Thirteen Characteristics of Fascism

What defines fascism? I attempted to answer this by reviewing what scholars and texts on the subject (including Hannah Arendt, Umberto Eco, Jason Stanley, Lawrence Britt, Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, Robert Paxton, and the Encyclopedia Britannica) identified as the characteristics of fascism, and compiling a list. The following characteristics are the ones identified most often by these sources.

1. Misogyny and sexual anxiety

Fascist movements have highly traditional views of sex and gender. They believe women are there for “children, kitchen, and church,” and though they might exalt the feminine in the abstract, they consider them generally inferior in practice. Men are protectors and providers. This division is the natural order of things. Homosexuality threatens that natural order. It uses fears that women will be raped by “bad people” (Blacks, Jews, etc…) to appeal to the masculine code of protecting women.

In the US, Steve Bannon, editor of Breitbart and former chief strategist for Trump, has published articles alleging that there should be fewer women in science and technology fields, and that women would be better off without dishwashers and birth control (i.e. they should be staying home, doing chores, and incubating babies). Glen T. Stanton, of the highly influential evangelical Christian think-tank Focus on the Family, has echoed traditional views of sex and gender, while blaming homosexuals for declining marriage and birth rates. Ralph Drollinger, the influential leader of the Bible study group for Trump cabinet members, holds similarly traditional views on women and LGBT people.

Other academic research finds that people with traditional “masculine honor beliefs” overwhelmingly supported Trump. Data suggests that sexual anxiety is much more common in regions that supported Trump as well. One of the defining characteristics of conservative cultural wars has been the manufactured fear of transgender people in bathrooms, or of them mutilating children, in an appeal to “real” Christian men to protect women and girls.

 

2. Contempt for the poor, the weak, and human rights in general

One of the hallmarks of fascism is contempt for anyone who is not part of the group considered ubermensch. The poor, homeless, disabled, mentally ill, and people of “inferior” races are seen as drain on the resources of society, and hold no value. It is notable that the Nazis first claimed they wanted to help the homeless, but this took a dark turn quickly. They also took the Malthusian view that letting the poor starve was natural, proper and in the best interests of a healthy society. Hannah Arednt described the Nazi approach to unemployment as, “He who does not work shall not eat.”

As Lawrence Britt too observed, “The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.” Jason Stanley’s analysis concurred: “…one ‘earns’ one’s freedom by accruing wealth in struggle. Those who do not “earn” their freedoms do not deserve them.”

Trump’s base sees many of these groups in a similar light. Poverty, especially among racial minorities, is seen as a sign of laziness, sin, or personal failing. The evangelical prosperity gospel also teaches that sickness is a sign of God’s disfavor. During the 2016 election, Trump mocked a reporter for his physical disabilities while his jeering audience laughed. Unlike any other modern country, the US does not regard health care as a human right. The base is adamantly opposed to any effort to establish it as such, and opposition is getting stronger.

Columbia University has tracked many of the ways the Trump administration has attacked human rights. Trump’s administration is planning deep cuts to social services for the poor and elderly. They also appear to be scouting locations to establish federal camps to relocate homeless people to. He has urged more involuntary psychiatric commitments. The US has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council. Secretary of State Pompeo’s council on “unalienable rights” is stacked with Christian religious conservatives, and their mandate is to return a determination that only religious freedom is an “inalienable right,” and that all others defined since the end of World War II are merely “ad hoc,” including the right to food.

The administration also appears to be making preparations to deport hundreds of thousands of dreamers if they get a second term, even though this is likely to kill an extremely high percentage (~70%) of them. The child separation policy for asylum seekers and immigrants was a deliberate attempt to deter immigrants using brutal policies that resulted in permanent separations, lost and stolen children, and a spike in deaths of children in custody.

Trump’s approval among Republicans hovers around 90%, and seems to support Adam Serwer’s observation that “The cruelty is the point.”

