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Like Mussolini’s March on Rome and Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, Donald Trump’s Insurrection is the beginning of years of street violence.
By Louie Dean Valencia-Garcia, January 2021
A note from Choose Democracy Now’s Dale Anderson:
Since the arrival of Donald Trump on the national political stage in 2015, there has been a renewed interest among the press, academia and citizenry to understand what constitutes fascism. With Trump-followers at CPAC enthusiastically applauding a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban promoting the “great replacement conspiracy theory”, it seems timely to seek clarity about what is fascism. I find this article by Professor Valencia-Garcia one of the best for thinking about the dangerous, anti-democratic ideology of one of our major political parties.
Article Excerpt
“For years scholars have argued Donald Trump had “X” quality, but not “Y” [fascist traits]. These academics looked at the worst-case examples, where fascism resulted in war and genocide, and started their point of comparison from the worst-case scenario rather than considering what does fascism look like before it gains power or a following. What is fascism at its core?“
“. . . . A more simplified definition of fascism, would be a sort of formula like: racism + anti-intellectualism + anti-liberalism/anti-socialism + xenophobia + ethnocentrism + nationalism + queerphobia + misogyny = fascism.”
“While the quantity of each X-factor varies, the combination of these in any quantity forms fascism.”
D E F I N I T I O N S
Racism: a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequalities (Ibram X Kendi).
Anti-intellectualism: opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach (Merriam-Webster).
Anti-liberalism: opposed to or hostile toward political liberalism (Merriam-Webster).
Xenophobia: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign (Merriam-Webster).
Ethnocentrism: the attitude that one’s own group, ethnicity, or nationality is superior to others (Merriam-Webster).
Nationalism: identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
Queerphobia: a fear or hatred of queers or homosexuals (Merriam-Webster).
Misogyny: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women (Merriam-Webster).
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