Monday, March 14, 2016
It Can’t
Happen Here... Can It?
Trump’s Storm Troopers and the Possibility of
American Fascism
(Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/cc.)
Can it happen here?
That’s the question circulating now that
Donald Trump, the nativist, rabble-rousing xenophobe, and billionaire, is
threatening to capture the Republican nomination for president of the United
States -- and it’s a question that isn’t being asked only on the left.
It’s been raised by a New York Times editorial, which claimed that Trump has
brought the GOP “to the brink of fascism,” and by Republicans, ranging from neoconservative
pundit Max Boot to Virginia's centrist former Governor Jim Gilmore.
Conservative Timescolumnist Ross Douthat was reasonably typical in
a piece headlined “Is Donald Trump a Fascist?” While he allowed
that The Donald may not be Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini, he added, “It
seems fair to say that he’s closer to the ‘proto-fascist’ zone on the political
spectrum than either the average American conservative or his recent
predecessors in right-wing populism.”
For figures ranging from comic Louis C.K. to
right-wing commentator Glenn Beck, making direct Hitler-Trump comparisons has become
the fashion of the moment. I must admit, however, that “proto-fascist”
sounds about right to me. Certainly, the rise of Trump has caused many
voters to take notice -- the question being whether the real estate mogul (who
further stirred the pot recently by retweeting a quote from Italian fascist
dictator Benito Mussolini) could cobble together enough of a coalition of
nationalists, Angry White Men, “poorly educated” working-class backers, the
disaffected religious right, Islamophobes, immigrant-bashers, and others to
wield the figurative pitchforks in a march to victory in November.
If indeed Trump is a mere “proto-fascist,”
then what ingredients, if any, are still needed for the emergence of an
authentic twenty-first-century American fascist movement? To think about that question,
I recently read Richard J. Evans’ book, The Coming of
the Third Reich. It spans the era from 1871 to 1933, describing
in exquisitely painful detail the gestation and growth of the Nazi party. If
you decide to read the book, try doing what I did: in two columns in your head
draw up a list of similarities and differences between the United States today
and Weimar Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s.
In this edgy moment in America, the
similarities, of course, tend to jump out at you. As Trump repeatedly pledges
to restore American greatness, so Hitler promised to avenge Germany’s
humiliation in World War I. As Trump urges his followers, especially the white
working class, to blame their troubles on Mexican immigrants and Muslims, so
Hitler whipped up an anti-Semitic brew. As Trump -- ironically, for a
billionaire -- attacks Wall Street and corporate lobbyists for rigging the
economy and making puppets out of politicians, so Hitler railed against Wall
Street and the City of London, along with their local allies in Germany, for
burdening his country with a massive post-World War I, Versailles
Treaty-imposed reparations debt and for backing the Weimar Republic’s feckless center-right
parties. (Think: the Republican Party today.) As with Trump’s
China-bashing comments and his threats to murder the relatives of Islamist
terrorists while taking over Iraq’s oil reserves, Hitler too appealed to an
atavistic, reckless sort of ultra-nationalism.
The Second Amendment Society
But don’t forget the differences, which are
no less obvious. The United States has a long-established tradition of
democratic republicanism, which 1920s Germany did not. The economy of the
planet’s last superpower, while careening into a near-depression in 2008, is
incomparably too strong to be put in the same category as the
hyperinflation-plagued German one of that era.
There is, however, another difference between
Donald Trump of 2016 and Adolf Hitler of 1921 (when he took over the leadership
of the fledgling National Socialist German Workers Party) that overshadows the
rest. From the beginning, Hitler wielded the support of a brutal,
thuggish armed paramilitary wing, the notorious Sturmabteilung (SA), the Storm Detachment
(or storm troopers). Also known as the Brown Shirts, the SA often used violence
against its opponents in the streets of Germany’s cities, and its sheer
presence intimidated Germans across the political spectrum.
And that got me thinking. Would it be
possible for Donald Trump or some future Trump-like figure to build an armed
following of his own? Frighteningly enough, the answer is certainly: yes. And
it might not even be that hard.
Bear with me a moment here. Back in
2010, in Alexandria, Virginia, radical partisans of the Second Amendment right
to bear arms, bolstered by Virginia’s egregiously anything-goes open-carry
laws, held a Restore the Constitution Rally in Fort Hunt Park on the Potomac
River -- and they came armed. The event was, by the way,
scheduled for April 19th, the anniversary of Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of
the federal building in Oklahoma City. At the time, I lived a mile or so from
that park, and the combination of fear, anger, and disgust that such a
weapons-displaying political demonstration could happen in the virtual shadow
of the Capitol was palpable.
Admittedly, only about 50 armed people took part, though 2,000
others held an unarmed, parallel rally in Washington, D.C., where carrying
weapons is forbidden. Think about how many more might turn out today in a
country where there have already been a number of armed rallies and demonstrations by
Second Amendment activists, and in 2016, thanks to effective lobbying by the
National Rifle Association (NRA), the majority of states have enacted complete
or partial open-carry laws. Meanwhile, all 50 states now have concealed-carry
laws, meaning that pistol-packing is lawful in most public places other than
Washington, D.C.
