The FT carries an article this morning that begins by noting that:
Donald Trump's longest-serving White House chief of staff has said the former president is a fascist who has spoken admiringly of Adolf Hitler and would seek to govern as a dictator, according to new reports.
It added:
John Kelly, a retired four-star general who was Trump's homeland security chief and later ran his White House, made the comments in interviews published by The New York Times late on Tuesday.
Kelly told the newspaper the former president fit the dictionary definition of “fascism”.
His claim is that Trump is in the far-right area, an authoritarian, and admires people who are dictators.
He was also convinced that Trump subscribed to ultranationalist political ideology, centralised autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, and a belief in a natural social hierarchy.
There is little to argue with in Kelly's claims. They would all seem to be rationally deduced statements based on observation of Trump's actual behaviour, with there being no reason to think any of them are wrong. He has, after all, said these things.
Where does that leave me, given that Kamala Harris' campaign appears to be faltering? I think several reactions are appropriate.
The first is outright fear. We have been here before, after all. Germany elected Hitler in 1933, and things did not end well.
The second is disbelief that the people of the USA are so willingly walking towards tyranny and the loss of their democratic rights, which may take a very long time to restore.
The third is a concern about the spillover effects. It is easy to see Farage, who fawns over Trump, as the heir apparent to Oswald Mosely.
Fourth is the broader instability that this will create when the world is in desperate need of coordinated action to tackle climate change - about which far too many remain in outright denial.
Fifth is the very real possibility of civil war in the USA, whatever happens. I suspect that there is only one outcome of this election that Trump and some of his followers are going to accept. The likelihood of violence appears to be very high.
And sixth, deep down, there is despair for all those that Trump will abuse, from women to migrants, to anyone who is poor or sick, to those who in any way do not meet the stereotype that the far-right, white, small-minded evangelical supposed Christian norm demands, which is the majority of those in the USA.
Rarely have I been so worried about an election. In this case, I see no reason to be anything but scared rigid by what might happen in the USA.
I just hope the world is ready for the fallout because it may well happen.
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Given that Joe Biden stepped down due to concerns about his health I suggest that Trumps needs looking at ..
TRUMPISNOT WELL has been trending on Twitter and I can understand why.
Similar things were said by H R McMaster his former National Security Advisor
and John Bolton another former National Security Advisor
and General Milley, former Chief of General Staff
and General Mattis former Defense Secretary.
You are right to feel afraid.
Last night a possible future Trump Secretary of State , on Newsnight, talked about credible threat. He said an American pastor had been arrested in Turkey. Trump phoned Erdogan the President of Turkey and told him to release the pastor or he ‘would ruin their economy’. The pastor was released. That sums it up. Delight in bullying.
Reason for America’s allies to be afraid.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/26/andrew-brunson-trump-turkey-threaten-sanctions
Just for clarity, the event you refer to happened in 2018, although you make a fair point.
Trump might very well win because the dream that is Neo-liberalism has failed but not enough people have woken up yet.
And yet there is not, as far as I’m aware, a great outcry and calling for it from the media. That is also a very ominous sign of the state of the powerful and the media owners in. America. Where is Murdoch in all this, and what does that also mean for the UK?
Murdoch is with Trump,of course.
And the fight over his inheritance is all about that
There are three good things about the United States. Powers are separated so this is an election for Trump to be President again, and not the whole machinery of government of legislature, executive and judiciary in one hit. Secondly, a lot of powers are devolved to the States. Thirdly, US Citizens have the right to bear arms and so can resist authoritarianism when it comes. And fourthly, Trump will have a lot of foreign policy decisions to focus on, on which he has quite a good record because he gets the nationalism that exists in other countries.
There is good reason to be afraid of both candidates in the United States in equal measure. But it’s their country, their choice.
This is massively naive when the protections in the US constitution are failing and the right to bear arms increases the likelihood of war.
As for this only being a US concern, oh come off it; that’s absurd.
Forget separation of powers.
The Supreme Court has already been captured by the Executive, and the Legislature is both split, and weak.