 

3. Belief in a mythic better past followed by a descent into depravity

 

Another hallmark of fascism is the belief in a past (that usually didn’t exist) where everything was better. This past was ruined by some sinister evil force that made everything bad for all the good, real, salt-of-the-earth citizens of the country. This mythical setting usually involves a population that was homogenous and undiluted by people (Jews, Blacks, Queers, Muslims, immigrants, whatever scapegoat is needed) and liberal values (feminism, high top marginal tax rates, tolerance in general). Then decadent cosmopolitan cities wrecked everything and cast their culture into depravity. Fascism uses this narrative to urge people to reclaim that mythic past, by imposing a traditionalist moral code as law, and oppressing groups of people blamed for the fall into depravity.

Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” was undoubtedly an appeal to this narrative. Trump believed that the 40’s and 50’s were great. This isn’t spoken, but it’s a dog whistle to his southern, white evangelical base.

It hearkens back to a time before Brown v. Board of Education. Before the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. It’s a time when everyone was socially compelled to go to church, government compelled prayer was mandatory, and everyone’s religion was Christianity. It was before Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, feminism, and the ERA. It was when queers had the good sense to never come out of the closet if they knew what was good for them, and definitely before Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges. It was when over 80% of Americans were white, and segregation and redlining made sure you didn’t have to actually interact with people of color. This mythic past was also far safer (but not really).

In short, this mythic past was worse for everyone except male white southern Christians. Which brings us to a related fascist phenomenon:

4. Anti-egalitarian and xenophobic fear of changes in the social ordering

Uberto Eco noted that “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” Fascism feeds into xenophobic fears, stokes them, and moves people to action that would otherwise (hopefully) be unthinkable. One of the easiest fears to stoke is that of being replaced or displaced as a member of the highest caste in society. Being “Aryan,” “Brahmin,” etc. made you special and put you at the top of the social order.

Similarly, being white and evangelical put you at the top of the social order in the 1950s, and a fascist ideology exploits that. As President Lyndon Johnson described it, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” It’s little wonder that Jim Crow laws served as the template for German anti-Semitic laws of the 1930’s. Nor that racist views and anti-immigrant beliefs were one of the strongest predictors of support for Trump.

Trump’s base is deeply fearful of losing their privileged status, as was described in great detail in Robert P. Jones’ book, “The End of White Christian America.” Other studies have shown that fear of demographic change was one of the most significant factors motivating people to vote for Trump, and that a social dominance orientation was associated with voting for him.

The push to make “religious freedom” the most important, singular, universal human right above all others is an attempt to undercut laws that would level the social playing field for LGBT people, women, and religions other than some form of evangelical Christianity. They attempted to use the same arguments with race in the past. It is also why civil rights legislation of any sort cannot seem to move through the Republican-controlled Senate, including the Violence Against Women Act.

Trump and his media proxies have fed on these fears. Trump’s speeches paint lurid tales of immigrants raping and gruesomely murdering (mostly white) Americans. His proxies in the media, such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson, repeat these stories, while more explicitly feeding racist fears of replacement: Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants.”

5. Religion and Government intertwined

Emilio Gentile wrote extensively about “political religion” and its role in fascism. His main area of expertise is Italian fascism, and he writes about the subject from that perspective. He observed that political religion in a fascist system is:

“The essential characteristic distinguishing ‘political religion’ from ‘civil religion’ is the extremist and exclusive nature of its historical mission…”

In Germany, the Nazis unsuccessfully tried to co-opt protestant religions in the country and had a contentious (at best) relationship with the Catholic Church. While some protestant churches in Germany embraced the hybrid Nazi theology, it was far from universal.

