The conventional wisdom (an oxymoron not quite as good as ‘military intelligence’) on Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un is that by even acknowledging Kim in the first place, Trump gave the North Korean dictator a win and a diplomatic advantage that he didn’t deserve.
I actually give Trump credit for thinking outside the box here. It is true we should not be giving thug regimes enhanced credibility, but we do not have relations with North Korea, we do not have relations with the Islamic Republic in Iran, and we do not have relations with the Castro-built regime in Cuba, and none of those countries became liberal democracies just because Uncle Sam decided to hold his breath until they did. And the withholding of America’s favor on the premise that reform will bring diplomatic benefits is not a coin that holds much value anymore. Especially these days. So if Trump’s maneuver can bring about an actual peace treaty with North Korea, when we have never had one since 1953, that would be a truly great achievement. It would deserve to be the centerpiece exhibit at the future Donald Trump Presidential Library and Adult Bookstore.
See, I’m not a liberal. My problem with Donald Trump isn’t that he’s a conservative (whatever the hell that means anymore) but that he’s an incompetent. The problem with taking the initiative to reach out to the North Korean dictatorship is not the idea itself, but the fact that this is Donald Trump, and he’s going to find SOME way to fuck it up. Just like his diplomacy with our (former) allies. Before and during the G-7, Trump claimed (with partial but exaggerated accuracy) that Canada had its own trade discrepancies with the US, and citing them, tried to bully Justin Trudeau into accepting all his demands to stop Trump’s tariff threats, and when Trudeau refused him, Trump and his toadies decided to scream and cry and carry on, and now the official position of State is that Justin Trudeau is the meanest ogre in the world. And if you’re not already a Trumpnik, that is very difficult to believe. I mean, Justin Trudeau is basically Mr. Rogers as played by Matthew McConaughey.
But in the midst of this, especially Trump’s disturbing affinity with lil’ Kim’s authoritarian regime, it raises the argument among Trump’s critics as to whether he is a fascist. And whenever I consider the matter, I always respond that Trump isn’t intellectual enough to be a fascist. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have that temperament or that ultimately he doesn’t want to be a fascist, but Trump doesn’t even have the regard for ideas that a would-be Svengali like Steve Bannon has, and none of the big idea men who have tried to sway him have been able to control him for long, because their systematic thinking is totally opposed to his attitude.
Fascism as a discrete philosophy was developed by the Italian Marxist journalist Benito Mussolini in the wake of World War I, when he switched his political position from antiwar socialism to pro-Italian, pro-war nationalism to seize Italian-speaking territories in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Given Mussolini’s roots, and his knowledge of thinkers like Nietszche and Sorel, leftists tend to discount his intellectual background and deny that Fascism has any roots in or similarity to socialism. Yet, Fascism does have distinct characteristics. Whereas socialists frame their goals in altrustic or even utopian terms, and rationalize even violent actions along those lines, fascists define violence and domination as good in and of themselves.
Another trait of fascism (where Mussolini borrowed from Georges Sorel) is the deliberate invocation of myth and the irrational over the Marxists’ insistence that their philosophy was “scientific” socialism. This is mainly the case where fascism emphasized the nation over an international class struggle (and where the Nazis later embraced a racial myth). A myth is different from a lie, because while a myth cannot be proven, it cannot exactly be disproven, either. It doesn’t matter if the myth is “true”, what matters is what it represents. For instance, Christianity is a myth. We can’t prove Jesus was real, or that Jesus is God, but we can’t exactly disprove it, and the fact that Jesus is not here only seems to confirm the myth. “Mexico will pay for the wall” is just a cheap lie that Trump tells because he knows what the rubes want to hear. Even if they KNOW he’s lying and just want to believe, it’s still not a myth, because they also know for a fact that it’s bullshit.
In this regard, there are three things to remember about lying. First and foremost: Never tell the same lie twice. Second, never tell the mark a lie that he can (and will) immediately disprove. And third, don’t tell your mark that you like lying, and that you lie all the time.
In a 2015 Vox article, Dylan Matthews interviewed various scholarly experts on fascism and came to the conclusion that Trump was not a fascist for various reasons, such as that fascists emphasize violence as a virtue whereas Trump sees threats as a tool. (He rarely carries out major threats, and however incoherent he has been with regard to North Korea, he seems to think it would be a good idea to pursue peace with them.) But one point that is made in the article is that fascism is specifically anti-individualist, and Trump is the arch-individualist. “Whatever else can be said about Donald Trump, he is fiercely individualistic. Indeed, a major part of his appeal comes from the fact that he’s untethered to any movement or party or even financial interests besides himself. The Republican establishment hates him. He has no affiliated politicians at other levels of government. He runs no party organization or really any political organization with any goal other than promoting himself, personally. And his arguments about how to make America great generally rely on his own skills — his prowess at making deals, his personal strength, etc.” It’s also mentioned that fascism really doesn’t have too much regard for economics: “In fact, most experts think that it’s hard to identify a characteristically ‘fascist’ economic policy. It was all secondary to other goals, notably preparation for war.” Both of these points get to a critical difference between fascism and “Trumpism”: fascism is a systematic philosophy that holds that the state is greater than oneself.
