Gregory Swanson
I'm excerpting a couple of paragraphs from a longer opinion piece by Benedict Cosgrove that appeared today on Newsweek.com. To read the entire article, go to that website.
It's Time to Stop Calling Donald Trump a Fascist
"Say what you will about MAGA, its diversity is impressive.
Election deniers, smasrmy billionaires, hot-for-Armaggedon Christian Nationalists, waterborne Nazis, a shrinking handfull of sadly deluded conservatives, Laura Loomer, Roseanne Barr, Rudy Giuliani - far from a monolith, MAGA is a rainbow coalition of insurrectionists, cranks and pin-striped goons.
Recently, however, more and more observers have taken to painting the movement and especially its sundowning 78-year old leader awith a single, saucy epithet: Fascist. . . .
. . . Consider this: As loathgesome as the fascism shaped and practiced in the 1930s and 1940s Europe, Greece's Golden Dawnin the 1980s, President Vladimir Putin's Russia, etc.certainly is, it is nonetheless a functional, considered ideology, with a generally sound internal logic of its own. One can despise fascism while respecting its rigor and its tribalistic appeal.
It is not possible, on the other hand, - or shouldn't be, anyway - for any sane human over the age, say, of 7 or 8 to respect a pathologically dishonest, intellectually bereft, morally bankrupt sexual abuser and autocrat-fanboy like Trump.
If Trump fits within any political tradition, it's a sort of blunt, low-cunning authoritarianism: MAGA, after all, is an authoritarian movement, just as today's GOP is a patently authorian party. But any two-bit goon can be an authoritarian; it takes at least normal adherance to an ideology to be a legit, committed fascist.
Fascist true believers might have his ear. He might bellow fascist talking point at his rallies. He might admire fascists, living an dead. But, far from an ideological warrior, Trump's animatiung principle appears to be bone-deep, reflexive gangsterism wedded to frenzied self-preservation.
How can I stay out of prison? How can I pry more money out of my pathetic cult? How can I destroy those who question mu authority, make me look weak, laugh in my face?
Fascism is a scourge, but it's a known scourge, with recoginzable antecedents.
Trumpism is a new, still-evolving, ultra-right pathoilogy, fueled largely by greed and grievance and positively brimming with malice.
Which prospect should we fear more?"
This. my friends, is the elephant in the room.
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