In the US, white evangelical Protestantism has been more than happy to become one of the most influential aspects of the Trump administration and the GOP. They see themselves as the only ones capable of “Making America Great Again” via a religious renewal. Their religion rejects cosmopolitan beliefs and is aligned with the GOP efforts to create single-party rule. They accept violence against abortion clinics and providers, as well as against migrants and asylum-seekers, as scripturally justified. They regard Trump as their King Cyrus, sent by God to aid the righteous and regenerate America. Trump, for his part, revels in being fawned and prayed over like some sort of God-king. They scorn any religion that dares disagree with the Trump administration, casting a wary eye at Catholic and Papal disagreement with the Administration’s treatment of immigrants, but are willing to coexist (for now) based on shared animus for abortion and LGBT people. They believe liberal churches, “deserve to die.”

Compulsory religious participation (well, their brand of religion) is one of their greatest goals. Project Blitz has developed a complete legislative strategy to tear down the wall between the separation of (their) church and state. Drollinger has openly called for Trump to create a “benevolent” dictatorship guided by Christian laws. Trump, for his part, has effectively blocked the IRS from enforcing the Johnson Amendment (which forbids all charities, including churches, from endorsing candidates or giving them money), packed the court with judges who will take a more Scalian view of using religion to create law, and allow them to ignore federal civil rights laws (while taking federal money) at the expense of LGBT people, Jews, and Catholics.

Lawrence Britt noted that “The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug,” and this holds true for the relationship between white evangelicals and Trump as well. It has contributed to a public perception of hypocrisy, though. Others have noted this fascist relationship between religion and government, and attributed it to sadism in Trump’s evangelical supporters (which isn’t off the mark, either).

At this point, white evangelical religion is essentially synonymous with being a Trump-supporting conservative, to the point where it is driving other brands of Protestantism out of business. It has become, de facto, the state religion in a one-party authoritarian state, and it is difficult to tell where white evangelical religious beliefs stop and where Trumpian views begin.

 

6. Rejection of expertise and anti-intellectualism

Fascist movements tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education. Any politically unacceptable ideas that come from universities are met with extreme hostility. Studies centered on humanities and the arts are seen as useless, or actively harmful. For example, one of the first acts of the Nazis when they took power was to storm and burn Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Science).  Hungary’s Victor Orban has led a crusade against liberal higher education, particularly women’s and gender studies.

Thirty years ago, people with college degrees were roughly evenly split between the Republicans and Democrats.  Today, a wide-majority of Americans with college degrees are democratic leaning voters. During the 2016 primaries, Trump was the overwhelming favorite of Republicans without college degrees. He was the candidate for the least educated people in the least educated party.

This appeal was deliberate. Both Trump and his supporters showed a broadly anti-intellectual streak. He exclaimed, “I love the poorly educated,” at a rally and cited himself as his top foreign policy advisor because “I have a good brain.” The language used in Trump’s speeches is very simple, clocking in at a third or fourth grade level of comprehension. Umberto Eco saw “newspeak” and “impoverished vocabulary” as a sign of fascist movements as well.

This broad anti-intellectualism also translates into a Republican disdain for universities. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans see universities as having a negative overall effect on the US. In this same polling sample, Democrats considered the biggest problem with higher education to be high costs.

The majority of Republicans believe that professors indoctrinate students with liberal ideas, and that students are not getting the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. They consider these issues, and their belief that students are being protected from (presumably conservative) views they might find offensive, as the biggest problems with higher education.

When these Republican respondents bemoan the lack of work skills being taught, in reality they are espousing a belief that the Arts, Humanities, and philosophy-based critical thinking have no value.

In response to their perceived attack of higher education on conservative values, these conservatives have launched efforts to discredited institutions of higher learning. They have manufactured repeated, baseless accusations that colleges are suppressing free speech. Turning Point USA, an ultra-conservative and antagonistic group for college students, compiled a “Professor Watchlist” to call out liberal professors who cross them. President Trump even issued an executive order to address this non-existent crisis of suppressing conservative ideas, while conservative outlets pushed him to go even further.