A nation of 350m people with a gun culture and 370m firearms is hardly stable in social terms.
None of the safeguards needed to avoid an uprising exists in the US.
“There is good reason to be afraid of both candidates in the United States in equal measure. But it’s their country, their choice.”
This is a view I hear among some disenchanted left wing Democrats. It’s a false equivalence, and is based, I believe, on deep resentment at the way the party has moved to the right, and stifled any left wing voices, since 2016 and Bernie Sanders evident popularity. Compare Labour and Corbyn: it’s the same phenomenon.
Yet to suggest that Harris is not a better choice than Trump is to ignore his outright espousal of a fascist agenda, and his increasingly obvious mental unfitness for any job with responsibility. It’s clear the US constitution has failed to protect against this particular demagogue, and the Supreme Court has been completely co-opted by the right.
I have a vote in Nevada, and have used it for Harris. It is the only sensible option, and we must hope she wins. After that, we must deal with the particular iniquities of the Democrat agenda, and its ongoing worldview that supports the likes of Netanyahu.
The right to bear arms.
An AK47 won’t be much good against a tank.
I share your concern and fear. But we have been walking into this mess for years because we have allowed our political & economic masters to dictate to us what and whom we should blame for the problems they themselves have created. They have diverted us with entertainments, tempted us with material wealth, focussed our attention on mythical threats from immigrants, the EU, “China”, small boats, communists, Corbynites, weaponised antisemitism, illuminati, cabals, wokerati, and taught us to hate those who are different. At the same time, the left has either been too busy squabbling, or has been taken over by those who simply want to wear a “left” badge while enriching themselves – the single transferable party. Hillary Clinton foolishly decided the way to win the hearts and minds of the US Magas was to call them “deplorables”. My particular tribe, evangelical Christians (and right wing Catholics), long ago persuaded themselves that they were in a binary battle, life was simple and dualistic, it was God v Satan, and the Democrats and all foreigners were on the side of Satan. Anyone who disagreed, even if they were followers of Jesus, were the anti-Christ, and thrown out into the darkness. So the Jan 6th insurrection was sold as “jihad” and lots of ordinary people bought into the lies and marched on Congress. In the UK it’s been done differently, because we “don’t do God” in politics here. But the first stage has been completed, with the total corruption of Labour, and the effective destruction of the Conservatives. Labour is well on the way to disaster, Starmer has total control of the party and not a clue how to run a country. Here in the UK, I despair at the blindness of many of my more evangelical Christian friends – not as bad as in the USA, but almost totally convinced by the arguments of the cynical cross-waving right. I’ve had many difficult conversations about Israel/Palestine. On the omnibus, its either MMT or the horrors of the Middle East, and I find the basic ignorance and misinformation very depressing. If I am honest, I don’t think the West is going to solve this. Our day is over. The answers if there are any, will come the global south and far east. To end on a spiritual note, my encouragement and faith are bolstered when I listen to the Christians from the Middle East, from Palestine, from the rapidly growing underground church, in Iran, from evangelicals & Copts working together in Egypt, from Lebanon, where churches model how to love your enemy. They face incredible challenges, constant violence, with minimal resources, but they refuse to hate, refuse to give up, insist on loving and serving their neighbours and their enemies and they reject violence.
Don’t give in to fear, Richard, this mess CAN be redeemed, and what YOU are doing is part of it.
Robertj, thanks for that and I agree there are forces that are ready to take on the rising Fascist forces and plans – the Kazan BRICS+ is where the world is turning. Is the FT telling us that?
Fascism in the Collective West has been ratcheted with every single government since the late 1970’s.
None of the ever increasing draconian Laws and laxer Regulations have been reversed!
As the ‘Opposition’ always promised to do so. Whilst they played the democratic show of ‘choice’. The pendulum of Left/Right. Republican/Democrat,Thatcher/Blair.
Now the GKD Starmer here in the U.K. to borrow a phrase :
‘They Talk Left but Walk Right’.
I don’t subscribe to the Left/Right artificial corralling of the ‘Masses’ so that they can be set against each other instead of them pulling down the Top and taking the equitability that is the right of every human.
