American Fascism and the Bernie Meme

On inauguration day, I wrote the following Facebook post:

“It's interesting, but aside from my leftist friends, my foreign friends seem equally put off by today. The experience of living in another country, one in which politics isn't all just superficial pageantry atop grotesque policies, really opens your eyes to how insane this country is. When celebratory liberals discuss inauguration day in terms of the fashion choices of our political officials and the celebrities brought out to regale them, how could any of us be surprised that a former reality TV star became president? Call him a fascist if you will, but he's as American as apple pie and cruise missiles. I wonder how much this country would change if every American was forced to live elsewhere (not just tourist elsewhere) if only for a short while. Heck, I'd be happy if we could get them to only imagine living elsewhere.”

While it generated support and a lot of good discussion, it also generated some pushback. Among the criticisms, there were those who thought I was peddling the kind of rank and condescending anti-Americanism that is typical of “leftists” and “Europeans.” Fascism happens everywhere, and to believe that there was something uniquely American about Trump—to dare to make any comparison between Trump and the Biden inauguration—was nonsense. And while I don’t think this is true, it did give me a chance to reflect on Trump and American politics, in a way that I think is useful.

Over the past four years, it seems that the dominant debate about Trump (at least within political theory circles) has been the debate about whether or not he’s a fascist. At first, I was resistant to the argument, in no small part because I remember George W. Bush and The Patriot Act, extra-territorial rendition, torture, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the Iraq and Afghanistan war, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, mass digital surveillance, and so on and so on and so on. But over the past few weeks I started coming around to the claim because of his attempt to subvert the election (although, Bush v. Gore!). Nevertheless, I became more sympathetic. But then, yesterday, I caught some of the coverage of Biden’s inauguration and it helped clarify part of the reason why I was resistant to the fascist label: it’s not that Trump isn’t a fascist (he may or may not be), it’s that the label of fascism won’t do the work that we want it to.

To me, it’s always seemed like there were two underlying motives for the Trump/fascism debate: first, the purely intellectual task of trying to understand our political moment, and second, the more political task of determining how “concerned” we should be. The first of these is a relatively anodyne pursuit that has spawned some interesting work on the nature of historical comparison. That is, asking if Trump is a fascist raises questions in historiography because any historical comparison is going to lead to both similarities and differences. Consequently, determining if Trump is a fascist requires that we make decisions about which qualities are essential to fascism (i.e. what about a fascist makes them a fascist), as well as subsidiary questions about the intellectual uses and limitations of historical comparison. And as a purely intellectual pursuit, many of these were interesting questions.

However, I don’t think that the intellectual motivation behind this debate is actually its prime motive. Instead, I think the real crux of the Trump/fascist debate has to do with determining how concerned we should be about Trump’s politics; arguing that he’s a fascist is a way of increasing concern while arguing that he isn’t a fascist is a way of decreasing concern. So there’s something disingenuous about much of this debate because it’s often a proxy for the real questions: how worried should we be?

This is where my resistance to the Trump is a fascist claim begins: labelling him a fascist hasn’t had the effect of increasing concern over his politics because the term “fascist” just doesn’t raise the alarm bells in the way that people hope. Perhaps this means that people find the label of fascist to be archaic or anachronistic, or perhaps it stems from other causes (I’m partial to the idea that words, regardless of how “serious” they are, simply don’t motivate people very much). But regardless, even if we managed to make an airtight argument that in his fundamental essence Trump is in fact a fascist, I don’t think that any behavioral changes would necessarily follow among the American populace. And to the extent that I’m right that the primary motivation for these debates resides in politics rather than in intellectual life, these arguments have been a failure. For better or for worse, people don’t care if Trump is a fascist. This isn’t to say that people don’t care about how awful he has been, because clearly many people do, but labelling Trump a fascist—even with the most rigorous and coherent of arguments—isn’t going to motivate anyone to resist who wasn’t already so motivated.

However, this leads to another, more serious, problem: the Trump/fascist debate has actually obscured who he is rather than clarified it. So, not only has this debate failed in its political motive, but it has also harmed the underlying intellectual question. That is, maybe Trump has some important similarities with past fascists, as well as some differences, but with all the time spent trying to determine whether or not Trump is a fascist, the truly important question remains unasked: what exactly is Trump? And I think that it’s only by asking this essentially intellectual question—both directly and in earnest—that we might hope to engender true political resistance to it too.