This anti-intellectualism leads to a distrust of science and expertise that has been growing for decades. Republicans reject any research that contradicts their views on the environment, guns, LGBT people, or economics. Indeed, Republicans who accept anthropogenic climate change, and the need to take action to slow it, are treated as heretics and get voted off the island. This has stifled or shut down many government researchers and policy makers, particularly those working on environmental or public health issues.

Perhaps the most damaging part of this attack on higher education and intellectualism is its effect on the critical reasoning capacity of the population. Umberto Eco noted that “Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.” One of the primary purposes of a classically liberal higher education is the development of critical thinking, which is the first line of defense against propaganda and conspiracy theories. Which brings us to the next aspect of fascism…

 

7. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

One of the frequently cited factors in fascism is overt nationalism. Lawrence Britt noted that “Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.” This xenophobia encompasses not only foreign people, but foreign cultures and even people deemed to not be “real” citizens.

Trump openly embraces his identification as a nationalist and makes no pretense not to be one. “Make America Great Again,” was Trump’s campaign slogan from beginning to end in 2016, and immensely popular. His self-described foreign policy philosophy is “America First,” though a Senior White House official paraphrased this as, “We’re America, bitch!”  This is also intensely and undeniably nationalistic. His 2020 campaign slogan is “Keep America Great,” implying that he and his movement have made America Great Again.

Trump engages in grandiose displays of patriotism such as hugging flags, military hardware in parades, and million-dollar fireworks displays that are excessive even by American standards. Donald Trump’s 2016 speeches frequently included the phrase, “One people, under one God, saluting one flag.” This is an eerie echo of “Ein Volk, Ein Reich. Ein Führer!” which roughly translates as “One people. One Nation. One Leader!” and was effectively the national motto of Germany between 1935 and 1945. This was an adaptation of an earlier German slogan which even more closely resembles the one used by Trump: “Ein Reich. Ein Volk. Ein Gott.” (One nation. One people. One God.)

There is a great deal of cultural xenophobia as well. Trump ridiculed the idea of a Korean film (Parasite)  winning the Academy Award for “Best Picture”, with the clear implication to his audience that American movies are always superior. He calls African and Caribbean nations “shit hole countries,” and put a ban on visas from several African nations because they would never, “go back to their huts,” if they were allowed in the US. Anyone who refuses to participate in their nationalistic displays should just “go back” to wherever they came from.

The movement behind Trump is similarly nationalistic. Republican representatives and Senators lead chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” during the State of the Union Addresses. Trump supporters such as Ben Shapiro expound at great length on how Western (white) Culture is superior to all others because we’re Christian monotheists implementing Greek philosophy (which he regards as the pinnacle of reason). The editor of the influential and religiously conservative magazine First Things embraces nationalism and lays out in an interview how Nationalism will be the force that saves America.

Americans were already the most nationalistic people in the world before Trump was elected, and Republicans are more than twice as likely to believe the US stands above all other nations. The worst part? Our nationalism makes us even dumber. Literally 56% of Americans think Arabic numerals shouldn’t be taught in schools. (Hint: it’s the number system we already use to express things like “56 percent”). The US ranks at or near the bottom of OECD countries in terms of poverty, wealth inequality, social mobility, obesity, health care costs, life expectancy, child mortality, maternal mortality, literacy, education costs, domestic violence, murder, gender inequality, green energy, infrastructure investment, and voter participation.

American nationalism prevents us from even seeing that we have problems, much less permitting us to look to other countries to see how they have addressed these issues successfully.

8. Corporate power and the wealthy are protected

Lawrence Britt observed that in fascist movements, “…the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised… Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.”

The Darwinistic and Malthusian inclinations of fascism–that the strong should triumph over the weak–lead to fascist movements taking a somewhat laissez-faire capitalism approach to taxes and regulation of the economy. Thus, while some of these movements have had “workers” or “socialist” in their names, their economic libertarianism meant that in practice their economies were not socialist. Indeed, both Italy and Germany privatized a number of state industries. Many companies that prospered in Germany, such as BASF, Bayer, Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, and Junkers, still exist today, despite their roles in atrocities, war crimes, and the Holocaust. The rule for corporations was essentially “do not cross der Fuhrer; go along with it, and things will be fine.”

