Understand Fascism Before Abusing The Label For Politics

After the Harris/Walz polls started slipping in the wake of Walz’s disastrous VP debate, the Harris Campaign moved sharply into one of the most negative campaigns in history. Harris and media allies began an ubiquitous cry of Trump as “fascist” and even “Hitler”. Beyond campaign surrogates, the anti-Trump retired General Mark Milley was publicly quoted from Bob Woodward’s recent book calling Trump a “complete fascist” and “fascist to the core”.(Source)

Anti-Trump retired General John Kelly joined chorus claiming “Trump met the definition of a fascist” while making a slew of allegations against the man who fired him. (Source) Along with progressive partisan media, the recent edition of Foreign Policy magazine headlined the article “Is Trump really a fascist? Yes…” and quoted from Milley and Kelly (Source) As fascism is one of history’s ultimate evil ideologies, it’s critical to set the record straight by what history teaches us and not simplistic and partisan hyperbole.

Before starting, let’s note Democrats and media allies have called virtually all Republican candidates “fascist” since Barry Goldwater ran six decades ago. (Source) They have helped undermined the rightful stigma of fascism.

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini developed the ideology of fascism in the early 1920s. He used the Italian word for bundle of sticks “Fascio” as the root for the Italian “Fascismo” and galvanized followers to eventually march on Rome where Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy. Mussolini put Fascism into practice well before the Nazis came to power in Germany. Nazis copied Mussolini’s fascism for totalitarian control of Germany. In 1932, a year before the Nazis came to power, Mussolini wrote “The Doctrine of Fascism” which has been the best means to understand fascism. Il duce (Mussolini’s nickname) wrote:

“The Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State…... It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts The rights of the State….... The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.” (Source)

What Mussolini and then Hitler created within their respective countries was the crushing of any individualism, including religious conviction, in favor of the state as god. This included censorship and one-party rule. The state became the ultimate authority and ultimate loyalty. Loyalty to God’s Word from the Bible earned imprisonment or death if any Biblical values conflicted with the state. Private property was only respected insofar as it was within interest and under the power of the state. Enlarging the state beyond its borders was driven by the fascist ideology of the strength and greatness of the state in conquest.

Comparing how Trump acted as former President (as well as current platform) to Mussolini’s fascism, makes clear Trump was not a fascist. First, Trump continually prioritized the individual over the power of the state, particularly with regards to religion and private property. This was in line with the American conservative value of classical Liberalism, hated by fascists. Trump cut government regulations and taxes to allow the private sector to flourish at the expense of government power. He cut the size of government and focused it on external threats like with border security. Trump acted to lessen the US military presence outside US borders and military engagement in foreign wars in opposition to the fascist drive to expand outside borders. Unlike what we have seen under the Biden/Harris administration, Trump’s Department of Justice did not go after political opponents as would happen under one-party rule of fascism.

Neither Biden nor Harris was truly fascist by what Mussolini wrote, but “more” fascist when compared with the Trump administration. Biden/Harris prioritized the state and state “values” over the individual (particularly during COVID). 

Biden/Harris suppression of free speech was far worse than with Trump. Those with Biblical values conflicting with Biden/Harris views on gender or life faced various penalties.

One area critics allege alignment between fascism and Trump is with Trump’s nationalism. The problem with that allegations is the lack of understanding of “fascist” nationalism. Fascist nationalism was exclusively a “blood” or ancestry nationalism. Mussolini’s nationalism, for example, meant those of Italian ancestry in Italy, to the exclusion of all others. That helps explain the obsession with Jews in Italy and then Germany who would never be viewed as citizens of those nations. America has been an immigrant nation of various ancestral backgrounds (exception of the diverse native American tribes). Trump’s nationalism is about legal citizens of America regardless of ancestry. Fascism repudiates that idea and would repudiate Trump.

Fascism was defeated during World War II primarily by patriotic Americans who love individual liberty over fascistic state control. The same kind of Americans who now support Trump. The label of fascism should be reserved for the utter evil of that ideology, and not for causing continued division within this great nation under God.