I have little doubt analogies linking politicians
to villains of the past are generally unfair and unwise, not only for impugning
the individual in the present, but also for minimizing and misrepresenting the
evil of the past. Lately, with the rise
of Donald Trump to the front of the GOP Presidential race, comparisons to
Hitler are popping up and more commonly the word “fascist” is used of both
Trump and his supporters.
Full disclosure, I have no love for Trump as a
potential President. His campaign has
been vulgar, insulting and crass. He
labels his opponents with insults and slurs to avoid discussion of issues and
policies. He demeans the process
itself. But more to the point, I have
little confidence that whatever his current campaign positions are, he will
follow through and not change his poistion if he is elected. If I had to choose between Trump and either
Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, I would find it difficult to vote at all.
Generally fascism is a term applied to political
figures who fit the mold of a “strong man”, recalling Benito Mussolini. It is a term tossed easily at anyone to the
right side of the political spectrum who favors strong defense, law and order,
anti-communism, nationalism and a will to be assertive in getting things
done.
I think that generalization is too broad.
One more precise definition of fascism comes from
the original fascist himself, Mussolini.
Mussolini distinguished fascism from liberal
capitalism in his 1928 autobiography:
The citizen in the
Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right
of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its
corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work
and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)
The point here is that while Italian Fascism was
opposed to communism, that was more of a matter of rivalry than principle. Where Communism favored state ownership of
industry, fascism only concerned itself with state control of industry and
allowed a degree of private ownership. But in both cases, the “collective” good
and absolute loyalty to the state were required.
Similarly, Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist
(Nazi) Party adapted fascism to Germany beginning in 1933, said:
The state should
retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by
the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of
others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will
always retain its right to control the owners of property. (Barkai 1990, pp.
26–27)
To control the owners of property is the
antithesis of freedom and free enterprise.
It should be said rather clearly that fascism and capitalism are
completely at odds, according to no less authorities that Hitler and
Mussolini. For all his flaws, I see no
evidence that Donald Trump favors government control of private industry and
opposes the capitalism that made him rich.
…political scientist Robert Paxton adds a fewelements to the overall picture of fascism:
“A form of political
behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation
or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a
massed-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but
effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties
and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints
goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
It could be said of Trump supporters that they
are “preoccupied with community decline”.
There is a “purity” strain to the Trump phenomena as well, so that those
on the right side of the political spectrum who do not support Trump are often
the targets of vitriol. Trump has been
accused of isolationist tendencies and his “make America great again”
nationalism is possibly over the top.
His insistence he can “get along” with Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan should
make the anti-establishment types who support him think twice about his ties to
the “establishment” or the “elite”.
“Internal cleansing” could be an issue for his critics in that he claims
he would move both jihadists and illegal immigrants out of the country at least
for a time.
But does that make Trump a fascist?
I think not.
As much as I hope and pray he is not the Republican nominee, I think
fascist is slur that does not apply.
Having said that, any conservative who favors
limited government, checks and balances, accountability of elected officials
and respect for the constitution ought to think long and hard about whethere
Trump understands the conservative impulse and whether he has the humility to
hold the reigns of power loosely. Those
who are rightly angry about the abuse of power in the current administration
seem to me to be most unwise in embracing a candidate whose positions are as
malleable as Trumps and who so easily resorts to crude, cruel and vicious
personal attacks on pretty much anyone who questions him.
Now this, from a Playboy interview, Trump is
quoted as saying with regards to China’s suppression of the protests at
Tiananmen Square…
“When the students
poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they
were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That
shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak …
as being spit on by the rest of the world –“
This is a man whose tongue, at the very least,
lacks principle, which leads one to believe that the rest of him lacks it as
well.
Which means if Trump is the nominee and Hillary
is his opponent, I may have no choice but to stay home. How can I in good conscience vote for either
of them if I believe in the principles this country was founded upon?
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