Fascism isnt just arriving unexpectedly now this century, with the arrival of Drumpff on the scene.
A hundred years ago it came also from the backing of the Great industrialists and Bankers of the Anglo Europeans wherever they had their dynasties; from Rome to Delaware via the ancient City’s and the Aristocracy of European monarchists. All were great admirers and supporters of Mussolini and Hitler.
They revelled in the new supremacist ideology and putting down of the ‘revolutionary’ peasants as they arose within their nations.
They gave it another name then to rally under – Nazism.
They started the wars to destroy the communism that had usurped their old hierarchies and inspired their own peasants and settlers vile classes.
As to your reminder of never ending bullshittery of Blair
The man who ‘Doesn’t do God’ then converted to Catholicism put on white robes to baptise Murdochs latest born in the river Jordan !
The whole war on a word – terror – was aimed at a religious motif as the war aginst communism was in the previous century.
So here we are seeing and supporting the mass daily murder of innocents in The Levant ; Destruction of villages and towns and ancient cities in the Lebanon, Tyre next.
They have another name for it now Zionism.
Schools, hospitals all civilian infrastructure etc. by European Settler Colonialism of that geography.
Having installed the Illegal Apartheid Entity on the natives of that ancient land with the intention of expanding it like a cancer. Which the Ziofascist set about gleefully by genociding the real Semitic natives of.
That was done by us! in our name, by our forefathers knowingly or not.
We are equally doing it now. Our bombs that are being used to burn and blow up people and children daily. Our logistical daily supplies and miltary support. Our mainstream media cheering it on. Most of our politicians, our miltary, our corporations and servile workers who stand by and allow that to happen daily – that daily new hundred Guernicas of the Palestinians, Lebanese and the other ancient peoples of these lands.
Fascists’R’Us!
It’s got nowt to do with whether Drumpff wins again or not.
Brilliant points, many thanks.
It is also hugely worrying that Netanyahu favours a Trump win (for obvious reasons), and some are wondering whether Netanyahu will act against Iran at a time just before the election to swing it towards Trump.
Deeply worrying times.
Indeed the whole Trump phenomenon absolutely terrifying – echos the thirties – the bigger the lie the more it will be believed. He’s lying, we know hes lying, he knows that we know he’s lying – and thats the self fulfilling appeal in a proto fascist situation.
Trump’s unpredicatability on the international stage is also terrifying but I was also always worried that Biden was a set in stone knee jerk cold warrior – unable to think and respond flexibly or creatively – which is now being displayed in the Middle east genocide, and may yet cause WWIII around Ukraine..
All horribly true and very scary indeed. The outlines of a rolling disaster are so clear and yet so immanent that it hardly seems worthwhile to point to some of the clearest analysts of the oncoming ‘Neuordnung’ of a fascist America. However, the recent audio contributions of Timothy Snyder in his blog “Thinking About…” are the sharpest and cut right to the basis of a sociopolitical ‘new world’ trading in manipulated and manufactured fears and the threat of violent force.
Find them at his substack site – the third and final one is at https://snyder.substack.com/p/fascism-on-television?utm_campaign
If there is a Trump presidency, I give it six months at the most before he is removed by Vance using the 25th Amendment.
Vance is the real presidential candidate and far worse.
Yes, there is disaster looming from a number of directions. But as an individual, I see little I can do. Is there a way of insulating oneself and family? I can’t see how, particularly as I suspect it will become really bad very quickly for most western countries. Will the BRICS countries seek to take advantage? Of course they will.
I know of no way to ameliorate this
That is why fighting it is vital
Currently the odds on Trump are skewed in betting by massive bets ($4-5m) on Trump being placed by non-American actors. However, having Murdoch batting for you, and Musk defying electoral law to pump potentially £1bn to sway voters, I suspect the total collapse of America’s smug belief in the constitutional structure is about to implode. What worries me is that we have Starmer in charge (Sunak would be no better, Badenoch far worse) with the already hugely funded Farage pumping lies to younger age groups waiting in the wings. If Trump wins, expect funding for reform to explode and a new fascist party to rise.
