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Title: Donald Trump and Fascism Author: Eric Chester Date: April 8, 2018 Language: en Topics: Donald Trump, fascism, The Utopian Source: Retrieved on 11th August 2021 from http://utopianmag.com/archives/tag-The%20Utopian%20Vol.%2017.4%20-%202018/donald-trump-and-fascism/ Notes: Published in The Utopian Vol. 17.4.
All too often, progressives have sought to justify their support for the
Democratic Party by claiming that Donald Trump is a fascist. Since it is
obvious that peaceful street protests continue and trade unions continue
to engage in strikes, the underlying argument for this claim can only be
that Trump has a secret plan to organize a coup in order to acquire
dictatorial powers. Needless to say, there is not a shred of evidence to
support such a conspiracy theory.
With this argument in mind, it should be helpful to provide a brief
history of how the claim that one’s opponent is a fascist has been used
to justify the lesser evil. The final section looks at how fascism, and
in particular Nazism, actually functioned under Hitler’s rule.
Hitler assumed power in January 1933. It soon became clear that he was
intent on destroying any opposition, particularly that coming from
anywhere on the Left. Thus, labelling someone as a fascist or Nazi
rapidly became a common method of belittling conservatives.
The Communist Party was the strongest force in the U. S. Left during the
1930s. It had developed a significant popular base that followed its
policy directives. Still, policy guidelines for the CP were set in
Moscow in accordance with Stalin’s latest worldview and were therefore
subject to swift and radical shifts.
By the mid-1930s, Stalin had come to the realization that Nazi Germany
represented a serious threat to the survival of the Soviet Union.
Parties adhering to the Communist International were ordered to build a
broad Popular Front against fascism. In the United States, the new line
led the Communist Party to align itself with President Franklin D.
Roosevelt and his New Deal. In 1936, Roosevelt was opposed by a
moderately conservative Republican, Alfred Landon. With Moscow’s
approval, the CP opted to spend all of its time attacking Landon,
repeatedly condemning him as a fascist. Roosevelt went on to defeat
Landon in a landslide of historic proportions. Soon after the 1936
election, the Communist Party shifted to open support for the Democratic
Party, as its militants joined liberal organizations directly tied to
the Democrats.
Of course, Landon was not a fascist and the CP’s leaders knew this.
Criticizing the Republican candidate as a fascist merely provided a
convenient rationale for the implicit argument that the current
situation was such an extreme emergency that a fundamental precept of U.
S. socialists, independence from the Democratic Party, had to be
abandoned. Trump is more conservative than Landon, but then the program
presented by mainstream Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden
falls short of the limited reforms promised by the New Deal.
The spurious use of the term ‘fascist’ during the 1936 presidential
election as a justification for lesser evil politics is a particularly
salient case from U.S. history, but the most important example arose in
Germany during the Nazi’s rise to power. Hitler was prepared to use
force to gain control of the state, but he preferred to have a veneer of
legality as a cover for his autocratic regime. In the spring of 1932,
Hitler campaigned to become Germany’s president, a powerful position in
the Weimar constitution. Although his paratroopers used force to
intimidate the populace, he still failed to be elected.
The incumbent president, Paul Hindenburg, was frail and old and had no
desire to remain in office. Hindenburg had been the Kaiser’s chief of
staff during World War I. Frightened that Hitler would win a plurality,
the German Social Democrats, the largest working class party, urged
Hindenburg to seek re-election. A loose coalition of mainstream
conservatives, centrists and social democrats came together to back
Hindenburg, ensuring his victory. Since Hitler received roughly only
one-third of the total popular vote, Hindenburg defeated Hitler by a
substantial margin.
The Social Democrats had opposed Hindenburg when he was first elected in
1925. To justify their switch, social democratic leaders insisted on the
need to support the lesser evil in 1932. In this case, categorizing the
right-wing candidate as a fascist was not just rhetoric, but a matter of
fact. Nevertheless, the strategy proved to be a total failure. Less than
a year after the election, Hindenburg named Hitler as chancellor. Within
a few weeks, Hitler used the excuse of a fire in the Reichstag to
destroy all civil liberties in Germany.
Confronted with the mortal threat posed by the Nazis, the Social
Democrats continued to believe in the system, relying on an electoral
maneuver to resolve their quandary. Only the mass action of a united
working class could have created the possibility of averting disaster.
Even in an extreme situation, lesser evil politics is both an illusion
and a snare.
So far the focus has been on the electoral arena and its pitfalls. We
need to move beyond this and look at what fascism actually was. Hitler’s
Germany remains the archetypical example, but Italy under Mussolini is
also relevant.
A fascist regime crushes any form of opposition. This means destroying
independent trade unions, banning any dissident voices in the media and
prohibiting public protests such as marches and rallies. Elections are
either suspended or rendered meaningless. Yet fascism is not just a
particularly brutal form of autocratic dictatorship. It has its roots in
a type of popular insurgency. The Nazis formed large paramilitary
organizations as they grew in strength. These militarized units, the SA
and the SS, used violence to break up meetings held by those on the
Left. The Nazis also organized elaborately choreographed mass rallies
designed to exalt Hitler as an iconic figure. Although Hitler assumed
power through a maneuver that maintained a facade of legality, the use
of force was always present. Indeed in Italy, Mussolini’s fascists took
power in a coup, with only the thinnest veneer of legality as a cover.
Fascism arose in a specific historical context, that is, a country in
total disarray. The Nazis surged in popularity after Germany had lost a
devastating world war and remained mired in the worst economic
depression in history. Unemployment was pervasive and the economy was in
shambles. Once in power, Hitler solved these economic woes by ramping up
for war. Military spending brought full employment for a while, but it
also led to another world war that led to Germany’s utter destruction.
The current situation in the United States does not approximate Germany
in the 1930s. Although the grim consequences caused by the flight of
heavy industry have led a segment of the working class in the Rust Belt
to back Trump, this is still a long way from the circumstances needed to
sustain a viable fascist movement.
Donald Trump is an opportunistic politician. A demagogue, he appeals to
the worst sentiments of a certain section of the populace. His record is
atrocious, but it is not that of a fascist. Labelling Trump as a fascist
is just a convenient excuse for progressives to support Democratic Party
candidates while avoiding the fundamental, underlying problem.
Capitalism has reached a point of no return. We either come together to
create the basis for a new society or we continue to lurch from one
crisis to another even worse one.