{"id":1460,"date":"2020-09-09T10:53:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T15:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2020-09-18T08:36:40","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T13:36:40","slug":"right-populism-or-neofascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2020\/09\/right-populism-or-neofascism\/","title":{"rendered":"Right populism or neofascism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span> want to start again with Donald Trump’s interview with Laura Ingraham<\/a>, the one in which he talked about the “shadow people\u201d he believes lurk behind Joe Biden:<\/p>\n

INGRAHAM: Who do you think is pulling Biden\u2019s strings? Is it former Obama officials?
\nTRUMP: People that you\u2019ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows.
\nINGRAHAM: What does that mean? That sounds like conspiracy theory.
\nTRUMP: No, people that you haven\u2019t heard of. They\u2019re people that are on the streets. They\u2019re people that are controlling the streets<\/a>\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It wasn\u2019t the worst thing Trump has ever said. It probably won\u2019t be the most annoying thing he says this month. But if we take it seriously, then the only conclusion which can follow is this: inside the meetings of the new Committee to Re-elect the President, or whatever Trump likes to call his equivalent, the view still remains that Trump can energize his base by telling them that the world is full of black-clad anti-fascists and the Republicans will win by promising to smash them.<\/p>\n

Why is Trump so obsessed with anti-fascists? After all, the number of anti-fascists in the United States is relatively small. If Trump was Richard Spencer or Matthew Heimbach (i.e. one of the people whose meetings have been disrupted <\/a>by anti-fascists) you could understand the obsession, but he\u2019s the President, a Republican, no one has prevented him from speaking. Surely, he represents something different from the fascists, closer to ordinary conservatism – doesn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

And then you think about Trump and his support for the very fine people<\/a> marching with the neo-Nazis at Charlottesville or the way he promoted Steve Bannon or the speed with which he declared his support for Kyle Rittenhouse, after he shot three protesters, and insisted on traveling to Kenosha in order to \u201cincrease love and respect for our country<\/a>\u201d. That sort of rhetoric has a history, and its one which is just as reminiscent of interwar fascism as it is of conservatism.<\/p>\n

Listening to the speeches at the Democratic National Convention, you could hear the speakers grappling with the question of whether Trump is a fascist. So, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted, in the few seconds allowed to her, that the election was about \u201cstopping fascism in the United States. That is what Donald Trump represents<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Barack Obama, he too seemed to be saying that this was the last chance to stop fascism: \u201cThis administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that\u2019s what it takes to win \u2026 Don\u2019t let them take away your democracy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n