Fascism is not Patriotism: Why have we read a hundred times more about Joe's age than Donald's Caesarism?

https://washingtonspectator.org/fascism-is-not-patriotism/





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Growing up politically as a progressive Democrat, I never called conservative Republicans “fascist”, a) because they weren’t and b) because it sounded alarmist if not naive, the prevailing view being “only Hitler was Hitler.” That was and still is literally true…yet hopelessly dated since ignoring Donald Trump’s chesty Caesarism is now what’s truly naive. Which raises three separate though related questions: What’s the evidence that he’s an American Fascist? Should the mainstream media finally concede that should be a newsworthy part of the 2024 contest? And will branding him as one repel a small but decisive number of Independent voters to conclude, “Enough!”? There are of course avalanches of solo articles detailing Trump’s astonishing rhetoric, scandals and prosecutions. But in each instance, he belligerently “doubles down” — which by definition means there’s no depth he won’t descend to — and quickly offers up dog-ate-my-homework excuses: “It was a joke??Hillary and Joe are worse…what about Hunter?…that’s taken out of context…I never read Mein Kampf…Black prosecutors are racists!…that was A.I., not me…Trump Derangement Syndrome!…Witch Hunt!“ His calculation is apparently to isolate and disparage all criticism and indictments so they appear at worst to be aberrations and obscure how his whole is-worse-than-the-sum-of-his-parts, as if a pointillist were judged by only a few dabs of color rather than the entirely of the work. Which in Trump’s case would reveal a portrait far closer to Orban than Obama.

It’s tempting to respond to his rotating evasions with John McEnroe-worthy contempt: “You. Cannot. Be. Serious!” But in the current context of close polls and monumental stakes, mere indignation might allow him to keep escaping accountability through a combination of scandal fatigue, Trump judges, his base of delirious ideologues and credulous abettors, and GOP leaders paying tribute to Trump by shrugging off his predations. Add to that TeamTrump’s expectation that the Fourth Estate will just keep bothsides-ing every controversary due, in Molly Jong-Fast’s insight, to its “normalcy bias.” With his rants dominating coverage and polls barely budging after a year of startling news cycles, Democrats need more passionate language and memorable story lines to move the needle. Brian Klass in his best-selling Fluke, urges advocates to use “schemas… psychological tools to distill vast amounts of information into easily maintained categories.” Lincoln embraced his “rail splitter” moniker; Lenin took over Russia at the end of World War I with the penetrating slogan, “Land. Bread. Peace”; recent Republicans get it too, from Nixon’s “Silent Majority” to Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” to “Make America Great Again” and recently the rage over “Age.” What new schema could help keep Democrats on offense and the GOP on-the-ropes? One would be to portray Trump as a “fascist”, despite or perhaps because of how much of the media dismiss that truth as taboo.

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