We have come to the tipping point of so-called populism in the United States. It has never been an isolated phenomenon, and it is challenging other democracies from France to India. It is not really populism, but only a claim to rule on behalf of “the people.”
In reality, what has developed in America since the 1990s, gone silent after 9/11 and burst into the mainstream with the rise of a charismatic leader, Donald Trump, in the presidential campaign of 2016, is a variety of fascism.
The two-word definition of fascism is “palingenetic ultranationalism.” That is a mouthful that, broken down, refers to the ancient myth of the phoenix, the mythical bird who rises from the ashes of its previous immolation and leads a self-identified cohort of violent activists to claim all power to only its people. The last incarnation of the phoenix occurred in pre-World War II Italy and Germany, and died by fire in the burnt-out cities of Europe and Japan.
Why is it happening again now, and why is it happening here? That is a question I attempted to answer in 2017 in an article, “Fascism as Action through Time,” for an academic journal (“Terrorism and Political Violence,” vol. 29, No. 3). Fascism scholar Robert Paxton identified fascism by its actions, not as a list of traits, and I recognized in the rise of Trump as candidate and president the pattern of fascism set in motion by Mussolini and Hitler. What does that pattern tell us?
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Fascism is nationalism in its most extreme form. It is not a political philosophy and is neither “left” nor “right” in its expressions, but it co-opts existing political institutions in service to its rise to absolute power over the body politic. It uses threat, coercion and violence to instill fear in its opponents, paralyzing or assimilating any opposition. The instrument of the takeover of traditional political parties, offices, agencies and other seats of power, such as the judiciary, the media and the security forces is embodied on one man: the leader, il duce, der Fuhrer.
The leader is regarded as a miracle worker. He uses showmanship, rallies, spectacles and words to build his movement. His appeal is emotional, bordering on voyeuristic and pornographic in its promise to re-establish violently a nation purified of its polluting forces: aliens, other religions and their adherents, seditionists.
In Trumpian terms, these pollutants are illegal immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, the urban poor, intellectuals, the mainstream media, socialists and anti-fascists — or anyone who does not carry out his demands. The fascist leader always convinces his followers that he is a messiah who will rebuild a nostalgic vision of a world threatened with extinction by the forces of evil.
The goal of fascism is absolute power over the lives of those who are defined as the evil other.
The followers are imbued by the leader’s promise to “fix” the “American carnage” around them and “Make America Great Again.” Trump, like Mussolini and Hitler, speaks the language of, and to the hearts of, his loyal followers. As long as the leader can make the fixes he promises the disaffected plurality of his base, he is a godlike figure. He can do no wrong.
We got here because since at least the 1980s, a small remnant of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis converged with a large population of aberrant Christians disaffected by the civil rights movements and expecting the Apocalypse, to form a base that Donald Trump could appeal to. Charismatic leaders do not follow traditional pathways to power, but they exploit weaknesses in the bureaucratic, legal means to achieve power, and utilize them to become head of state, while not commanding a majority of the popular vote.
So what happens now? When a charismatic miracle worker can no longer work miracles, he falls far and fast. Sometimes his base turns on him. Most of his supporters find a viable alternative.
However, there will always be a residual number of religiously committed adherents of the “great man” who will cling to the lost cause, leaving embers out of which some day, given the opportunity and the conditions, the virulent pattern of fascism threatens to repeat itself.
Honolulu resident Jean E. Rosenfeld, Ph.D., is the author/editor of two academic volumes, one on history and one on political terrorism, as well as of academic articles.
