Is Donald Trump a Fascist

Sandy Levinson

One of the dilemmas facing constitutional analysts is trying to figure out exactly what type of threat to our constitutional order Donald Trump constitutes.  Consider (at least) four different possibilities:
1)  He is "merely" incredibly ignorant about issues of public policy, without a scintilla of experience in any truly complex organization--a family business business of his type really doesn't count--let alone experience in governance and the skill sets required of those who would govern in a reasonably "democratic" (or, for that matter, "republican") form.  2)  In addition, he is "merely" an extreme narcissist, requiring constant reinforcement of his wonderfulness and absolutely unaccepting of any possibility of imperfection.  3) In addition to 1 and 2, he is also "merely" an authoritarian in personality structure, brooking no opposition; 4) in addition to 1, 2, and 3, he is also a fascist.


Presumably, almost any reasonable person will have no trouble agreeing with the first three, since they are really incontrovertible.  Perhaps one can say that other presidents have also had at least aspects of these traits.  One might argue that truly "normal" people would not really believe they have what it takes to be President of the United States and/or would be unwilling to subject themselves to what one has to do to climb the greasy pole.  4) is something else.  We've never really had a president before of whom it might seriously be argued that he is a fascist.  Richard Nixon might be on some people's list, but one shouldn't overlook that fact that he accepted his 1960 defeat entirely gracefully and, as a matter of fact, resigned the presidency rather than put the country through the ordeal of an impeachment trial.  Nixon was a tragically flawed individual, but one must concede that he also possessed many attributes that we look to in a president.

Some people I've talked to have said that Trump basically can't be a fascist because he has no disciplined ideology at all (save self-aggrandizement, which fits narcissism to a T, but might just as easily apply to almost any politico who uses issues at hand to achieve political success and the enrichment that can accompany it).  People making this argument have compared him to "real" fascists like Mussolini or, of course, Hitler and other Nazis.  Many of them actually read books and debated ideology.  Hitler had the self-discipline to write a thoroughly evil book setting out his systematic vision of the world, which he tried to enact.  With Trump, on the other hand, one can truly believe that he has not read a book since college, if then, and we have testimony that he in no serious sense wrote the books to which his name is attached.  He is simply not a "serious" ideologue in the way that the prototypes of 20th century fascism were.  So, as already suggested by Steve Griffin, perhaps we should simply compare him to Berlusconi or some other kleptocrat.  Juan Peron has also been suggested as a prototype.  But he is usually not regarded as a fascist, just another populist strongman.

But what might be said for his in fact being a "true" fascist?  Begin with a telling statement from his Inaugural Address, with its description of a country in absolutely desperate shape.  But help is one the way, from the one man who can save us (if we think back to his acceptance speech in Cleveland).  "The oath of office I took today," Trump informed the relatively small audience in DC and those tuning in on one or another of the media, "is an oath of allegiance to all Americans."  Well, yes and no.  The actual oath of office was one of fidelity to the Constitution of the United States, which under any plausible interpretation places limits on what a president can do, even if there are endless debates about what those limits are.  As a matter of fact, for some years, I have asked my students early on in my con law course if they would favor changing the oath of office to (something like) "doing whatever I think best for the United States" or "for the American people," and, for better or worse, very few students wish to do that (or believe that these words are simply synonymous with fidelity to the Constitution unless, of course, one believes that the Constitution always allows office holders to do whatever they think best).  We can be confident that Donald Trump has spent not one moment actually thinking through the difference between fidelity to the actual oath and his paraphrase of it, but let me suggest that it is basically fascistic to assume that the Constitution allows him a basically free hand so long as he is persuaded that "the American people" want it or would benefit thereby.  But maybe not fascistic, maybe only rankly authoritarian (which is bad enough).

More linked to fascism, though, is his notion that "the people" speak with only one voice--i.e., there is no genuine argument about what "we the people" really want, at least once one separates the "real people" who show up at Trump rallies and want to jail Hillary, from the fakes who disagree with him and don't share the Trumpian/Fox News/Conway version of "reality."  As Princeton professor Jan-Werner Mueller put it in an important essay in the London Review of Books (reprinted, I think, elsewhere), the form of "populism" that Trump instantiates is basically totalitarian in that it presumes no genuine differences of opinion.  Someone has recently analogized this to the worst form of Rousseauvian "general will."  This may, of course, be a problem with all notions of "popular sovereignty" that pay insufficient attention to the extent that the demos is in fact divided rather than truly united in its views about important issues of the day (including, perhaps, who actually counts as part of the demos).

So, if one adds together a perception of a singular united people and a unique leader who can intuit what "the people want," and, in addition, one combines this with a nationalist emphasis on how one defines "the people." I think one gets fairly close to at least a 21st century version of fascism.  Think, for example, of the implications of "a total allegiance to the United States of America."  If that means an allegiance, say, to the values as instantiated in the Preamble, including "establishing justice" and "securing the blessings of liberty," sign me up.  But, of course, neither is a big theme of Donald Trump's.  He's much more into the "common defense" from a world that he views as almost unremittingly hostile to the United States and, no doubt, a form of "domestic tranquility" that translates into a police-state version of "law and order."  

I don't have a lot invested in whether or not Donald Trump is really and truly a fascist or "merely" an ignorant, narcissistic, inexperienced lout who may well be--at least according to three of the four psychiatrists with whom I've discussed this--a sociopath.  That's certainly bad enough.  That being said, it still seems to me worth at least some time trying to figure out exactly how to categorize our new President and to figure out the particular kind of threat he presents to our constitutional order.

As always, I am open to comments, but please note I am making no assumptions at all about the people who voted for Donald Trump.  I have already indicated that I regard some of them as "deplorable," but I have equally said that that does not apply to everyone who voted for him.  I have only utter contempt for Kelly Ann Conway, but she's exemplary only of a thorough-going opportunist who will literally say anything to serve her master.  What I am interested in, though, really and truly is the particular person of Donald Trump.  Does anyone, even those who voted for him in order, say, to get a conservative Supreme Court or to stave off whatever menace is thought to linked to Hillary Clinton, believe that Trump is not some combination of ignorant, inexperienced, and narcissistic.  Or is anyone willing to say that after their own reflection, he really does seem to have just that set of attributes we should want in a President, including, perhaps, the fascistic aspects?





Posted 12:49 AM by Sandy Levinson [link]