{"id":78330,"date":"2024-10-23T07:33:20","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T06:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=78330"},"modified":"2024-10-23T07:33:20","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T06:33:20","slug":"trump-the-fascist-threatens-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/10\/23\/trump-the-fascist-threatens-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, the fascist, threatens us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT carries an article<\/a> this morning that begins by noting that:<\/p>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It added:<\/p>\n

John Kelly, a retired four-star general who was Trump\u2019s homeland security chief and later ran his White House, made the comments in interviews published by The New York Times late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Kelly told the newspaper the former president fit the dictionary definition of \u201cfascism\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His claim is that Trump is in the far-right area, an authoritarian, and admires people who are dictators.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Where does that leave me, given that Kamala Harris' campaign appears to be faltering? I think several reactions are appropriate.<\/p>\n

The first is outright fear. We have been here before, after all. Germany elected Hitler in 1933, and things did not end well.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I just hope the world is ready for the fallout because it may well happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT carries an article this morning that begins by noting that: Donald Trump\u2019s longest-serving White House chief of staff has said the former president
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,106,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fascism","category-politics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78332,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78330\/revisions\/78332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}