Donald Trump: Opportunist Rather Than Fascist

Arjun Mehta

6/30/16

Fascism Paper #3

Donald Trump: Opportunist rather than Fascist

Donald Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again” has caused a large mass of people to compare the current Republican presidential candidate to the paradigmatic Fascist regimes that arose in Europe during the interwar period. Six years ago, world-renowned political scientist Noam Chomsky claimed that the state of America is “very similar to late Weimar Germany,” and that in both cases, “people feel isolated, helpless, and victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence”. It is these characteristics which then create an environment for a charismatic and loudmouthed demagogue to emerge, Chomsky explains. Now that Trump has garnered significant power, and is a legitimate candidate to lead our country for the upcoming years, people are only now starting to legitimize the claims that Chomsky has been making for years. Similar to Chomsky, I agree that the current state of America resembles 1930’s Europe, and therefore implements the Fascist formula. However, Donald Trump does indeed differ from Hitler and the other paradigmatic fascist leaders, as he proposes more of a right-winged populist ideology rather than a violent fascist take over as we have seen in the past.    

        The “formula” for Fascism that we have analyzed throughout our class has a strong resemblance to the current state of the American political system. Comparable to the exemplary fascist regimes we have studied, America’s economy is not nearly to the standards that its populous would like it to be. This comes partially as a result of the emergence of the “New Democrat” party and the large rightest shift America has undertaken over the past thirty years. The government created strong relationships with corporate executives, who in return received positions in the government. As a result, the working/lower-middle class has felt distanced, and that their own political party has left them to dry. The stagnant salaries for the bottom 90 percent of America over the last 30 years have only increased the resentment towards the top 10 percent elite, who have reaped large dividends from a rising GDP (Berlet). Trump feeds off this information, and uses rhetorical propaganda to fuel his target base to support him. He basically has provided himself as the savior to all of the working class’s problems by using the immigrants as scapegoats, and hoping that this would bolster him into office. Surely enough, in line with what Chomsky had said, it is all these factors of the American government right now that have opened up a pathway for a Trump-esque leader to emerge, similar to the poor economic and political state that plagued Germany prior to Hitler’s rise.

        It is understandable to say then that America’s current state has the political and economic environment to undergo massive change. Yet, to call Trump a fascist is patronizing towards the word, as he is not advocating for nearly as drastic of a change as the paradigmatic rulers had proposed nearly a century ago. Primarily, the fascist regimes we have studied called for intensive nationalism, placing the emphasis on the country rather than the individual, hoping to gain immortality through group hardship, as said in the Doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini. In the case of Trump, much of what he advocates for may seem nationalist (Make America Great Again), but it nevertheless caters to the individual. He wants people to know that the “American Dream” is in fact possible, and that he is the one that can help them achieve this. If you yourself give an effort, then you will be able to reap the benefits. Additionally, Trump’s lack of violence separates him from the classic Fascists, who claimed that only large scale forcefulness could start a large shift in government, and that war is the meaning for which people should live (Mussolini). Trump, so far, does not seem to embody these traits or to be nearly as drastic as the older regimes. While he does embody xenophobic traits, he does not call for the destruction of entire races. Trump’s mindset has been more opportunistic than anything else, taking advantage of an ugly situation and telling people what they want to hear.