Since Donald Trump entered politics nine years ago, he has consistently used rhetoric and taken action during his four years as president that clearly reveals his racist and xenophobic beliefs. But in his current presidential election campaign, Trump has doubled down on his use of corrosive language while promising to carry out an openly fascist agenda if he should win the Nov. 5 election.
In addition to his pledge to deport 11 million immigrants, the former twice-impeached president, found guilty of 34 felonies and liable for sexual assault, talks about using the U.S. military to target his political enemies, take away the broadcast licenses of news media outlets he dislikes, while quoting Adolf Hitler, labeling immigrants as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of America.” Trump, who increasingly shows signs of cognitive decline, has also discussed suspending the Constitution as he vows to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whom he calls heroes and patriots. In Bob Woodward’s new book, “War,” former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley warns that Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.”
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Jason Stanley, the Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of “How Fascism Works.” His newest book is titled, “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite The Past To Control The Future.” Here he talks about the threat Donald Trump and the Republican party pose to democracy in the 2024 election and beyond.
JASON STANLEY: Let’s start with the mass deportation scheme. The idea of deporting 11 million people. Let’s think of fascism as a culture, or any kind of authoritarianism really is a culture of turning people and a culture of the neighbor turning their own neighbors in, a culture of schools and universities of students turning their professors and teachers in for not being patriotic enough.
So the goal here, whether explicit or tacit, is to transform our culture from a democratic culture of equal respect and freedom into one where people are turning each other in. Turning each other in whatever they think they can get an advantage. Turning each other in just for fun.
So we’re going to have a massive police force that is ready, willing and able to have immigrants turned in. To have political opponents turned in. To have teachers and librarians turned in.
And that cultural shift of knowing that you can make a phone call or fill out a form to turn in people living next to you. Turn in people in your school that will fundamentally and perhaps permanently change the political culture of the United States. So it is a radical shift and trying to find 11 million people to put in large camps before they’re deported.
That’s going to require a lot of turning people in, too. So people will be used to that.
In 2018, when I wrote my book, How Fascism Works, I pointed out this was fascist rhetoric. And what we’ve seen is a gradual normalization of this. I mean, this kind of talk would have been disqualifying in 2016, but Americans are now completely used to fascist talk. Talk about immigrants as vermin, talk about political opponents as traitors.
And it’s been normalized. And the next thing to be normalized is the practices that this kind of talk justifies. The practices of arresting political opponents, the practices of turning in your neighbor. Those are justified by this rhetoric.
And I don’t think you can have the rhetoric normalized without the practices that it justifies: the practices of concentration camps for immigrants, the practices of turning in teachers who aren’t sufficiently patriotic, the practices of broadening the concept of obscenity so that librarians and teachers who have books on their shelves that represent LGBTQ relations or transgender identities as obscene and representing them as obscene and decadent. That is all a fascist culture.
Now, we’ve seen the rhetoric normalized, and the next thing we’re going to see as we already see in some of these southern states, is the practices normalized.
SCOTT HARRIS: As you’ve been saying, Professor Stanley, Donald Trump is telling us exactly what he plans to do, if elected. Will that give Republicans those who may be a little hesitant, will that be a rationale for Republicans to burn the Constitution right along with Donald Trump, given that Trump will say: “The American people knew who I was, knew what I was going to do and voted for it anyway to carry out these policies.”
Trump will look at this as a mandate, even if he squeaks by in the Electoral College and he loses the popular vote, which is likely by millions of votes.
JASON STANLEY: As Ron DeSantis said when he won 51 percent of the vote in Florida, “I won 51 percent of the vote, but 100 percent of the power.” And I think it’s a mistake just to focus on Trump because as we see from these southern states, as we see from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, as we see from J.D. Vance, who has a very extremist perspective, a kind of Christian authoritarianism with brutal consequences for women.
I think, you know, this is going to give certain agendas, you know, ultimate power. People say Trump has no ideology. I think that’s wrong. I think Trump is a xenophobe. He hates nonwhite immigrants. That is his ideology. So he’s going to get that as much as he wants. But there’s going to be a whole agenda that is being empowered by folks like Vance, because Vance will be the the leader in waiting.
And that whole agenda is a Christian nationalist agenda. If you want to see what that looks like, go to Oklahoma, where they said the Bible. Every classroom has to have a Bible and every teacher has to teach out of the Bible, even math teachers. So that’s the kind of agenda.
That’s not to say that’s Donald Trump’s agenda. It’s to say that he’s made a deal with that group of frankly, anti-American people, because this is a secular, liberal democracy. He’s made a deal with them. You support me and I will, you know, I’ll point JD Vance, he’ll get your agenda done, and then we’ll all go after nonwhite immigrants together. And then, yeah, we’ll go after democracy.
I mean, they already own the Supreme Court. So, you know, once they fill the rest of the courts, game is sort of over.
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