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When former President Donald J. Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff recently said that his former boss “fits the standard definition of a fascist,” Trump hurled insults at him, calling him a former president. ‘s right-hand man, calling him a “completely degenerate human being.” “LOWLIFE” and “Bad General”.
What Mr. Trump didn’t do, at least at first, was deny that he was, in fact, a fascist or wanted to be one.
Other politicians might find this damning accusation worth rebutting. Only when asked a few days later did he directly dismiss the idea. But over the nine years that Trump has run for or served as president, he has not shied away from using the language, history and motifs of fascism, nor has he expressed obvious concern about how it would make him appear. I have been summoning it regularly.
Presidents have pushed the limits of their power and, in some cases, openly abused it, but over the past few centuries they have so openly embraced and envied foreign dictators that they have undermined the credibility of democratic institutions at home to such an extent. No commander in chief of the United States has actively sought to harm it. Many presidents have been called dictators by their opponents, but none have been publicly accused of fascism by their chosen top advisers, who spent days in the Oval Office with them.
Mr. Trump does not use the word to describe himself, in fact, he uses it to describe his opponents, but he is undaunted by the impression it makes. He goes out of his way to portray himself as an American strongman who, if re-elected, will use the military to suppress his opponents, use the Justice Department to prosecute and imprison his enemies, and criticize news outlets he doesn’t like. has vowed to close it down. , asserting powers that his predecessors did not have, to round up and encamp or deport the millions of people in this country illegally.
He is already trying to overturn a free and fair election that his own advisers told him he lost in order to remain in power against the will of voters, something no other sitting president has ever attempted. Ta. When that didn’t work, he spread outright lies about the 2020 vote so widely that polls show he led most of his supporters to believe Biden’s victory was illegitimate and threatened the democratic system. The trust that is the key to its survival has been damaged. It also called for the “termination” of the Constitution, immediately removing President Biden from power and allowing him to take office again without holding a new election.
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