Trump is a racist and demagogic capitalist Chief of State, but the United States is not fascist – yet.
“The principal contradiction in U.S. society remains in the alienation between labor and capital.”
Large swaths of folks from the left -- socialists, liberals, democratic socialists -- and even a sprinkling of conservatives deem Donald Trump, a fascist.
Joe Sims of the Communist Party USA said, “In the U.S., fascism is not fully formed, but it is present in the corporate boardrooms, in the mass rallies, in the online forums of Breitbart and Fox News, and in government.” One liberal journal said, “Now the Democratic Party, and, by all appearances, most independent voters in America are what stand between Donald Trump and his goal of fascist control of the United States.”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced Trump’s “fascist presidency.” “Some conservatives say Trump’s attacks against Latinos, Muslims, and blacks constitute Fascism. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it,” tweeted Max Boot, a conservative fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Trump Is a Demagogue, But Not Fascist
Often a demagogic politician such as Trump is called fascist because he won the election through bourgeois-democratic methods and his rightist policies. Trump won the election. He now leads through bourgeois-democratic practices. President Trump continues to exploit the prejudice and ignorance of the white working-class. The Donald overturned political norms; he used double meaning slogans such as “Make America great again,” and “lock her up” that sounded like political rhetoric but appealed to racists as well.
Trump’s win in 2016 remained predicated on Hillary Clinton’s deficits and her asides about the “deplorable,” white working-class, and her relationship to Barack Obama, who did nothing for white and black workers. Obama chose to rescue capitalist corporations at the expense of the working class and other lower-middle-income forces – many blacks that lost their houses.
Huey Long was a demagogue. Senator Joseph McCarthy provides an example of a demagogue, as do many of the Dixiecrats that Malcolm X so rightly railed against through his speeches and activism. George Wallace fits the criteria. When all said and done, they all are capitalists. They work on behalf of capitalists to perpetuate capitalism and spread worldwide imperialism.
“They all are capitalists.”
Yes, both Mussolini and Hitler were demagogues, but their countries’ underlying dire economic conditions made them and their administrations Fascists.
Trump is just another one of the forty-four U.S. presidents that held reign over capitalism and, after the beginning of the twentieth century, the advent of U.S. imperialism – the highest order of capitalism. They presided over state terrorism and genocide against world peoples.
Capitalism in the U.S. produces gross economic deprivations and inequalities, racism, sexism, and homophobia. Look at what Harry Truman did when he nuclear bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan. Like puppeteers, the capitalist ruling classes will, for as long as capitalism still exists, control politicians’ strings. Yes, capitalism is in crisis and rotten to the core, but not yet failed.
You will not get rid of any of these things by impeaching Trump.
What Is Fascism?
Yes, Adolph Hitler and Mussolini were both demagogic and fascist. Fascism, according to Marxist precepts, observation and study, stems from a mass movement rooted in the capitalist ruling classes, that not able to survive without it. Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler are two historical examples of such fascists.
In other words, the ruling class dictatorship can no longer rule by popular democratic ways. The principal contradiction in U.S. society remains in the alienation between labor and capital. Fascism is simply the only way to maintain capitalist rule, according to scientific socialism.
Fascist movements are historically composed of their leaders, small capitalists, low-level bureaucrats or petty-bourgeois, farmers, and the declassed lumpenproletariat. Big capital sponsors and funds the movement. Big time capitalists, along with the top-tier leaders they create, then make up Fascism’s ruling nobility.
Among the characteristics of fascists: They are fiercely nationalistic and patriotic. Criticisms are unpatriotic or treasonous. Fascists are opposed to Marxism and any left politics, from moderate to progressive. Fascism infuses suspicion about foreigners, thuggery, and exudes an adversarial mentality,
“Big capital sponsors and funds the movement.”
Organizationally, there exists an iconic leader and secretive and selective capitalists. They scrutinize your every move at the job, and at schools. Fascism is always on war footing. All levels of government need to be in the line of march. Imprisonment and execution await any person that opposes the new norm.
Economic equality is a no-no. Immigrants obtain lower status than actual citizens. Equality in gender, religion, sex, and minority rights are forbidden. Backward religious beliefs often prevail. If you are not a Christian or an affiliated Catholic, you are out of the circle. Violence creates racial inferiority and the destiny of history.
Fascism raises its ugly head without a revolution taking place. Their rule comes from the top of the anointed aristocracy. Corporate power reigns supreme. No workers’ rights exist. Wars are made mainly to create markets. Fascism is supposed to liberate survivors of these wars in foreign lands – a justification for imperialism. Art, where it does not conform to Fascist culture, is destroyed. When Fascism does appear, Antifa will not save us.
Summary
So yes, Trump is a demagogic leader with disdainful characteristics, but capitalism has not reached the point where actual fascism is the only way capitalists can rule. For now, understand that imperialism, racism, sexism, and homophobia are characteristics of capitalism. The rule of capitalist law and the capitalist form of democracy continues to exist. We, as black people, do not want to be disoriented into thinking that the U.S. and Trump are Fascist.
Dr. Ken Morgan is an activist scholar and internationalist. He can be reached at [email protected].
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