To hear most of the media talk, President Donald Trump is a “fascist”. But do people who make this claim even know what a fascist is?
Politically speaking, fascism refers to a system of government control over the life of the individual. Economically, fascism refers to an economic system with near-total control over the economy. Under fascist economics such as those implemented by the most infamous fascists, Hitler and Mussolini, fascism refers to government control over the economy.
Government control over the economy: Doesn’t this sound a lot like the Democratic Party? Under the last Democratic president, Barack Obama, the federal government seized control over medical care (one sixth of the nation’s economy) as well as what remained of the private lending, banking and auto industries, industries that now routinely follow government orders. Under the economic system of fascism, government permits politically favorable companies to earn profits and enjoy a certain amount of liberty. But they earn and keep their profits, and exercise limited liberty, only with the permission of the government – not because those profits (or business choices) belong to them.
That sounds a whole lot more like the Democratic platform than Donald Trump’s. Granted, you will find evidence of fascism in Donald Trump’s positions and statements, as with any Republican or any politician at all who runs for office today. For example, President Trump implied in one tweet that he wanted to revoke the license of NBC for criticizing him. Now that’s fascism. But it’s also no different from what Barack Obama did with the IRS, using this powerful federal agency to throttle and ultimately destroy Tea Party groups highly critical of his administration. Granted, two fascist wrongs do not make a right. But Donald Trump will probably never implement his threat against NBC, and would surely be stopped by a Democratic media and federal court system if he tried. Barack Obama did not even have to admit his wrongdoing, and totally got away with it, as Hillary Clinton evidently gets away with hers.
The point is: We already have fascism. Under Donald Trump, we can only hope to get less of it. But to suggest that supporting Donald Trump – especially for his better points such as crushing ISIS, strengthening the military for national defense, cutting corporate taxes and cutting EPA regulations – makes you fascist is not only profoundly unfair, but patently untrue. And I aim this point at the Never Trumpers as much as the leftist Democrats, because they likewise ignore Trump’s positive points while completely evading the Democrats’ already exhibited fascism.
Psychologically speaking, fascism refers to a yearning for control – specifically, to be controlled. The original Americans and many generations after did not look to government to take care of them. For one thing, the early Americans couldn’t look to government to provide for their needs, because America was a vast colonial wilderness. Over time that changed, but for many generations most Americans wanted government intervention to be the exception, not the norm, and primarily to protect them against foreign invaders and crooks.
At least with earlier generations of Americans, their psychology (and implicit ideology) would not tolerate fascism. We even managed to get through the Great Depression without implementing full fascism, although we came closer during that period (and, earlier, in Woodrow Wilson’s presidency – look it up) than any other time before or since.
What about today’s generation of Americans? Well, you have the snowflakes. Not all young people are snowflakes, but many are, and the college campuses that parents now pay $50,000 a year or more for are certainly doing everything in their power to foster snowflakery. Government-run primary and secondary schools set the stage.
It’s hard to see how a generation of mostly snowflakes will eschew the temptation of fascism as diligently as earlier generations. Most of them seem to support Bernie Sanders, who offers more an approach of conventional socialism than fascism, as I’ve defined it. But fascism is what tends to happen when socialists get confronted with the reality of socialism – namely, the fact that government cannot create or maintain a single profitable, competent enterprise. Americans are used to having lots of things done right, thanks to the capitalism and profit-making sectors we have enjoyed for generations in the United States. Once confronted with the reality of Venezuela-like or Soviet-style socialism, I think most of these snowflakes will run for their lives.
The only problem is that their lack of self-confidence might lead them to embrace the “compromise” position of economic fascism, in place of socialism.
When and if those snowflakes do so, it won’t be Donald Trump – nor anybody like him – whom they rally around. Because Trump is not a fascist.
The progressive leftist socialists who dominate our media establishment, our entertainment establishment, our “deep state” federal and state bureaucracies, our academic establishment and much else are the real fascists.
The intellectual crime of our time? Nobody seems to realize it.
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