In modern times, the Trump administration has promised economic expansion through extensive deregulation, privatization, and tax cuts. Deregulation includes a dismantling a host of government oversight functions including environmental, financial, monopolistic, and billing laws. As a result of tax cuts, corporate tax revenue has plummeted, along with penalties for violating regulations. Because of generous tax loopholes and low corporate tax rates, 91 of the Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes, or even paid a negative rate, in 2019. The money corporations saved under Trump did not “trickle down” to workers or create new jobs; rather it was primarily used by corporations to inflate their stock values via buy-backs.

After the Trump tax cuts, the overall tax rate on the richest 400 households in 2018 year was 23% percent, a rate lower than what the poorest half of Americans pay. The US has become one of the first modern countries to have a functionally regressive tax system.

But woe betide the corporate owner who crosses Trump! Jeff Bezos own Amazon and the Washington Post, which has had articles critical of the Trump administration. Amazon reportedly lost a $10 billion dollar government contract for cloud services because of the latter, and is now attempting to depose the president in its bid protest. This is based on statements made by former Defense Secretary Mattis, who wrote in his memoir that Trump instructed him to “screw Amazon” out of the contract. Similarly, the Trump Department of Justice launched an investigation into auto makers who reached an agreement with the State of California on vehicle emissions that the administration opposed.

A related question to how corporate power is protected is: “how are corporations allowed to treat their workers?” under the regime. This brings us to the next characteristic of fascism:

9. Labor power is suppressed

Lawrence Britt observed of fascism governments that “since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless.” One of Hitler’s first acts was to crush trade unions in May of 1933, and Mussolini effectively banned them in 1925.

The Trump administration has been nothing short of disastrous for unions workers’ rights. While unions have been in decline since the late 1950s, the Trump administration has been actively destroying their ability to represent their workers. Newly installed justice Gorsuch helped deliver a devastating decision in 2018 that undermined unions of government workers, effectively making the US a “right to work” country. He has issued executive orders that roll back the rights of federal workers, and is engaging in union “busting,” including a plan to effectively eliminate unions within the Department of Defense.

On a wider scale the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has delivered policies and case law that undercut the rights of workers, including letting employers force arbitration, undermine collective bargaining, and forbid workers from discussing workplace issues while in the workplace. The administration has also made it more difficult (if not impossible) to successfully sue corporations for violating wage laws. The Trump administration sided with employers at the Supreme Court in Lamps Plus v. Varela, and now class action lawsuits by employees are nearly impossible.

The Department of Justice is arguing to the Supreme Court that anyone who works for a religious organization can be exempted from most labor and civil rights laws under the ministerial exception. Millions will be affected by this case: one-in-six hospitals in the US are Catholic, and most private schools are religiously affiliated. The Department of Justice is likely to succeed in front of a court Trump has stacked with justices who see religious freedom as the constitutional right that is more equal than others.

The decline of workers’ rights is highly correlated with the decline of the middle class, stagnant wages, and growing wealth inequality (which cause a whole host of issues in and of itself.) Harvard political scientist Archon Fung points out that in a study of OECD countries, they found none which had both high wealth inequality and high labor union participation rates.

Given how Trump has stacked the courts, the rulings of those courts, and the difficulty in raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, the American workers will be getting a poorer, more abused, more desperate, and more angry for the foreseeable future.

10. Anti-urbanism, and agrarianism as a definition of who the “real” people are

One element that sets “benign” authoritarianism apart from fascism is whether the base of support is drawn from urban or rural areas. Anti-urbanism also tends to separate communist or socialistic populism from more fascist populism. For example, the junta propping up the Thai monarchy, and the monarchy itself, draws most of its support from urban areas, but isn’t particularly socialist. Both the pro-and anti-monarchy factions practice populist economics to woo rural areas. Similarly, the Bolshevik revolution appealed to both rural farmers and urban factory workers. Indeed, the hammer and sickle were meant to represent unity between the peasantry and industrial workers.

