On Tuesday, the New York Times published a long interview with Donald Trumpās former chief of staff John Kelly, who Googled an online definition of fascism before saying of his former boss:
Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, heās certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictatorsāhe has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.
Also on Tuesday, the Atlantic published a report that Trump allegedly said, āI need the kind of generals that Hitler had.ā
The revelations have dominated discussions on Fox News, and prompted two-dozen GOP senators to call for Trāhaha, just kidding.
Instead, Democrats and their supporters once again contend with a muted reaction from the media, the public, and politicians, who seem unmoved by Trumpās association with the F-word, no matter how many times Kamala Harris says āJanuary sixth.ā
One exception was Matt Drudge, the archconservative linkmonger who has been hard on Trump, who ran a photo of the FĆ¼hrer himself. This proved the rule, argued Times (and former Slate) columnist Jamelle Bouie: āgenuinely wild world where, on trump at least, matt drudge has better news judgment than most of the mainstream media.ā
Debates about Trump and fascism have been underway for a decade now, and applying the label seems unlikely to convince or motivate anyone. But the lack of alarm underlines a deeper question that doesnāt require a dictionary to engage in: Why do so few Americans, including many on the left, seem to take seriously the idea that Trump would use a second presidency to abuse the law to hurt his enemies?
Maybe itās because Democrats have studiously avoided confronting Trump about some of the most controversial, damning policy choices of his first term, or the most radical campaign promise for his second. You simply canāt make the full case against Trumpāor a compelling illustration of his fascist tendenciesāwithout talking about immigration. Immigration was the key to Trumpās rise and the source of two of his most notorious presidential debacles, the Muslim ban and the child separation policy. Blaming immigrants for national decline is a classic trope of fascist rhetoric; rounding our neighbors up by the millions for expulsion is a proposal with few historical precedents, and none of them are goodā¦
I think the proposed approach would be perceived as defeatism. Voters would see one candidate saying āthe problem is too big to solveā and the other candidate offering solutions. It doesnāt help that Democratic policy is what has been making the āproblemā bigger recently.
I also think that restricting immigration (especially illegal immigration) is not inherently fascist.
Ideally, the Democrats would be unabashedly pro-immigration and advocate for solving the āproblemā by making it much easier to immigrate legally and getting those currently undocumented, documented. This would make immigrants harder to exploit, address fears of immigrants under-cutting wages, and paying more taxes and social security. That addresses all the somewhat legitimate worries I can think of; the rest of the āproblemsā I can think of are just rooted in racism and lies. Immigration has been and is a net-positive for the U.S., and a pro-immigration stance should be an easy argument to sell to voters thatās also backed up by many studies and data; including conservative think-tanks like Cato. Pro-immigration sentiments were very popular in the U.S. until this recent bout of anti-immigration propaganda. Even now, Americans hold contradictory opinions, like being pro-mass-deportation while being in favor of expanding pathways to citizenship: https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/polling-around-mass-deportation-far-more-complicated-right-wing-media-let