As my colleague Becket Adams observes, Hillary Clinton this weekend referenced fellow former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to declare that fascism may be coming to America.
Speaking at Wellesley College, Clinton warned “the idea that [fascism] can’t happen here is just old-fashioned, my friends … the demagoguery, the appeal to the crowd, the very clever use of symbols, the intimidation, verbal and physical. This is a classic pattern. There is nothing new about it; it is just different means of messages being delivered.”
Clinton and Albright (who recently wrote a silly book on fascism) are delusional.
There’s a huge difference between the historic rise of fascism abroad and that which defines America. That’s because of the two key political factors relevant to fascism: institutions and the intersection of populism and national identity.
First off, American institutions are near-unbreakable. This prevents that which inevitably always defines fascists: illegal conduct. Whether it be the destruction of democratic credibility in the Weimar Republic, Vladimir Lenin’s corralling of post-revolution political diversity, the purge of civilian technocracy in Imperial Japan, or Benito Mussolini’s co-opting of political institutions, previous fascist movements have succeeded because institutions could not hold.
As with most fascist histories, the Nazis are the best example here. Read Richard Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich, and you’ll see just how many opportunities Adolf Hitler found in face of the Weimar Republic’s exceptionally weak disposition. The absent loyalty of the state security apparatus, military included, also meant that Hitler did not face a crackdown at pivotal moments of consequence.
The exact opposite is true in the U.S.
Were, for example, President Trump to start ordering his supporters or the military to round up his political opponents, one of two things would happen. Trump’s supporters would be quickly arrested and sent to prison, or the military would ignore him. The president would then either be impeached or indicted on civil rights violations. Regardless, in failing to be able to do anything, his rule would come to an abrupt end. The sustaining ethos, by design and doctrine, of the American security apparatus is allegiance to the Constitution and the rule of law, not the president. As a political power, Trump is nothing without the democratic mandate he has earned by election.
Then, there’s the second point Clinton references: populism.
While she seems to have forgotten her own deplorable excesses of rhetoric and her own disappearing-email-disregard for legal norms, Clinton is right that “demagoguery” and “the very clever use of symbols, the intimidation, verbal and physical” are markers for fascism. But just because they are so, that doesn’t mean that Trump’s adoption of those things is fascist.
After all, Trump’s rhetorical excesses are invariably designed towards a specific policy interest rather than some grand ideological agenda. When Trump wants money for the wall, he complains about uncontrolled immigration. When he wants to defeat a political opponent, he gives them a nickname. When Trump is angry with the media, he rails against them. These things, however, do not constitute a broader effort to replace democracy with Trumpocracy. Nor are the vast majority of Trump’s supporters interested in that effort (something that more journalists would realize if they bothered talking to non-mouth-frothing Trump supporters). Most Trump fans simply believe he is governing in their interest, as was the case with Barack Obama’s rather adoring fans.
Again, contrast this with Hitler. The Nazi leader’s language was never ultimately about riling up the crowd in pursuit of a limited policy objective. Instead, it was about purifying the world under a near-psychotic interpretation of Germanic mysticism. The Jewish and Roma peoples, the mentally and physically disabled, had to die for Hitler’s satisfaction. To blur Trump’s language with that of the Nazis is to mistake the albeit misguided but narrow political opportunism of Trump’s rhetoric with the fanatical ideological ambition of Hitler’s. Hitler is the best example here but only one of all the others: The grand scale of populist nihilism has always defined fascist movements.
Put simply, considering that America is a country of immigrants bound to an identity of unity, the foundation for a broad movement of populist fascism is as absent as is the power of American institutions to restrain it.
Or, put another way, Clinton is once again wrong.