What sets fascism apart is the “us vs. them” dynamic pitting traditionalistic, conservative, monocultural, rural populations against the more cosmopolitan urban “elites.” Fascist leaders and movements have held up people living in rural areas as the true keepers of national virtues, while cities are dens of decadence that has degraded the character of the country. In Mein Kampf, Hitler idealized the village he grew up in, and despised Vienna. “I hated the mixture of races displayed in the capital. I hated the motley collection of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs, Croats, and above all… Jews.” Cities, to his mind, were the source of corruption.

Today, Trump’s base is rural, and he makes his disgust with cities that harbor immigrants plain. He called Brussells, Belgium a “hellhole” because it has Muslim immigrants. He called Chicago “embarrassing to our nation,” because they aren’t anti-immigrant enough. He called Los Angeles and San Francisco “disgusting,” due to homelessness, and seems obsessed with people defecating in the streets. Trump sees homelessness as part of the same progressive moral rot that promises safety to immigrants.

Not only does Trump view cities as awful because they have so many immigrants. He has a habit of portraying cities with large Black and Latino populations as incredibly violent and dangerous. He claimed the murder rate in Baltimore was “significantly higher than El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala,” and egged the audience on for more. He seems to believe that Black people in cities all live in “war zones.” During his inaugural State of the Union Address he declared, “This American carnage stops right here and right now.”

The anti-urbanism streak of the Trump base fits right into the kind of populism Trump employs, and the fascist narrative of a better, mythical past and a fall into decadence caused by immigrants, brown people, secularists, queers, and anything else they perceive as coming from cities. Rural (white) people see themselves as the “good” and “real” Americans.

His vision of what life in American cities is like is a caricature of reality. It is what someone living in a white, rural area imagines if they never lived in a city, and their perceptions of them stopped evolving in the 1980’s after they watched “Robocop.” They are certain that things went from bad to worse (they didn’t), and that this is the fault of Democrats, immigrants, and people of color. They also believe that LGBT people are a product of the morals of tolerant cosmopolitan cities.

The anti-urbanism streak of the Trump base fits right into the kind of xenophobic populism Trump employs and exploits. The fascist narrative of a better, mythical past and a fall into decadence caused by immigrants, brown people, secularists, queers, and anything else they perceive as coming from cities. Republicans, and rural (white) people see themselves as the “good” and “real” Americans. Even some Democrats fall into this trap of trying to revere rural populations as somehow more American than their urban counterparts using terms like “heartland.” Trump, for his part, used this as a key part of his messaging in the 2020 campaign.

How this dichotomy is weaponized by fascist populists brings me to the next characteristic that was commonly identified:

11. Selective populism headed by a single man from which all political power flows

In fascist movements, there is a single leader who claims to be a uniter of the country. He is the interpreter of the will of the people, who is the undisputed head of the party and regime from which all direction and authority flows. This leader claims to be the only one who can do this. He is a populist, but his message is for people who believe themselves to be the true and rightful population of the country. Umberto Eco called this selective populism and described the leader’s relationship with the public. “Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter.” Anyone who rejects the leader’s interpretation is accused of no longer representing the will of the people.

Trump has repeatedly claimed he will “unify the country” throughout his campaign and Presidency. He has also claimed that the country is more unified than ever due to his leadership. Trump has also  repeatedly made statements saying he is the only person who can save America, such as “I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for 50 years. I’m the only one.”

His message of unification and leadership is only for his base, however. They believe themselves to be the only “real” Americans. In their world immigrants, non-Christians, non-whites, and people living in big cities and blue states aren’t “real”. After visiting the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA proclaimed Trump has, “historic levels of support with real Americans.”