This was all encapsulated in a Tweetstorm by liberal political writer Matthew Chapman, which starts with “Believe it or not, Trump’s insane proclamation that he will keep tariffs in place until there are no more Mercedes on Fifth Avenue gave me a moment of clarity. I think I finally understand Trump’s economic philosophy now. And we are absolutely screwed.” He continues: “The one thing that you need to understand about Trump is that he is, at his core, a con man with no empathy. Therefore, he assumes that all other people are also con men with no empathy, and every exchange of goods and services that exists in the world is, on some level, a con. Trump assumes every transaction in the world — between people, businesses, nation-states, even between two different agencies of the same government — has a winner and a loser, a scammer and a sucker. He believes if you’re not ripping someone off, you’re getting ripped off. … It’s not simply that Trump *doesn’t* think the Paris Climate Agreement, Iran nuclear deal, TPP, NAFTA, or luxury cars from Germany are a good deal for America. It’s that he *can’t* think that. It’s an alien concept to him that a deal other people want with us could also help us. … This is why Trump will never, ever, be able to negotiate with the rest of the world. He doesn’t believe in mutual benefit. The second anyone tells him ‘this is your end of the deal’ he’ll rip it up. He believes only one party can have an end of the deal, and it shouldn’t be him.”
And that is not only why Trump is going to find some way to fuck things up with Kim Jong-un (the way he pulled out of the Iran deal, and the Paris climate accords, and the G7), it’s why he can’t be can’t really be considered a fascist, because he has no ideology beyond what he wants at the moment, and no value greater than himself. How is a future American authoritarian going to count himself as a “Trumpist” when even Trump doesn’t know what that means?
There was an interview in Reason Magazine with libertarian(ish) Congressman Thomas Massie that’s been making the rounds recently. Matt Welch interviewed him last year as Massie came to grips with the reality that once Republicans were in control, they weren’t the conservative-to-libertarian party they claimed to be. (Of course, I figured that out at least one Republican-majority government ago.) What really got Massie was the 2016 primary campaign as his candidate, Rand Paul, got taken down and Donald Trump dominated.
“But then when I went to Iowa I saw that the same people that had voted for Ron Paul weren’t voting for Rand Paul, they were voting for Donald Trump. And the same thing happened in Kentucky, the people who were my voters ended up voting for Donald Trump in the primary. And so I was in a funk because how could these people let us down? How could they go from being libertarian ideologues to voting for Donald Trump? And then I realized what it was: They weren’t voting for the libertarian in the race, they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race when they voted for me and Rand and Ron (Paul) earlier. So Trump just won, you know, that category, but dumped the ideological baggage.”
It’s of a piece with the people who project the attitude that Trump and the “alt-right” display the real motives of libertarians and conservatives when most people who actually know anything about those philosophies know why Trump is the opposite. The fact that Trump has hewed so closely to Republican orthodoxy in office (when he deviated so much from it in the campaign) actually confirms this point. Trump doesn’t care enough about political philosophy to impose an agenda on Congress, and when he does get involved just fucks up what they want to do. But they go along with him because just as they wouldn’t vote for anything Barack Obama wanted, a Democratic president wasn’t going to go along with anything they wanted, and a Republican one will. This just happens to be the only Republican who could get elected. Do you think Republicans would have won 2016 on the policy agenda and moxie of Jeb Bush? For that matter, IS there really a Republican Party that stands for liberty and a smaller, more accountable government? Because as we’ve seen, those guys aren’t getting elected. As much as some of us think that policy and philosophy matter, a lot of voters just don’t.
The real issue (especially for Democrats who wish they could just win an election and set things back to where they ‘should’ be) is that this isn’t just a Republican problem. George W. Bush defeated dull policy wonk Al Gore in 2000 (technically) and another dull functionary, John Kerry, in 2004. So Democrats were eight years in the wilderness before they came back in 2008 with Barack Obama, a genuinely engaging and visionary personality. But he didn’t really push much beyond the passage of the ACA, and while that probably was worth it in the long run, it burned up not only Obama’s political capital, but that of Democrats in general. Obama did win re-election against Mitt Romney – with some difficulty – but Democrats lost the House majority in 2010 and the Senate majority in 2014. Moreover, Democrats have less seats in state legislatures than ever. Even as Obama and his vision of progressive government gained in appeal, Democrats as a party failed to reach out to the country at large, because they could never figure out their priorities and how to connect with the public.
When policy is not merely secondary to politics but actively discarded, and personality is the only thing that matters, of course Trump is going to have an edge over a dour wonk like Hillary Clinton, because however obnoxiously evil he is, he’s at least got pizzazz. Sort of like a pro wrestling heel. Which of course, Trump actually is.
To return to the question, there are real differences between fascism and state socialism. One reason that Leninist governments lasted longer than fascist ones is that communist governments had a central committee structure that could survive the death of a strongman. (Of course, another factor is that most communist governments did not start wars when they were outnumbered.) But while communist governments were themselves frequently run by strongmen, they had a government structure that fascist regimes lacked. By comparison however, fascist governments still had more structure than what this administration has now.
I mean, I can see why fundamentalists love Trump. Their concept of morality has always been transactional, so of course they don’t care that Trump acts like King Herod on coke as long as they get the Supreme Court justices they want and he picks on the people they hate. But if you’re a fiscal conservative/”economic libertarian”, your bargain is more problematic, since whatever you gained with the tax cut is threatened by the trade wars. And if you’re one of the middle-to-working-class people who voted for Trump, you’re expected to cover that tax cut with a reduction in your own benefits, not to mention that you’re obliged to pay for Trump’s Wall.
There is no policy or philosophy that can justify supporting Trump other than sheer attitude. In foreign policy, that attitude is best expressed as “we’re America, bitch.” But domestically, it comes down to “we can screw anybody we want, because we’re the biggest gang.” But as I’ve told conservatives at least once, there’s just one problem with that attitude: Republicans aren’t the biggest gang.