Back in 2015, many of us struggled to find a label that captured how Donald Trump was different from other “conservative” candidates. With some trepidation, we dusted off the word fascist, which in recent years had mainly been used as a hyperbolic insult. Before re-introducing and applying the word, it seemed necessary to lay out exactly what you intended it to mean. I did that in November, 2015 in a post “The Political F-Word“, which I think stands up well in hindsight.
At the time, this use was widely disputed, and it remained controversial throughout Trump’s administration. As he campaigns to be restored to office, though, Trump has increasingly been imitating Hitler’s rhetoric. (Immigrants “poison the blood of our country”. His enemies are “vermin” he wants to “root out”.) Alarming plans continue to leak out of his campaign and its allied think-tanks: vast detention camps for immigrants and the homeless, invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One, replacing the civil service with loyalists, pushing executive power to its limits, and so on.
Consequently, many who had been reluctant to use fascist are changing their minds. That’s the subject of this week’s featured post “Revisiting the fascism question”. That should appear by 10 EST.
The weekly summary has a lot to cover: developments in the Israel/Gaza War, averting a government shutdown, Biden’s summit meeting with China’s President Xi, the ethics report on George Santos, a Colorado judge’s ruling on whether Trump is eligible to run for president, and more. That should appear a little after noon.
The Weekly Sift 