Cas Mudde of the University of Pennsylvania describes populism as the antithesis of uniters because they split two society into two, “homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other.” During the 2016 campaign, Trump set himself up as the man fighting Republican “elites” to take back the party for Real Americans”. Populism is thin on actual policy, however, so it tends to fall back on either socialism or nationalism for ideological underpinnings. There is a sense that even if they are outvoted, they have the votes of all the “good” people.

Trump claimed he speaks for this “silent majority” of Americans, and is doing and saying what they really want. In reality, he derives support from the white evangelical aggrieved minority that holds themselves on a pedestal as the only “good people.“ [P]opulists only lose if ‘the silent majority’—shorthand for ‘the real people’—has not had a chance to speak, or worse, has been prevented from expressing itself,” says Jan-Werner Müller, a professor at Princeton University and the author of What Is Populism?

All of this seems to align Trump with Eco’s concept of selective populism.

Trump has also established himself as the single source of political power and direction for the party that controls most states and federal government. Republicans used to be for free trade, states’ rights, and separation of powers. In 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham wrote, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.” During the 2016 election Trump accused Senator Ted Cruz’s father of helping to assassinate President Kennedy and called Cruz’s wife a “dog”. Cruz refused to endorse Trump at the convention.

Today, both Graham and Cruz are some of Trump’s most vocal and loyal supporters. Republicans who opposed Trump have been purged. They are now almost completely the party of Trump. Not because he is loved, but because they fear him and his base.

Trump seems obsessed with opposition and “the deep state.” He is launching extensive investigations to root out those in government disloyal to him, and to purge them from the system. He is obsessed with the idea that there is a conspiracy within the federal government (the deep state) to thwart him or remove him from office. He has put his top trade advisor Peter Navarro in charge of hunting down a former administration official who criticized him anonymously.

12. Enemies are both weak and strong, creating a sense of victimhood

Umberto Eco noted of fascist movements that “the followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies… Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” Jason Stanley noted the related phenomena of a sense of victimhood amongst people in a fascist movement.

However, these two are closely related. The base within a fascist movement must be both powerful enough to control a party, and even a government. At the same time, a common trait of this base is a belief that their enemies are so powerful that they have victimized the rightful “real” and “good” citizens of the country. At the same time, they see these enemies as disgusting enough that society is better off without them, and weak enough to be stopped.

In pre-war Italy and Germany people were told that Jews were incredibly rich, powerful, and had illuminati-like networks. Germans, in particular, believed that were victimized because of Jews. Most notably the “stab-in-the-back” conspiracy theory that Jews and Communists had cost Germany the war and were the reason Germany was subjected to the humiliations and economic devastation brought by the Treaty of Versailles. Yet, at the same time, Jews were also portrayed as weak, wretched sub-human creatures who could easily be defeated by the big, strong, good looking, moral Aryan people of Germany… if they just stood up to them. Thus, Arendt noted that anti-Semitism peaked “when Jews had similarly lost their public functions and their influence, and were left with nothing but their wealth.”

Similarly, in the United States today there is an overwhelming sense of victimhood among white evangelicals. They see themselves as the primary victims of discrimination. What sort of discrimination? Employers insisting  employees using a transgender person’s preferred pronouns (if they actually knew a transgender person). Being forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Not letting them force people to pray in schools. County clerks being required to do their jobs when gay people want to get married. Not being allowed (in some states, under some circumstances) to fire people for being openly LGBT.

The list of actual grievances isn’t that long, or convincing. These don’t exactly count as crimes against humanity. But it feels humiliating to them. It is a shift in the social order that they feel takes away their power and makes them less special as society becomes more equal. At the same time, they find LGBT people repulsive and weak at an individual level, but ascribe to them vast political power.

Much like previous fascist movements, white evangelicals and Trump’s base fail to grasp the irony of feeling powerless and victimized while being both constitutionally protected, and the dominant force within the dominant party at both the state and federal level. Nor do many remember that while they call protections for LGBT people “special rights”, when Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, he called it “discrimination against the white race.” In truth, LGBT people would be more than happy to trade political and legal places with white evangelicals.