Reform UK, that is.
In Reply to Robert j. I don’t really think that the problems that evangelical Christians have with Donald Trump have any resonance with people in this country. Most of us -I hope – feel deeply uncomfortable with the hi-jacking of any religion, and its moral values , which are, or should be, indistinguishable- for a blatantly political campaign. In this one respect I am with Tony Blair!! Just this one….
I agree with you Ann!
But as a co-belligerent in the battle, I’m explaining where I come from, and in a factional divisive exclusionary climate, where religion is a very significant global reality, the more we understand one another, the better. When politics tries to ignore religion, bad things happen. For example, the far right do not want us to know about Islam or understand Muslims. They just want to demonise them. They don’t want people to understand Christianity. They just want to hijack it, which is easier when people are ignorant of it and can be conned into conflating it with nationalism.
If politics is about real life, it has to grapple with the reality of people’s lives. Mutual understanding and tolerance, or better still, an embrace of difference (which the right does not want), require mutual understanding. I don’t think there is such a thing as “pure” politics. Like life, its messy.
Trump wants us divided and mutually suspicious.
He must not get his way.
So I say my piece, to foster that sort of increased understanding. I want to know what atheists, Muslims. Buddhists, Jews, agnostics, disabled people, different ethnic groups think about this stuff, because we need recruits for this cause of economic and social and climate justice drawn from EVERY part of our society.
I just think any discussion about our attitudes to the political/economic problems which confront us all-whatever our personal beliefs should take place in a sphere of rational debate.
Again, I agree with you, and do hope that my contribution was indeed a rational one. It is a rational observation to note the ways that fascists in various countries use religion to recruit supporters, and it is rational for people of faith to add their voices and knowledge to the campaign to prevent that, as we may be better placed to dissuade potential recruits to fascism than others who have less understanding of the fallacious religious arguments being selectively used by the fascists in that particular demographic.
This struggle is being carried out on many fronts. It needs many recruits, and each demographic has something to offer, whether it be an understanding of economics, culture, ethic identity, small businesses, religion, homelessness or the health service. Inclusion, not exclusion, a willingness to listen.
Perhaps I could put it as a question? If a friend of mine, is motivated to support the far right primarily because of the “Christian” arguments used by the leaders on the far right, would you welcome my efforts to change their minds, by rationally challenging the religious arguments used? It’s not a theoretical question because I encounter such people every week and spend quite a lot of time, rationally, trying to dissuade them. But if you think I should stop..?
Now that everyone else here agreed on the basics. My view is diverging, and it is as follows:
* “Germany elected Hitler in 1933”
Hitler came to power without being elected. Hitler’s party never won more than about a third of either votes or seats. The plebiscites organized by his government, nominally giving an overwhelming support for Hitler, were done in such a way that their results can hardly be trusted.
* Washington DC is already fascist : it is controlled by the owners and controllers of financialised capital. That is the state of affairs for decades, regardless of which individuals are in the White House. So, the role of any the puppets called “political leaders” is marginal. And a good illustration of it is the person who is said to be “a fascist who threatens us” all has been the President of the USA, allegedly the most powerful individual in the world between 2016 and 2020. How did it happen that we’ve somehow missed the predicted fascist disaster during that time?
* Washington DC is a war crime machine, so “White House chief of staff … a retired four-star general ” is by definition a war criminal. The said war machine parts regularly label whoever bothers them, as communist, fascist, racist, so they produce hobgoblins for the public to become swayed with fear. What makes you trust their words?
Finally, let me say something positive: Take a leaf from the outlooks of a new party in the US: the American Communist Party.
P. S. For an elaborate exposition of my view, see Gabriel Rockhill’s “Liberalism & Fascism: The Good Cop & Bad Cop of Capitalism” (it takes several minutes to read).
Not sure what your evidence is that her campaign is faltering. Here in America that’s not what we are seeing. Rather we are seeing the Republicans flooding the field with fake polls likely because their own internal polls are telling them they are losing and they need to juice the averages.