? Seems like one to me.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The average family is a fascist operation.

Eh?

 

[domroger]

He appears more like Mussolini than Hitler ,but he has no apparent political ideology .
Shame he won't end like him ,hanging from a lamp post .

 

[KingOrfeo]

He appears more like Mussolini than Hitler ,but he has no apparent political ideology .
Shame he won't end like him ,hanging from a lamp post .

Don't give up hope!

 

[renard_ruse]

There's no such thing as "fascism" and its questionable if there ever was.

There was a political party called "Fascist" that ruled Italy from the 1920s to early 1940s, but it was a specifically Italian philosophy.

There was never any coherent international fascist movement (small f) at any time, though some people incorrectly claim that Nazi Germany was "fascist." I think the differences between Nazis and Fascists were so great, the use of a common term to describe them doesn't really make sense for a number of reasons. Beyond that a few people claim that governments in Spain, Hungary, Portugal, and perhaps a few other countries were "fascist" but that is even more of a stretch. The differences between all these governments were probably as great as any of them differed from other governments at the time. There was no certainly no overarching world "Fascist Movement" (though to be fair a few Italians proposed this early on, it never took off internationally).

One can contrast this with Communism and even other ideologies like Social Democracy, Liberalism (the classical, centrist version), and many others which did develop international organizations and institutions.

Furthermore, since the end of world war II, and particularly since the fall of the Franco and Salazar regimes in Iberia, there has been no government that any serious fairminded scholar, not motivated by political bias or hyperbole, would claim is "fascist" even if one accepts that such a thing ever did exist.

Its pretty much a fairy tale used by people across the political spectrum, but particularly those on the left, to smear and demonize opponents without any actual argument. Since it can't be defined, and probably never existed in the first place, its the perfect insult. It can't really be refuted, because it doesn't really exist.

So, no, he's not. And neither is anybody else in 2016.

 

[LadyVer]

Yes, he is.

 

[renard_ruse]

Yes, he is.

There's no such thing. How can someone be something that doesn't exist?

 

[renard_ruse]

... Trump does not have anywhere near enough brains or imagination...

That's the thinking that got him elected in the first place.

The arrogant underestimating of the man by his opponents is his greatest strength.

That's why they keep failing to defeat him, and why they will probably continue to do so.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There's no such thing. How can someone be something that doesn't exist?

Can't you see?

It's a priori knowledge...

 

[Voodoo5150]

That's the thinking that got him elected in the first place.

No, underestimating the power of stupid people to believe a demagogue got him elected. He's dumb as a post which is proven by how Taiwan and Russia have played him so far.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And yet,





Hillary could not play him...

Maybe, in time, Johnny Depp will.

 

[Liar]

Nah, just a dipshit.

 

[Voodoo5150]

Hillary could not play him...

Because Hillary's campaign wrongly believed Wisconsin and Michigan in the bag and she refused to stoop to his level during debates.

She owned the fuck out of him when she went for it though.

No convincing white males to vote her though when there's 10 years of Hillary vitriol that's been spread and the FBI director hates her guts so he keeps the e-mail bullshit fresh in people's minds.

Trump is president for one reason and one reason only. 17. 17 fucking Republican candidates at the start. Trump mouths off like he usually does and the media laps it up which gives Trump exposure far beyond his opponents. Every last one of his ridiculous statements saw airtime on national TV and online.

Pretending he was smart is just morons trying to simplify a complicated outcome to make themselves look smart for "winning."

Trump is not your sports team. He's a fucking baboon who is going to set this country back decades with his special interest cabinet appointments, his complete lack of understanding of diplomacy, and his toddler-like ability to change interests on a whim.

 

[Conager]

Because Hillary's campaign wrongly believed Wisconsin and Michigan in the bag and she refused to stoop to his level during debates.

She owned the fuck out of him when she went for it though.

No convincing white males to vote her though when there's 10 years of Hillary vitriol that's been spread and the FBI director hates her guts so he keeps the e-mail bullshit fresh in people's minds.

Trump is president for one reason and one reason only. 17. 17 fucking Republican candidates at the start. Trump mouths off like he usually does and the media laps it up which gives Trump exposure far beyond his opponents. Every last one of his ridiculous statements saw airtime on national TV and online.

Pretending he was smart is just morons trying to simplify a complicated outcome to make themselves look smart for "winning."

Trump is not your sports team. He's a fucking baboon who is going to set this country back decades with his special interest cabinet appointments, his complete lack of understanding of diplomacy, and his toddler-like ability to change interests on a whim.

Perhaps he should have appointed you to State, with your obvious gift for diplomacy.