Trumpism has been revealed for what it is: a form of fascist autocracy

Ian Dunt 23 mins ago

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Trumpism has been revealed for what it is: a form of fascist autocracy

The events played out with a grim sense of inevitability. “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol,” Donald Trump told supporters outside the White House on Wednesday morning. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.” His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, called for “trial by combat”. His son, Donald Trump Jr, told non-Trump Republicans that “we’re coming for you”.

© Provided by The i A violent mob stormed the US Capitol, forcing its way into the Chamber (Photographer: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

After weeks spent fabricating lies about Joe Biden’s victory and stoking hatred towards the democratic system, they lit the fuse. A violent mob stormed the US Capitol, forcing its way into the Chamber. Elected politicians hid as their offices were invaded. Four people died. Two pipe bombs were rendered safe by law enforcement, one at the Democratic National Committee offices and one from the Republican National Committee headquarters.

Trumpism now stands revealed for what it is: a form of fascist autocracy. It is not a democratic movement, despite its claims to popular support. It aims to replace democratic processes and institutions with ‘the people’s will’, a nebulous concept which can be channelled by authoritarian leaders to mean whatever they want it to mean. In this case, it meant overruling the legitimate result of an election.

Like all fascists, Trump aimed to embed racist selectivity in the behaviour of the state. You could see this in his demand, before he even became president, that a Mexican judge be removed from a case he was involved in because of his ethnicity, or in his promise of a Muslim travel ban.

© Provided by The i Rioters carrying the Confederate flag were allowed to enter Congress almost without resistance (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)

It continued while he was in office. During the Black Lives Matter protests, Trump threatened to send the military into cities and initiated a police attack on the area around St. John’s Church in Washington. But on Wednesday, the police response to the mob was light-touch and in many cases barely visible.

Rioters carrying the Confederate flag or wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Camp Auschwitz” were allowed to enter Congress almost without resistance. The decision to eventually send in the National Guard did not come from him, but from vice-president Mike Pence, according to The New York Times. This was the racial selectivity of state violence in full modern form.

The question is no longer whether Trump is a fascist. It is about whether yesterday was the end of something, or the beginning.

© Provided by The i When Trump came to power, those who called him a fascict were branded hysterics experiencing ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ (REUTERS/Jim Bourg)

If we are lucky, it is the moment that even diehard Republicans turn on the man who has mangled the mainstream American right out of recognition. The brazen horror of it provides an opportunity for them to recognise the reality of what they have helped unleash. If so, they can help build a moral consensus against it on the right.

But this is not just a question for America. It applies in Britain and around the world.

When Trump came to power, those who called him a fascict were branded hysterics experiencing “Trump derangement syndrome”. Respectable political figures in the UK fell over themselves to praise him as a plain-speaking leader who complimented the Brexit movement.

Michael Gove conducted a fawning interview and was photographed eagerly shaking his hand. Boris Johnson called for him to be given the Nobel Peace Prize. Jacob Rees-Mogg said he “exudes confidence about his own nation… which also inspires the Brexiteers.” Nigel Farage said he was “the only current leader in the free world who has got the guts to stand up and fight for the nation state”.

Conservative commentators took to the pages of the right-wing press to normalise Trump. Douglas Murray dismissed the notion that Trump was racist, saying that “all this seems to refer to is Trump’s desire that America erect meaningful borders”. Academic and writer Matthew Goodwin proclaimed that Trump was “not a revolutionary fascist” and that “catastrophising about ‘coups’… was not helpful”.

These figures will now frantically try to isolate right-wing populism from Trumpism. The US president will be treated as a mad man, a lunatic anomaly blighting a specific moment in American history. Or he will be thrown in the box marked ‘fascism’ as if it was completely distinct from the populism which preceded it.

But that’s not right. Trump is ideological. His actions are political and they have political meaning. The events this week were not an aberration. They were not distinct from populism. They were the logical end point of it.

If this is truly to be the end of something rather than the beginning, we have to understand what they got wrong. We have to see that Trump, and the nationalist movement in general, is not some kind of robust variant on normal right-wing politics. It is a threat to libral democracy itself.

It undermines the basic principles at the foundation of the open society: the institutional separation of powers, the notion of the individual as the moral centre of political thought, the existence of shared objective facts, the principle of equality, the norms against prejudice and racism.

We have a chance now to recognise the stakes of our current era and commit to the values which defend liberal democracy. If not, this will be the beginning of something, and not the end.

Ian Dunt is Editor-at-large of Politics.co.uk. This is the first of his monthly columns for i