Trump Following Fascist Roadmap

April 29 marked the 100^th day of the last legal presidential term of Donald Trump. Pundits pondered and pontificated, but if the most telling assessment was proffered, I missed it. That would be the comparison of Trump’s agenda with the tenets of fascism.

We are not talking name-calling here. We are comparing the 14 characteristics of fascism Lawrence Britt put forth in 2003 with actions by our felon-in-chief and his minions.

Trump was not a political figure in 2003, so it cannot be said that Britt was targeting him. Heck, Trump’s foray into pop culture, The Apprentice unreality show, had not aired its first episode. Trump was a New York developer hanging with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Melania Knauss, whom he married in 2005.

So, writing in Free Inquiry, Britt cited 14 signs of fascism. Trump managed to check all the boxes during the past three months.

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism: The MAGA slogan exemplifies and Trump continues the mantra at his ego-boosting rallies though he and his faithful ignore the fact that Trump has destroyed 80 years of American credibility, good will and alliances.

2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights: Trump attacks free speech on college campuses and threatens others who disagree with him, including judges and governors. Of course, his mass deportations ignore due process – to the extent that people legally in the U.S. have been sent to hellhole prisons. In his defense, Trump says he does not know if he is supposed to support the Constitution which he swore to defend at his inauguration three long months ago.

3. Identification of enemies and scapegoats as a unifying cause: See above. Trump began his first campaign with racist rhetoric. It remains the uniting glue for him and his followers.

4. Obsession with national security: Trump justifies his attack on foreigners as a security measure and uses the same language to promote Big Oil polluters and while flip-flopping on tariffs.

5. Supremacy of the military: The current Trump budget proposes $1.01 trillion for the military and massive cuts to health and education programs that protect Americans and more cuts to those pesky scientists whose facts refute his lies.

6. Rampant sexism: Accusations of sexual misconduct seemed to be a criteria for many appointees to the inner circle of the guy found liable of sexual abuse. Then, too, we have televangelist Paula White-Cain, Trump’s senior adviser on faith, saying that God designed men to be leaders the household. She claims, “It’s not hard” for her “to submit” to her third husband.

7. Controlled mass media: Trump, the most documented liar in American history, constantly rails against the “fake news” of a mainly complacent corporate media that dares to expose those lies. His attack on National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service come from the same source as Trump’s ban on the Associated Press from press briefings in favor of alt-right propagandists.

8. Religions and government are intertwined: White-Cain’s status as White House faith director is only Trump’s latest concession to the Christian Nationalist contingent. “They work right out of the White House,” he bragged. “That’s never happened before.” [That’s because other presidents respected the Constitution’s ban on favoring one belief over another.]

9. Corporate power is protected: Andrew Ferguson replaced consumer champion Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. He promised to make it easier for companies to merge into monopolies, abandon FTC plans to regulate artificial intelligence and repeal those “burdensome” regulations – designed to protect us.

10. Labor power is suppressed: By firing two members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Trump left it without a quorum to do its work. The National Labor Relations Board remains similarly hamstrung.

11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts: Trump fired the chair and entire board of the Kennedy Center and then declared himself the chair. The attacks on PBS and NPR also reflect his antipathy to individual enlightenment and any opposition to the Trumpista worldview.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment: Violent crimes committed by minorities get top billing. But Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, whose Silk Road underground website was a conduit for drug sales, and condemned “the scum that worked to convict him.” He also pardoned more than 1,500 hooligans convicted for their parts in the deadly ransacking of the U.S. Capitol during the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. [Those folks were literally doing his bidding.]

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption: Seventeen corporations facing a total of $50 million in federal fines had their cases dismissed after donating to the Trump inaugural fund, according to an April report by Public Citizen.

14. Fraudulent elections: The orange snowflake that is our president still spouts the lie that he won the 2020 election. His ego just cannot abide the truth that he has never won 50% of the popular vote.

Fourteen characteristics of fascism: not my list – compared to the public record, with Congressional Republican collaborators enabling the destruction of our democratic republic.