So imagine this scenario for a moment: Donald
Trump (or a future Trump-esque demagogue) announces that he’s convening a rally
in a state where open-carry is permitted -- say, in Dallas, at the Cowboys'
AT&T Stadium -- and adds that he wants his supporters to come armed. (Trump
has loudly defended the NRA’s interpretation
of the Second Amendment during the primary season and on his website there’s a plank called
“Protecting Our Second Amendment Will Make America Great Again.”) Under Texas
law, it would be perfectly legal for his supporters in the thousands
to attend such a rally armed with semi-automatic weapons. And there, at the
podium, looking out over the crown of gun-wielding militants would be The
Donald, smiling broadly.
It doesn’t take much to imagine the instant
backlash this would engender, from near-apoplectic television talking heads to
scathing editorials in the New York Times and other newspapers
to sputtering denunciations from liberal and moderate politicians, especially
those from urban areas. But it’s also easy to imagine Trump’s vitriolic disdain
for the naysayers, while the NRA’s pet Republicans tut-tutted over Trump but
defended his right to organize such an event.
Imagine then that he repeated the event in
other stadiums in, say, Denver, Phoenix, Indianapolis, and Miami -- and then
announced that he’s establishing the Donald Trump Second Amendment Society? He
might even issue specially designed baseball caps emblazoned with the name. How
far might we then be from armed marches by the new organization in the streets
of American cities, its name, of course, soon abbreviated to the Trump SA (for
Second Amendment) Society?
To some, this may sound like an outlandish,
near-doomsday scenario. (“It can’t happen here.”) But developments in this
country in recent years suggest that the path is open to just such a
possibility, and that the question is less “if” than “when.” The groundwork is
already potentially being laid. According to thelatest report from the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC), 2015 saw a significant increase in hate groups in this
country, with militias and anti-government “patriot” groups growing last year
from 874 to 998, having fallen precipitously in the previous two. Of
these, says the SPLC, at least 276 were
anti-government “militias.” It adds: “Generally, such groups define themselves
as opposed to the ‘New World Order,’ engage in groundless conspiracy
theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.”
In early January, the nation watched in shock as a band of “dozens of
white, armed American militants stormed a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon
seeking to take a ‘hard stand’ against federal government ‘tyranny.’” The
action thrilled militia and “patriot” groups across the country, while, oddly
enough, the mainstream media was reluctant to apply the obvious word --
“terrorism” -- to this armed rebellion by political radicals led by the sons of
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. (Juliette Kayyem, a Harvard
expert on terrorism and a former assistant secretary of homeland security, was
a rare exception in writing for CNN, “The men, heavily armed,
urging others to come support their cause, and claiming somehow that, while
peaceful, they will ‘defend’ themselves whatever it takes, are -- by any
definition -- domestic terrorists.”)
The occupation was eventually suppressed, but
in the present overheated atmosphere expect other provocative actions by some
of the 200-plus militias that the SPLC has identified. Though Trump himselfexpressed mild disapproval of the Oregon
militia, calling for “law and order,” Gerald DeLemus, a co-chair of Veterans
for Trump in New Hampshire, praised the action as a “great success,”
insisting in an interviewwith Reuters that the militia’s cause
was “peaceful” and “constitutionally just.” He was later arrested “as a ‘mid-level leader’ and
organizer of a conspiracy to recruit, organize, train, and provide support to
armed men and other followers of rancher Cliven Bundy.”
Trump, of course, has repeatedly played with
fire when it comes to violence, intimidation, and the role of white
supremacists, the radical right, and others. His dog-whistle refusal to
instantly disassociate himself from David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan on the eve
of the Super Tuesday primaries in the Deep South was widely condemned even by Republican
officials. But in at least one case, an actual neo-Nazi, Matthew Heimbach, the leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party, used physical
force against protesters at a Trump rally in Louisville.
Uniquely American Fascism
However reprehensible Trump’s dalliance with
the far right may be, however disturbing the actions of figures like Heimbach,
we’re still a significant way from the birth of a true national fascist
movement, even if the Times’s Roger Cohen can already write a
column headlined “Trump’s Weimar America.”
(“Welcome to Weimar America: It’s getting restive in the beer halls. People are
sick of politics as usual. They want blunt talk. They want answers.”) As of
yet, Trump has not tried to fuse his far-right allies into a genuine movement
-- though he has started using the term “movement” -- or a party, nor has he
made any real effort to rally the country’s gun-owning right-wing militants
into his own version of the SA. And he may never do so.
Keep in mind as well that an
American-style fascist movement would hardly be a precise copy of either the
German or the Italian models, or even of the parties currently building
far-right movements in France,Hungary, Greece,
and elsewhere. Nor would it copy the proto-fascist coalition of
ultra-nationalists and religious zealots being courted by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It would undoubtedly
be a uniquely American creation.
Though Trump has managed to bring together
disparate elements of what an American fascist movement might roughly look
like, he may not, in the end, be quite the right messenger for its development,
nor may this be quite the right moment for it to fully develop. Among other
things, for such a movement and the armed militias that would go with it to
coalesce, you might need another 2007/2008-style economic meltdown, a crisis
long and profound enough for such a movement to seize the moment. In that case,
of course, it’s also possible that a Bernie Sanders-like leftist or socialist
-- or maybe Sanders himself -- would emerge to capture the ensuing political
and economic unrest in a very different manner. But in The Donald’s America,
don’t rule out the possible emergence of an even more formidable and
threatening Trump-like figure, one unburdened by his clownish persona, Trump
University, and the rest of his billionaire’s baggage.
Whether or not Donald Trump wins the
Republican nomination or is elected president, for the gathering members of his
grassroots coalition, he’s certainly shown what can, indeed, happen here.
© 2016 TomDispatch.com
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.
Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
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has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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