“Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” he said, according to a commission source. “[Mike Pence] worth it.” Supporting violence is not new to Trump. is something he has done repeatedly, often in a supposedly funny tone. But the comment from January 6 is qualitatively worse, given the context: when it came so much in the midst of a real violent attack, it also helped to overthrow an attack that did little to stop it. The commission found that the president did not take any action to defend the Capitol building, failing to call the National Guard or even speak to its Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security. While de facto allowed the mob to erupt, he privately applauded the most violently declared target of the people he recognized as “our supporters.” Throughout Trump’s presidency, there has been a heated debate among experts over whether it was right to label him a “fascist.” One of the strongest counter-arguments that his political movement did not include the kind of street violence that characterized Italian and German fascism was undermined on January 6 – although some scholars still argued that the term was somewhat inaccurate. But when a leader flogs a mob to attack democracy in order to maintain its power in the stubbornness of the democratic order, then he privately refuses to stop them while supporting the murderous targets of people he claims to be his supporters, it is as difficult as any other. despite being the leader of a violent anti-democratic movement with significant parallels with interwar fascism. This does not prove that fascism is, in all respects, a perfect analogy for the Trump presidency. However, in terms of the January 6 analysis of both Trump’s behavior and the broader Democratic Party’s response to the event, yesterday’s hearing showed that the analogy can be not only apt but also enlightening.
January 6 is the culmination of a long history of fascist rhetoric
In The Anatomy of Fascism, Columbia University historian Robert Paxton sets out a fairly clear definition of a political trend: Fascism can be defined as a form of political behavior characterized by a persistent preoccupation with the decline, humiliation or victimization of the community and compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass party of devoted nationalist activists work restlessly. , but effective cooperation with the traditional elites, abandons democratic freedoms and pursues with goals of redemptive force and without moral or legal restrictions goals of internal purification and external expansion. Most of them seem to fit Trump well enough. “Persistent preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimization”? Control. “Compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity”? Control. “Unpleasant but effective collaboration with traditional elites”? Control. “Without moral or legal restrictions”? Check, check and check. A key factor missing, at least for most of Trump’s presidency, was violence. Paxton’s definition emphasizes the central position of power in fascist politics: that “a mass party of committed nationalist militants” uses “redemptive violence” to pursue “goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” However, Trump personally had long been fascinated by political violence. In a 1990 interview with Playboy, he praised the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. “When students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it up,” Trump said. “They were vicious then, they were horrible, but they put it down by force. That shows you the power of strength. “ During the 2016 campaign, Trump suggested that the “people of the second amendment” might have the right to assassinate Hillary Clinton if she won the race. He has repeatedly encouraged his supporters to attack the protesters, even offering to pay their legal fees. The dangers were obvious. During the Republican qualifiers, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned that his language could lead to mass violence: This is a man who in rallies told his supporters to basically hit the people who are in the crowd and will pay their legal fees, someone who encouraged the people in the audience to stir up anyone who gets up and says something. He does not like it. … But leaders can not say what they want, because words have consequences. They lead to actions taken by others. And when the person you support for President comes out and says things like, “Go ahead and slap them, I’ll pay your legal fee,” what do you think will happen next? During his presidency, his fascination with economic violence was repeated over and over again. In 2017, he described some of the white defenders in Charlottesville as “very good people.” During a rally in 2019, he “joked” that he was shooting immigrants at the border, to applause from the crowd. In a 2020 tweet, he used a split-era slogan to call for violence against George Floyd’s protesters (“when the looting begins, the shootings begin”). During a presidential debate with Joe Biden, Trump told the Proud Boys – an extreme right-wing militia that would later lead the Capitol attack – to “stand back and stand by.” What this record shows is that the potential for a Trump-led political movement to lead to bloodshed has always been there. The president ostensibly believed in the cleansing and redemptive power of violence. has been a feature of his thinking for years, even decades. The fact that he sometimes framed these comments as funny or even backwards after he made them is typical of marginal right-wing political movements – which often express their extreme positions with a kind of ironic tone that allows their supporters to simultaneously embrace radical ideas. , while also distancing themselves from them. The question for Trump was whether his fascination with violence would ever manifest itself in a mass movement: that he would align himself with an illegal act of violence aimed at securing his own grip on power. This, of course, happened on January 6th. But as the events unfolded, there was critical information we did not know: the extent to which Trump intended to encourage violence and how he reacted as it unfolded in real time. In the first point, committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) suggested in an interview that they had evidence that Trump’s team was in direct contact with both the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, the other militia group that led the attack. . Their proof was not presented last night. There is also some evidence that Trump’s supporters did not allow him to communicate directly with extremist groups. This makes it still difficult to assess the issue of expediency. But on the second point, the committee’s evidence is condemning. The comment on Pence’s hanging, along with his refusal to do anything to stop the violence, strongly suggests that the president was okay with the violence that continued: that he saw it as a promotion of his purpose. That is, without a doubt, a fascist.
Does the label “fascism” matter?
Like my colleague Dylan Matthews, I have long hesitated to describe Trump as a fascist. Unlike the fascists of the interwar period, Trump has not presented an ideological alternative to liberal democracy that includes the abolition of elections – in fact, he does not seem to have a coherent ideology at all. The biggest threat the Trump GOP poses to democracy is not the explicit overthrow of democracy, but its internal window – a final game much more like Jim Crow South or modern-day Hungary than Nazi Germany. There is a real concern, in my mind, that the over-focus on the interwar model may plunge us into a discussion of the definition that distracts from louder and more informative parallels. But when we talk specifically about January 6, the analogy of fascism is really useful. Events such as the 1922 Rome March or the 1923 Putsch at Beer Hall help us understand how violent attempts at seizure of power — even failed ones like Putsch — can play a role in the rise of radical right-wing movements. They help us understand the explanatory and organizational power of violence, how uniting to the detriment of others can help to establish dangerous political tendencies. And it helps us understand the possibility of a resurgence of violence, especially given the ongoing blackout by the ruling Republican Party on January 6th. One of the defining elements of the fascist rise of the interwar period is the complicity of the conservative elites – their belief that they could manipulate the fascist movements for their own ends, strengthening these movements while remaining in the lead. This is exactly how the ruling Republican Party approached Trump, even after a violent attempt to seize power that revealed how far he is willing to go to stay in power. In the middle of last night’s hearing, the Republicans’ official Twitter account in the House Justice Committee repeatedly mocked and downplayed the importance of the committee hearing – going so far as to call it “old news”: All. Old. News. – House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) June 10, 2022 It was not. Although some of the revelations had been telegraphed with heavy touches from leaks, including comments about Pence being hanged, the details had not yet been made public – and there were many revelations that were simply brand new. But the issue here is not the real inaccuracy on the part of the GOP of Parliament. It is that the official organs of the Republican Party saw their work as a cover for Trump, even when evidence emerged that …