White evangelicals experience a similar dynamic when it comes to immigrants. The idea of white people becoming a minority fills them with dread and makes them more receptive to right-wing policies. Of all demographic groups, they are the most hostile to immigrants, and this again fits with fear in change of social ordering. They embrace false stereotypes about immigrants being lazy, stupid, violent, criminal, rapists, disease carriers, and a burden on society. They believe immigrants to be both individually weak and detestable, but so powerful as to take over and destroy America.

Trump has been more than happy to encourage these irrational fears and sense of victimhood at the hands of people who are basically at the bottom of the heap socially, politically, legally, and economically.  So have the media outlets that have become de facto organs of the state. Which brings me to my next point about the characteristics of fascism.

13.  Conspiracy theories and propaganda creating an unreality that feeds into fears and scapegoating

 

Hannah Arednt saw propaganda as a crucial component of the rise of fascism in Germany. She noted, “Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda.” Jason Stanley identified propaganda that causes a loss of a sense of reality and which serves the purposes of a political party or authoritarian leaders as a key aspect of fascism. “Fascist politics exchange reality for the pronouncements of a single individual, or perhaps a political party.” Umberto Eco identified a related phenomenon: namely that fascism is obsessed with plots and conspiracy theories. ““The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.” I contend that the two are closely related.

The Trump base and conservative media exist in a symbiotic relationship, with one feeding another. There is no shortage of conspiracy theories that have oozed their way into the minds of the base. This includes PizzaGate, QAnon, birtherism, the idea that Corona virus is a Chinese bioweapon, the Seth Rich murder, the “deep state”,  George Soros as a liberal boogeyman, and even that Michelle Obama is actually a transgender woman who stole the Malia and Sasha. In a previous age, these ideas would all have been too fringe to make it into the mainstream political discourse. Today, they’re literally dogma to Trump’s base and members of the administration.

Trump was one of the first people to accuse President Obama of being born in Kenya, and Fox News promoted this conspiracy relentlessly. Sean Hannity of Fox News, who is exceptionally close to the President, was the chief advocate of the Seth Rich theory and pushed it almost every night for weeks. QAnon supporters are a staple at Trump rallies, and it has crept into mainstream Republican politics. Senator Tom Cotton has aggressively pushed his beliefs about the origins of the corona virus. Fox News has been happy to (repeatedly) give a soap box to individuals pushing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros.

Fox News is not really a news outlet. Individuals who watch Fox know less about current events than people who watch nothing at all. The purpose of Fox and One America News is to create an alternate reality in which the President can do no wrong. Fox News was by far the most popular source of information on impeachment for Republicans. Fox news selectively edited impeachment coverage, and showed live-video without audio, except for pro-Trump Fox hosts who provided their own narration.

As a result, Fox News viewers came away with impressions of the impeachment completely untethered from reality. One survey showed that only 40% of Republicans believe that Trump asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, despite the fact that Trump literally asked for this exact thing in the pseudo-transcript released by the White House.

Making matters worse is Trump’s own lack of “truthiness.” The Washington Post cataloged over 16,200 false or misleading claims in his first three years in office, and the rate has been increasing. Fox News hosts insist that the President has never lied, and tries to shape reality around those lies. It is little wonder that Republicans who watch Fox News are the ones who most strongly support President Trump.

Breaking this cycle is nigh impossible: people are able to wrap themselves inside insular information ecosystems like the one provided by Fox and OAN. There is intense social pressure to ignore “Fake News” that provides contrary information. By labeling impartial journalists as “enemies of the people,” it implies that anyone who believes them is guilty of un-American thoughts as well.

Given how often Fox News targets immigrants, Muslims, and transgender people, given the intense xenophobia and racism of Trump’s base, I cannot stress the danger in this situation enough. But, I will close with a quote by Voltaire:

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.