Posted on 08/18/2015 7:59:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Nazi comparisons remain a dime per dozen in the political discourse, wielded liberally and often outside historical context. Godwin’s law suggests that any online debate which lasts long enough will result in someone evoking the Nazis.
That moment has arrived in our consideration of Donald Trump. Newsweek commentator Jeffrey A. Tucker asks, “Is Donald Trump a Fascist?” However, the question stands as more than provocation or insult. Tucker is serious, and offers evidence to bolster the suggestion:
What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is not leftist in its cultural and political outlook (see how he is praised for rejecting “political correctness”), and yet it is still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and demands no limits on state power.
Whereas the left has long attacked bourgeois institutions like family, church and property, fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history, under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.
Typically, when fascism is evoked, people think of concentration camps and the Holocaust. Such images fuel the notion that Nazi comparisons are inherently exaggerated. However, it’s important to realize that concentration camps were a product of fascism, not its defining characteristic. Fascism subjugates the individual to the state in the name of some collective, whether “the nation” or “the race.”
Reason editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie describes the effect an implementation of Trump’s immigration plan would have upon the state’s relationship to individuals. Trump’s government would become a “vast and always beefed-up bureaucracy that will have control over whether you can work and when you need to show proof of U.S. citizenship.”
Tucker continues:
This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership. They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous struggles in which they can prove their greatness…
… They purport to be populists, while loathing the decisions people actually make in the marketplace (such as buying Chinese goods or hiring Mexican employees).
Trump’s rhetoric, his so-called plan, emerges from the same instinct of economic protectionism which opposes right-to-work and Uber. It’s the politics of scapegoating, blaming the other guy for your inability to compete. For the Nazis, their scapegoat was the Jew. For Trump, it’s the Mexican. He may not be proposing concentration camps. But the rhetorical path he’s leading Republican voters down leads in that direction. It certainly doesn’t lead to less government and more freedom.
“This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership.”
You mean like George Washington?
I don’t think the country can stand another commie metrosexual.
Please contact me when Newsweek gets down to 8 pages.
Consider the source.
Are they still publishing Newsweek???
Good grief, projecting Mr. Obama unto Mr. Trump.
Newsweak
Trump has not appeared out of a vacuum.
Our elite leaders have for years shut down any and all debate on what direction the citizens want their nation to go.
Even when the people win in elections, the courts over rule their vote.
Trump is giving a voice to those that the elite have tried to silence.
I say to them, you created the situation, you must live with the consequences.
Jumped the shark, did we....
Newsweek, a voice of socialism since 1933.
Isn’t Newsweak owned and run by Goebbles?
Naah,compared to the AINO(American In Name Only)”news” media, Goebbels was an amateur.
I might ask, does Newsweek matter?
The leftist media is doing all it can to destroy Trump, as they do to anyone who poses a threat to their stranglehold on power.
Now that said, the writer ought to look more closely to see who actually has been applying Hitler's methods the past seven years:
Leftwing Chickens Coming Home.
The shoe fits, indeed; but the wearer is not Donald Trump.
For Trump, it’s the Mexican. ....................?? How about “any Illegal”? How about taking in those who will make America great, not people who don’t know what toilet paper is and have no knowledge of the language spoken here. Ask not what America can do for them, ask what they can do for America. Personally, I liked “USA #1”, I can’t get use to this “USA #2”. I still believe in “All races, all religions, that’s America to me.” But we can afford to be choosy if we want it to be better. Don’t ya just love being called Fascist, or Nazi, by Communists? Isn’t Trump a lot more Patriotic than say Hillary? Both want to take this country somewhere, but to seek office solely on being “the
First” is not a reason for me to run to the voting booth.
I don’t see Trump appointing inept cabinet members or people he owes favors. I’m sure he’ll be looking for very qualified “apprentices”. The appointments should be far more interesting than anything that comes out of a Hillary administration.
Not necessarily, Newsweak, but what *is* true, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that Barak Hussein Obama *is*...
the infowarrior
If the Fascists at Newsweek can’t figure this out, who can? (Using Mussolini’s definition of “fascism” as “corporatism,” or the combination of big government with big business.)
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