I might as well jump right into the mess I’m seeing around us.
Murder. Troops in cities. Concentration camps. Invasion of a sovereign nation. Threatened military coups. Gaslighting.
We are living in a time I never thought I would experience in our nation’s history, and it can be hard to distill outrage from the facts. I think, though, that righteous anger has a place in all this. I am infuriated. I am outraged. I am fearful. But I am not powerless. I write to our Congresspeople, and I make calls to every switchboard I can to register my fury with the powers that be, even when they act like toadies and don’t take up the mantle of their offices. I am civil – barely – because I think that merely registering a yay or nay on the things they should be doing is simply not enough.
The framers of the Constitution never in their wildest dreams imagined that despotism could become reality here; they believed in higher purpose and that the benefits of a democratic republic would stand firm. Bad actors along the way, yes… but they thought the guardrails of the Constitution provided a robust system of checks and balances that would be enough to forestall a president from seizing monarchical power and ruling as a dictator. They believed they had prevented on the front end the remotest possibility of the election of a king-like leader who would rule as an absolutist, enabled by a Cabinet or Congress, or even a Supreme Court.
But today’s situation? Let’s call it what it is: fascism.
Fascism consists of popular support of a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. (Sometimes Wikipedia does get to the essence of a concept more succinctly than might otherwise be at one’s fingertips. See: Fascism.)
So, how does this definition line up with the situation here and now?
Donald Trump has positioned himself, with the help of cronies in political and economic spheres of influence, as someone who reigns with unchecked authority. Recently, he even said that the only limit on his power was his own morality – a clear indication that he feels as though he has unstoppable, unrestrained power. His actions around the world bear witness to this, as do his domestic policy positions, aligned with Project 2025 and other far-right ideologies. He has centralized power around himself and his cult of personality.
Trump has taken extreme steps to wipe out opposition by the use of military and paramilitary force. He is sending armed forces into our cities and uses ICE in frighteningly similar ways to the Gestapo in 1930s and 1940s Germany, or the Blackshirts in Italy during the same time period. Recently, ICE has been compared without irony to ISIS. The purges we have seen at the top brass in the military contribute to his seizure of power. Trump’s intent is and has been the use of intimidation and force to eradicate opposition. He labels public dissent as a counterrevolutionary or insurrectionist threat to him, his policies, and his ability to carry out his mission to rule without restraint remains essentially unchecked. These policies may not be explicitly stated, though we are watching him become increasingly comfortable with their expression. Those who oppose him are dealt with harshly and are sometimes carried away by armed, masked, and anonymous men. He believes that there is a group, imaginary at best, called Antifa, a so-called terrorist group with the goal of overthrowing his Presidency, and has made moves to suppress this make-believe organization. He has moved to imprison the Other in crowded, unacceptable, penal colonies more akin to concentration camps than prisons or jails. He believes in mass deportation, and encourages the suspension of due process to enforce his racial and societal beliefs. He presupposes that the only people who should surround him, and, indeed, that the nation as a whole should be white and Christian. He demands absolute and unquestioned support from his followers, including those with influence in his government. He is attempting to control the dissemination of news and to oversee the eradication of liberal education.
He does not explicitly disavow a relationship with neo-Nazi groups and ideologies. And, among white Christian nationalists, he believes that the monied few are naturally those who have a right to assist him in his climb to absolutism; in his view, they are the only “winners” in society. He has moved to encourage the fawning ultra-wealthy to sit near the top of his pyramid of power. Trump believes that the middle and poverty-stricken classes of people should not have the power to influence policy, all but demands voter suppression, and gerrymanders voting districts among the states to favor Republican (particularly MAGA) candidates. He has moved to strip minorities and women of their civil rights and autonomy. He has taken away the right to affordable healthcare for millions of citizens of this country, a furtherance of cruel and punitive policies he is implementing nearly every day.
To add to this appalling mix, he is now adding the explicit overthrow of nations in the Western Hemisphere, even without the consent of Congress; the Constitution, and especially the Constitutionally-mandated separation of powers, matter little to him. He has also caused death on an unthinkable level by withdrawing aid and support from the UN and USAID, as well as more than 80 agreements and organizations around the world that he feels detract from the prestige of the United States. He believes that the Monroe Doctrine explicitly allows the United States to have total dominion over the entire Western Hemisphere. He is more than willing to use the military to overtly depose governments and to withdraw support from allies like Ukraine, leaving them to fend for themselves against tremendous odds. He seems to believe that only the largest countries of the world should have power and that they ought to have the right to overthrow governments at will to bring them under the thumb of those regimes. He admires the strongmen of other countries and conspires with them to bring about these aims. He appears to be withdrawing completely from NATO, and I suspect the UN is next. We may be heading toward war on our own soil, perhaps even against our closest neighbors and traditional allies. These allies are loudly and stridently sounding the alarm and creating new alliances to oppose the United States in all ways possible.
By these bare minimum points alone, Trump meets all the qualifications of a fascist ruler and will continue to use the reins of power to further these goals. We see it every single day.
Fascism by any other name or guise is still fascism, and we are now living in a fascist country, overrun at the top by fanatics who support nothing less than a new social and political order. We can, and we must, oppose it with every fiber of our being. If they want to label people like me as anti-fascist, then so be it. I wear that badge proudly, though I am currently unaffiliated with any group or organization except the ACLU. I am an ally to the peaceful but vocal opposition of this regime, and always will be.
Are you?
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