To answer the question of what Trump is requires that we approach the question of Trump in a different way. Rather than attempting to draw historical parallels between Trump and past fascists in order to determine if he falls into the category of “fascist” or not, the path to an answer requires that we look at Trump directly, attempting to understand what he actually represents. Only then, if we so choose, should we ask the subsidiary question of whether this makes him a fascist. But if we do our first job well—if we really come to understand the nature of Trump’s politics—the question of his fascism should be easy to answer. That is, now that we know him, it should be easy to see if he checks all the boxes to be labelled a fascist. However, at this point, the question of his fascism becomes a purely academic affair. It’s the question of how political theorists and historians should categorize him, and not the question of what we, as citizens, should think and/or do about him. Because, after all, it’s hard for me to imagine how the label of fascist—which is an essentially academic debate about political classification—would change how people behave. However, presenting a clearer picture of who exactly Trump is just might.  After all, it’s not an academic argument about Trump’s fascism that led to the wave of protests during his term in office, but rather, it was clear knowledge about what he was actually doing.

In this light, there’s something superficial about the whole Trump/fascist debate, because it’s essentially concerned with the application of one possible label to Trump, and not with a fundamental understanding of who he is. Worse yet, this debate might actually be counterproductive to our ultimate concern of providing a clear account of Trump. For instance, rather than directly examining Trump, the Trump/fascist argument requires that we examine other fascists in order to determine what makes them fascists, before then trying to determine if Trump possesses these qualities too. However, this has the effect of magnifying those qualities that he shares in common with other fascists—because we’re trying to prove that he’s one of them—but which also has the reciprocal effect of diminishing those qualities that are uniquely his own. More simply, by tying Trump to the international legacy of fascists rather than to the domestic legacy of American politics, it makes of Trump an “other;” Trump isn’t seen as a natural outgrowth of American politics and society, he’s instead seen as a domestic manifestation of a politics that is more universal. And yet, it’s hard to deny that there’s something quite uniquely American about Trump.

For instance, while Trump-style politics are in the ascent in many places, it’s almost next to impossible to imagine Trump arising anywhere but in the United States. For instance, in the parallel that I personally know best—the Ford brothers in Ontario—there are clearly some similarities, such as petty bourgeois resentment, but also many differences. The Ford’s, for instance, managed to cobble together a largely multicultural base for their brand of politics, whereas Trump’s base is decidedly white (just as his politics are white supremacist). Moreover, while Trump resonates with some Canadians, most have been disgusted by him, whereas the Ford’s resonate with a larger Canadian base. They’re quite distinctly Canadian (really, suburban Torontonian), and this local familiarity is a big part of their appeal, whereas Trump is distinctly American. So, for all his similarities with Rob and Doug Ford, there are also some extremely important differences.

Labelling Trump a fascist stresses the similarities between Trump and politicians like the Ford’s (although, it would be hard to argue that either of the Ford’s is a fascist, despite representing a similar right-wing populism), and this might be important if we’re looking for an understanding of the wave of right-wing politics sweeping the globe. However, this might actually be counterproductive when it comes to understanding why Trump arose in the United States—and more importantly, what we can do to ensure that someone like him doesn’t arise again. To achieve that goal, understanding Trump’s appeal to Americans seems like the primary task.

In this light, it seemed important to note the way that American politics is “superficial pageantry atop grotesque policies.” This isn’t a claim that only applies to Trump, but to American politics more broadly, even if Trump is the most extreme example of it. Yet, as someone pointed out, the British do have a queen, after all, so pomp and circumstance is hardly an American phenomenon. But as I responded, having a Queen wouldn’t be so bad if this superficiality adorned substantively progressive policies, like Medicare-for-all. It’s not the spectacle with which I disagree—I live in NYC after all, and enjoy a good spectacle now and again—it’s that all we ever get is the spectacle and not the policies. American politics is all surface and no depth. It’s the politics of Hollywood, from Reagan to Trump.

