I was among those who, in the early weeks and months of 2017 refused to call Trump and his followers “fascist.” I was (and still am) so sick of the tired, now only slightly combustible, rhetoric of my ultra-Left comrades that I winced at the term. When everyone out of the Leftist Circle of Light is a “fascist” the term has lost its value. I did, however, recognize later that year how fascist the “anti-fascists” were in their fascistic attack on peaceful right-wingers who dared to assemble in Berkeley.
Even as my memoir was at the printers I was going through my personal changes, drifting, no, fleeing from the far Left to the center. I was so sick of the unreflective, entirely reflexive, political landscape of Berkeley politics in particular, and of Leftist politics in general, that I found myself constantly quoting Rodney King: “Can’t we all just get along?” But that was before MAGA culture had managed to contaminate and take over the entire right flank of US politics.
I recall how, at the time, I was holding to the center and working on dialogue with the Right wing to try to pull a few back from the brink. Specifically, I’d gotten in touch with my old friend Bozo, whose real name was Wes, but who we called “Bozo” back fifty years ago because of his long curly red hair. The name stuck, but the hair went the way of all styles. Bozo was a MAGA moderate, an old friend I’d known for nearly fifty years. So when Bozo complained his sister-in-law had called him a fascist for supporting Trump, I shared his outrage. A little. Sure MAGA was crazy, but “fascist”? Really?
Yes, really. We can quit the charade. A few MAGA zombies may eventually find their way back to real life, but now, at last, we can call things by their name. It’s not just John Kelly who’s calling Trump a “fascist,” but also Ret. General Mark Milley and Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper who are lining up behind him. Like they say, if it walks and quacks like a duck, well… now that clears things up, doesn’t it.
I really don’t like to waste time talking about fascists because, really, they aren’t worth the breath spent on calling them out. I always saw Trump for the cheap, stupid, narcissistic lying, corrupt and vile example of the USA’s worse instincts, so it’s not like I gave him the benefit of a doubt. He didn’t deserve such a benefit. But Bozo and others like him did, I thought. The naïve Evangelicals did. The poor ignorant whites of middle America did.
Or so I thought. Until now.
If people don’t understand who Donald Trump is yet, they should listen to his ex-Generals, Cabinet members, indeed, his longest-serving Chief of Staff, John Kelly. They’ve spoken clearly about the nature of this man and his project. But let’s not be, as I was in 2017, so naïve ourselves that we don’t understand why people are voting for Trump this time around. They’re voting for him because they believe his particular brand of fascism will “fix” the United States. That is, they believe in the fascist agenda. The Christians, for instance, believe Trump’s fascism will settle the problem of abortion. Trump’s followers all believe that his fascist agenda will “Make America Great Again.”
Like those supporting the Chávez/Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela, there comes a time when a simple clarification in the muck of public demagoguery is in order, to call “fascism” out by name, whether it’s “right” wing or “left.” Fascism, as Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin and Franco demonstrated in the last century, neatly includes the entire political spectrum as it fights its single laser-focused battle against the liberal democratic order. We must reach out to former opponents, as Kamala Harris is doing now on the road with Liz Cheney, to protect democracy against the increasingly more powerful opponent of fascism with its thousand monstrous faces.