Trump isn't the fascist here.

[paulkienitz]

Last edited Sun Jun 22, 2025, 12:14 AM - Edit history (1)

There are lots of fascists in the Trump administration: proudly obvious cases like Noem and Miller, quieter ones like Hegseth, and probably stealth ones — maybe Vance, we can't tell because he isn't really showing his cards yet. And there are tons of obvious fascists in Congress, like MTG and Mike Lee. And there are tons of fascist Trump backers of the Musk and Thiel stripe. But Trump himself isn't the fascist. To be a fascist would require him to plan and believe in some sort of fascist system, and the only thing he plans or believes in is just "People should all treat Trump better." He's not a fascist, he's just a narcissist. He gives no shits whatever about what happens to the rest of the party, or even the country as a whole, without him. If he has a political philosophy, it's monarchist: he thinks he should be our king.

But the Republican Party as a whole is galloping toward fascism. They didn't get their fascism from Trump — they took advantage of Trump to seize the chance to implement fascism. They jumped at the chance because, without really quite letting themselves know it, it was exactly what they had been waiting for all along. It was what Dubya's crew wanted, it was what the Newt Gingrich congress wanted, it was what a lot of Reagan backers wanted, it was what Nixon's people wanted.... all the way back to Hoover, maybe even Harding, the Republican Party has been groping in this exact direction, and now they've finally seen a clear path to get there. They are often monumentally embarrassed by Trump's messy and chaotic leadership, yet most of them can't turn it down, because it's giving them exactly what they've been wanting all along. And it's what their voting base has been wanting too: for decades, all of the candidates that have brought out real enthusiasm in elections have been the ones most similar to Trump.

Trump isn't the fascist. The fascists are the rest of the Republican Party.