But even further, the comparison between British royalty and American politics seems flawed because the Queen has no real political power—members of the royal family are more or less celebrities rather than politicians—so that comparing a royal event to an event in American politics seems like an inaccurate comparison. Comparing the royal family to the Kardashians seems more apt, which is probably why coverage of both largely takes places in the pages of People magazine rather than in The New York Times. But when it comes to actual political figures in British politics (people with actual political power), changes in political power happen without the kind of celebrity filled galas that we’re used to in the United States. In Canada, for instance, I can’t recall ever having watched anything related to an inauguration because we’re not used to treating our politicians as if they were celebrities. Justin Trudeau tried to change that, with a media savvy that attempted to emulate President Obama but that did so poorly, but he also knew that his future political life depended on his ability to pass policies that benefited people. And he did, the latest of which is a $2000 month stipend for those out of work because of COVID-19. In the United States, however, we have the worlds biggest celebrities singing at the presidential inauguration, and we can’t even seem to enact the most piddling of pandemic relief.

Which brings me back to Trump: by any measure a complete failure, he won power as the consequence of his television performance on The Apprentice. Six-times bankrupted in real life, on TV he was a star; he’s the definition of someone who isn’t a doctor but who played one on TV. And while this kind of celebrity doesn’t have the same purchase in other parts of the world, it does in America. And with this in mind, it seems reasonable to point out the way that Biden is offering the same old tired Clinton/Obama neoliberal set of policies, but with a soundtrack provided by J. Lo and Lady Gaga. No doubt Biden will be much better than Trump (and in the few days since his inauguration he’s clearly proved himself to be), but he might also be similar to Trump in offering more surface than substance, if the Democrats prefer the superficiality of The West Wing to that of The Apprentice.

The point is not that Biden and Trump are identical, because they clearly are not. Instead, the point is that, as Andy Warhol once said of himself, American politics are “deeply superficial.” This isn’t to say that Trump and Biden are the same, because they clearly are not, but it is to suggest that they might be more similar than we want to admit. While Justin Trudeau passed a stimulus package that offered $2000 a month to those currently suffering, the Democrats and Republicans are quibbling over whether the prior $600 one-time check will be all, or if the Democrats can raise that by an additional one-time check of $1400. Neither is proposing that people shouldn’t suffer; they’re merely debating how bad our suffering should be. It’s a politics of cruelty, if each party decorates that cruelty differently.

And yet, through all of this there is clearly a hunger for a politics of substance. So, while you’d expect the headlines on inauguration day to focus on Biden or Harris, J. Lo or Lady Gaga, they weren’t. Instead, they focused on a weary old man dressed in a warm coat and hand-knitted mittens. And why did the Bernie meme go viral? Because Bernie, and those like him, are the antidote to American politics. He’s all substance and no flash; what you see is what you get. And I suspect that there’s a relationship between Bernie’s authenticity and the fact that he’s almost entirely alone in wanting to ensure that people receive $2000 a month during this pandemic. But there’s something very unamerican about that, which is probably why he’d be vehemently opposed by the GOP if ever he were nominated, but why he also proved an even greater threat to the Democrats. Truth can’t help but expose lies, and an example of real generosity reveals that the Democrats have only been playing generous on TV.

Trump might be an extreme caricature of American politics, but he’s not as anomalous as he is often made to seem. And until we grapple with that—until we grapple with the fundamental superficiality of American politics—we’re not going to be free of the threat. This doesn’t require that we draw comparisons with other fascists, it only requires that we look at ourselves.

And this is perhaps why I had such trouble with the Trump/fascist debate. Rather than helping us look at ourselves, it had the opposite effect, because it removed any complicity that we might have with the problem. Granted, proponents of this debate clearly identified a fascist strand of politics within American politics, but it was always only a part of the larger whole of American politics, rather than an outgrowth of it. Consequently, those levying the charge were never in any way complicit in American fascism because the fascists were “others.” And so, rather than accepting the challenge of self-analysis that Trump urged on us all, proponents of the Trump/fascist claim were all too quick in demonstrating their own innocence by demonstrating the guilt of others. Rather than a time of national reckoning, the Trump/fascist debate only helped stave this off.

Which brings me back to the inauguration. I couldn’t help but juxtapose the spectacle of it all (and the enthusiasm of the audience for the spectacle) with the immiseration that now exists in this country, especially when Biden’s plans are little more than business as usual, and therefore fall far short of what the Western world has come to expect from its leaders. And this juxtaposition—"superficial pageantry atop grotesque policies—made me wonder, and worry, if the real problem is a more deeply held and universally shared American problem.

We’re all so “deeply superficial.”