by Lucy Rothe
The title of this article seems concerning, alarming, and absurd. Most people think that the United States, a country that is so big on freedom, could never be on the edge of the cliff that descends into fascism. Ever since we were kids, we’ve been taught that the United States is the land of the free. We are told that America values and fights for freedom and that a free country can never be a fascist country. Despite what we were taught as children, fascism is on our doorstep, waiting for us to open the door and let it in. There are 14 early warning signs of fascism, according to the Holocaust Museum.
The first sign is powerful and continuing nationalism, a major characteristic of the Trump Campaign. At his rallies and in his speeches, Trump claims how he wants to Make America Great Again. He has since changed that slogan to “Keep America Great” in his run for re-election. A significant amount of Trump supporters are white nationalists and white supremacists, with Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and Confederates supporting him. Trump showed his support for those supporters by calling the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists of Charlottesville “very fine people.”
The second warning sign of fascism is the disdain or neglect of human rights. This has been apparent since Trump started running for president in 2016 and continues to this day. Donald Trump supports the Uyghur concentration camps in China and won’t step in to stop the ethnic violence against Muslims. Trump also supports federal police kidnapping and illegally detaining people in Portland and threatens to send them to other major US cities. He hasn’t condemned the amount of excessive police brutality at Black Lives Matter protests and even believes that violence is justified. Trump openly defends Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a government agency that has been accused of multiple human rights abuses from detaining immigrants in cages, gassing them with chemicals, and abusing those in ICE custody.
Identification of enemies as a unifying cause has been one of the Trump campaign’s main perspectives and is the third indicator of fascism. Trump has and continues to demonize immigrants labeling them as criminals and rapists. He uses them as a scapegoat, claiming that they steal American jobs when multiple studies show that immigration doesn’t decrease job availability. In 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning citizens from returning to the United States after visiting seven Muslim countries, stopped Syrian refugees from entering the country indefinitely, and prohibited other refugees from entering for four months.
Recently, Trump has attacked the “terrorist organization Antifa” which is not an organization. Antifa stands for anti-fascist and is an ideology, not an organization. Donald Trump constantly scapegoats minorities as a way to shift the blame on problems. This behavior is very similar to what Hitler did in the late 1930s when he blamed Jewish people for Germany’s economic problems.
The next sign is supremacy of the military. This is present in America through the Commander-in-Chief using the military on peaceful protestors. President Trump continuously boasts about the strength and power of the US Military and isn’t opposed to using it against US citizens protesting.
Rampant sexism, the fifth warning sign of fascism, has been present in Trump’s behavior prior to when he was elected. He has a history of making sexually degrading and sexist comments towards women associated with him. He talked about walking into a Miss USA dressing room full of undressed teenage girls and has made concerning sexual comments about his daughter, Ivanka. He has a long history of body shaming and objectifying women, from the Access Hollywood tape to basing a woman's worth off of her body and looks.
One of the most famous characteristics of Donald Trump is his criticism of the media that speaks against him. The sixth sign of fascism is controlled mass media, which is displayed in his de-legitimization of negative media and redistribution of propaganda. President Trump is a huge supporter of Fox News, a media outlet with right-leaning bias and constant praise of the President. Fox News and another network supported by Trump, One America News Network (OAN) openly air political propaganda and conspiracy theories. One of Trump’s most known and used phrases is “Fake News” in which he labels news as fake or false, constantly aiming it at news sources that don’t display him in the most flattering light.
The seventh sign of fascism is an obsession with national security which is, once again, one of the most known stances of Donald Trump. Since his campaign began four years ago, Trump has established he is a huge supporter of national security. One of his biggest campaign promises was a border wall between the United States and Mexico which hasn’t even begun. He claims that the wall is necessary for national security concerns and to stop crime from coming into the US. Trump also condones the use of federal police and extreme force on protestors in Portland and other US Cities.
In June of 2020, he attempted to ban TikTok, an app that originated in China, for national security concerns. However, the Trump administration never considered investigating or banning American-owned apps that are suspected of data-mining and security violations, like Facebook. He has attempted to ban immigrants and people traveling for specific countries to protect national security, but this doesn’t make the nation any safer as these national security concerns are just disguised xenophobia and racism.
The entanglement of religion and government is a sign of fascism. Donald Trump supports the pro-life stance on abortion. Trump hasn’t been super open on his religious views but has made a few comments in interviews about him being a Christian. On June 1st, Donald Trump made an impromptu trip to a nearby church in Washington DC where he held up a Bible for press photos. Many people, including religious figures, have criticized this photo op and said it was definitely for attention.
The protection of corporate power and suppression of labor power are the ninth and tenth signs of fascism. Donald Trump was a businessman prior to running for president, owning real estate nationally and worldwide. Trump has advocated for tax cuts for the wealthy and takes campaign donations from major corporations, including his own company. Donald Trump doesn’t and was never interested in helping the working class, as he constantly supports corporate businesses over workers. The COVID-19 pandemic shows how little he cares about workers, with him trying to force workers back into work, even if they don’t feel safe returning. Most of the businesses he provided an economic stimulus to were major corporations that remained open the entire time, not small businesses that were actually struggling.
A disdain for intellectuals and the arts, like a lot of these signs, has become even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Donald Trump doesn’t listen to scientists and expert advisers, continually discrediting them and ignoring their advice. He constantly fires people on his team and doesn’t have any scientists or experts on panels involving science.
Trump’s obsession with crime and punishment is the twelfth warning sign of fascism. Recently, Trump passed an executive order making it a federal crime to deface government property, such as statues, buildings, and other government property. He approves of protestors being arrested and violently assaulted by police. He incessantly uses crime as a way to generalize and discriminate against large groups of people such as immigrants, Latinx people, Muslims, Black people, and more.
The thirteenth indicator of fascism is rampant cronyism and corruption, an apparent habit of the Trump Administration. President Trump is constantly firing and replacing cabinet positions which is very uncommon for a president to do. Donald Trump is suspected of colluding with Russia in regards to the 2016 election and manipulating the government of Ukraine into doing his dirty work. Multiple ex-colleagues and even family members of Donald Trump have spoken up about his corruption and the crimes he’s committed while in office.
The last and one of the most concerning early warning signs of fascism is fraudulent elections. Donald Trump, like mentioned above, has been suspected of and investigated for rigging the 2016 election with the help of Russia. Trump is trying to downplay and invalidate the results of the 2020 election by decreasing the importance of voting and suppressing voters who may vote against him. Most people suspect that Donald won’t accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses and he refuses to answer whether or not he will accept the election results. Some predict that Trump will have to be forcibly removed from office on January 20th, if he loses.
In summary, fascism is a lot closer than many of us think it is. Fascism in a country that has deemed itself as free seems like a stupid idea or ridiculous conspiracy, but it’s not. Our current presidential administration demonstrates all of the early signs of fascism, often in multiple ways. Fascism in the United States is a lot closer than a lot of us would like to admit, but we need to acknowledge it so it can be stopped. The threat of fascism is looming over us like a dark stormcloud and we need to act before it’s too late.
Comments