On Tuesday, the New York Times published a long interview with Donald Trumpās former chief of staff John Kelly, who Googled an online definition of fascism before saying of his former boss:
Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, heās certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictatorsāhe has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.
Also on Tuesday, the Atlantic published a report that Trump allegedly said, āI need the kind of generals that Hitler had.ā
The revelations have dominated discussions on Fox News, and prompted two-dozen GOP senators to call for Trāhaha, just kidding.
Instead, Democrats and their supporters once again contend with a muted reaction from the media, the public, and politicians, who seem unmoved by Trumpās association with the F-word, no matter how many times Kamala Harris says āJanuary sixth.ā
One exception was Matt Drudge, the archconservative linkmonger who has been hard on Trump, who ran a photo of the FĆ¼hrer himself. This proved the rule, argued Times (and former Slate) columnist Jamelle Bouie: āgenuinely wild world where, on trump at least, matt drudge has better news judgment than most of the mainstream media.ā
Debates about Trump and fascism have been underway for a decade now, and applying the label seems unlikely to convince or motivate anyone. But the lack of alarm underlines a deeper question that doesnāt require a dictionary to engage in: Why do so few Americans, including many on the left, seem to take seriously the idea that Trump would use a second presidency to abuse the law to hurt his enemies?
Maybe itās because Democrats have studiously avoided confronting Trump about some of the most controversial, damning policy choices of his first term, or the most radical campaign promise for his second. You simply canāt make the full case against Trumpāor a compelling illustration of his fascist tendenciesāwithout talking about immigration. Immigration was the key to Trumpās rise and the source of two of his most notorious presidential debacles, the Muslim ban and the child separation policy. Blaming immigrants for national decline is a classic trope of fascist rhetoric; rounding our neighbors up by the millions for expulsion is a proposal with few historical precedents, and none of them are goodā¦
I just donāt understand how these people move through the world. Yes, itās exhausting to be plugged in, and itās totally possible to consume too much ānewsā, but how do people just not think about the wider world? I mean, Iāve got a job and a family, and I somehow manage to also be concerned about current events and global affairs.
I dunno. Maybe Iām the problem. Maybe I am crazy.š¤·
The optimist in me thinks that maybe theyāre more plugged into municipal politics or their local charities or whatever. The realist in me says some people are just broken, exhausted, working multiple jobs and struggling to keep food on the table. The cynic in me says itās the same as well off people who think of themselves as good people while wearing sweatshop clothes; itās a lot easier to not think about the wider world too carefully.
I mean, listen, I put my sweatshop pants on one leg at a time like everyone else, and I still manage to pay attention. I donāt always have the deepest understanding of stuff, but how deep do you have to dig before you understand āIāll be a dictator on day oneā is not ok?
I think most independent voters watched that and laughed. Most dictators donāt say theyāll be one.
Frankly, I think that comment is one of the more clever things trump has done. It got huge play on the Left with everyone else going ācome on, no dictator would say that.ā But because Left leaning media treated it with the same breathless urgency with which they treat his actual scary dictator-esque musings, it waters it all down.
I think this is part of why people tune out coverage of this stuff, itās hard to separate what we should actually be concerned about from the silliness.