Sometime in the last year I noticed the word “fascism” appearing in political commentary, conversations, and on social media. More specifically, it was being used to describe the political goals, mindset, and tendencies of President Donald Trump.
Often, in such settings, people use terms they know will upset or shock their listeners into taking their warnings and ideas seriously. I knew that Trump is an authoritarian and seems to be most comfortable with authoritarian leaders around the world. But fascist?
One immediate problem I had is that I’ve never tried to learn about fascism—both the ideology and form of government—in a serious way. So, I set out to begin to remedy my dearth of knowledge, by doing what I always do in such a situation. I ordered books from Hearts and Minds Books. I ordered two books to be exact.
The first is…
The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini (1932)
It seemed only right to read the ideas of the man who is considered the first modern fascist dictator in Europe. The Doctrine of Fascism is a short work (32 pages, only 17 of which are Mussolini’s words; the rest is biography). It is drawn from speeches he had made, and his arguments are so embedded in Italian history that I couldn’t follows most of them. In essence, it is Mussolini’s attempt to show that fascism was not merely a method of government, a form of action, but a legitimate, cohesive ideology (doctrine) as well.
To discouraged and disheartened Italians who felt a radical change in government and a rebirth of culture was needed, Mussolini attracted attention and support. “His attitudes were highly theatrical, his opinions were contradictory, his facts were often wrong, and his attacks were frequently malicious and misdirected; but his words were so dramatic, his metaphors so apt and striking, his vigorous, repetitive gestures so extraordinarily effective, that he rarely failed to impose his mood.”
Here, Mussolini explains why fascists reject the notion of democratic voting, of majority rule. In his words:
Fascism trains its guns on the whole block of democratic ideologies, and rejects both their premises and their practical applications and implements. Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can be the determining factor in human society; it denies the right of numbers to govern by means of periodical consultations; it asserts the irremediable and fertile and beneficent inequality of men cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage. Democratic regimes may be described as those under which the people are, from time to time, deluded into the belief that they exercise sovereignty, while all the time real sovereignty resides in and is exercised by other and sometimes irresponsible and secret forces. Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical, and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant.
And so, fascism aggressively rejects and actively seeks to undermine democracy. Fascism wants an authoritarian leader who intimately knows the nation, its past, its true assumptions, values, and enemies—including those enemies “within”—who is manly enough to lead the nation and its true citizenry into a better future.
The second book is:
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley (2018).
Dr. Stanley is professor of philosophy at Yale and the child of refugees of World War 2 Europe. How Fascism Works is his attempt to identify the core or central aspects of fascist thought and behavior so they can be recognized and resisted. To illustrate what he is referring to, Stanley looks at politicians, regimes, and governments in history around the world. This can give the impression that fascist tendencies are everywhere, and though there may be some truth in that, his examples seem to be to help the reader identify aspects of fascism rather than to suggest fascism is an immediate danger everywhere. Stanley, a knowledgeable scholar is also a good writer, able to explain aspects of fascist political ideology and behavior clearly. And he does a good job explaining how these core tendencies are dangerous, opening the door to authoritarian rule and the eventual destruction of democracy and erosion of freedom. In his Introduction, Stanley summarizes his understanding of fascism:
The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division. It aims to separate a population into an “us” and a “them” … appealing to ethnic, religious, or racial distinctions, and using this division to shape ideology and, ultimately, policy.
Fascist politicians justify their ideas by breaking down a common sense of history in creating a mythic past to support their vision for the present. They rewrite the population’s shared understanding of reality by twisting the language of ideals through propaganda and promoting anti-intellectualism, attacking universities and educational systems that might challenge their ideas. Eventually, with these techniques, fascist politics creates a state of unreality, in which conspiracy theories and fake news replace reasoned debate.
As the common understanding of reality crumbles, fascist politics makes room for dangerous and false beliefs to take root. First, fascist ideology seeks to naturalize group difference, thereby giving the appearance of natural, scientific support for a hierarchy of human worth. When social rankings and divisions solidify fear fills in for understanding between groups. Any progress for a minority group stokes feelings of victimhood among the dominant population. Law and order politics has mass appeal, casting “us” as lawful citizens and “them,” by contrast, as lawless criminals whose behavior poses an existential threat to the manhood of the nation. Sexual anxiety is also typical of fascist politics…
As the fear of “them” grows, “we” come to represent everything virtuous. “We” live in the rural heartland, where the pure values and traditions of the nation still miraculously exist despite the threat of cosmopolitanism from the nation’s cities, alongside the hordes of minorities who live there, emboldened by liberal tolerance. “We” are hardworking… “They” are lazy… [p. xxx-xxxi]
All of this information from these two books about fascism is helpful, but it is far from sufficient to allow me to answer the question whether Trump leans in that direction. This much insight into the ideology of authoritarian fascism, however, does reveal why the people of God must resist these political ideas and practices.
Division, for example, “the most telling symptom of fascist politics,” is antithetical to the values of God’s kingdom. Christ has, instead, “given us the ministry of reconciliation” in a divided world (2 Corinthians 5:18). The biblical motif of division—the tower of Babel—involved judgement, not freedom.
Leaders who stoke fear in people are not of God (Romans 8:15), who does not give a spirit of fear.
To whatever extent “politics creates a state of unreality, in which conspiracy theories and fake news replace reasoned debate,” those who follow the one who declared himself to be the truth must actively stand against it.
A desire to deport undocumented workers who seek to escape violence and work to support their families is to prey upon the most vulnerable. “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)
I could go on.
And finally, an essay.
“Is it Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind” in The New York Times Magazine (October 23, 2024) tells how historian Robert Paxton has come to believe that Trumpism is, in fact, fascist.
The essay is worth reading. It covers far more than Paxton’s change of mind, but reviews the history of fascism, its characteristics, and tendencies.
Paxton, who is 92, is one of the foremost American experts on fascism and perhaps the greatest living American scholar of mid-20th-century European history… In a column for a French newspaper, republished in early 2017 in Harper’s Magazine, Paxton urged restraint. “We should hesitate before applying this most toxic of labels,” he warned. Paxton acknowledged that Trump’s “scowl” and his “jutting jaw” recalled “Mussolini’s absurd theatrics,” and that Trump was fond of blaming “foreigners and despised minorities” for ‘‘national decline.’’ These, Paxton wrote, were all staples of fascism. But the word was used with such abandon—“everyone you don’t like is a fascist,” he said—that it had lost its power to illuminate… Jan. 6 proved to be a turning point… When an editor at Newsweek reached out to Paxton, he decided to publicly declare a change of mind. In a column that appeared online on Jan. 11, 2021, Paxton wrote that the invasion of the Capitol “removes my objection to the fascist label.” Trump’s “open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line,” he went on. “The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.”
It’s important to note “Is It Fascism?” shows how Paxton’s change of mind has not convinced everyone. It turns out that not all historians and political philosophers agree with him about Trump.
So, where does this leave me? Is it correct to call Trump a fascist? I suspect he has not read deeply in the massive literature of political philosophy and thought it all through carefully. He appears to be more reactionary that that. And as I demonstrated above, we do not need the label to know the call of Scripture on the followers of Jesus requires resistance. I am less concerned who is or is not, a fascist as I am that the followers of Jesus resist the authoritarian, divisive, and hateful political tendencies and policies of the Trump administration.
Photo credit: Photo by Ivan Samkov (https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-painting-on-cardboard-9643243/)
