Tag: history

The Murder of Charlie Kirk-A Reichstag Moment for Trump

By: Curtis Johnson

We are not on a slippery slope to fascism, but instead on a speeding train headed for a one-way tunnel that will slam shut if the train gets through.

The murder of fascist Charlie Kirk comes at what would seem both a dangerous and thus opportune time for Trump. Things have been threatening to go south for him. Mass opposition and resistance has grown to his ICE kidnappings in LA and elsewhere. Large protests were held in D.C. and Chicago against his troop deployments building on earlier protests in the spring and summer.

The regime has been embroiled in a deepening crisis about their desperate efforts to shut down and cover-up the Epstein scandal, including Trump’s own role. This crisis escalated after powerful and heart-wrenching testimony by survivors on Capitol Hill of the sexual abuse committed by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Survivors alluded to the participation and complicity that reaches into high levels of the power structure.

Trump’s health and rationality has become a major question mark and sign of weakness,  as his pole numbers sink and dissatisfaction spreads. The economy is wobbling and the danger of Trump becoming the emperor without any clothes a viable threat.

 Kirk’s murder is a bad thing, and has nothing to do with non-violent protest and efforts by actual progressives, anti-fascists and millions of ordinary people to stop fascism. In fact, it is providing an opportunity the regime has seized to try to reverse their weaknesses and problems and repolarize the political situation.

In the wake of the murder, a pogromist atmosphere has been unleashed and fanned into the MAGA base and throughout society by Trump, his officials and fascist “influencers”.

For the regime, this is a “Reichstag moment”. This refers to the Nazi’s grabbing of centralized power after the burning down of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. The arson was blamed on a communist but was very probably carried out by the Nazis themselves.  Or else they simply seized the opportunity to turn it to their advantage. In either case, it became the justification for consolidating Hitler’s dictatorship

Trump and other top officials called for a broad and completely baseless assault on and dismantling of “the radical left” using all  the tools of the power structure. They do so based on manufacturing without evidence a connection of the shooter to the “organized radical left”. Whatever that is. In the process, everyone and every organization  left of the GOP is put on notice they could be next, and that they better shut up and get in line. Some on the right openly push for blood and war on “the enemy within”. What’s next? Outlawing of whole  organizations, targeting of individuals for arrest and terrorism charges despite any evidence? Mass detentions? Expanded judicial or extra judicial murder?

All of this amounts to an attempt to silence and purge society of opposition and a violent consolidation of fascist power.

We’ve seen over and over this regime provides no evidence for anything it claims, and does the most horrendous things anyway. The latest examples-the mass detention of immigrants who often have legal status and mostly face no charges,  while claiming to go after the “worst of the worst”. Or, the gleeful murder of Venezuelan fishermen while claiming without evidence they are gang narcotraffickers.  

Trump orders flags to half staff. NFL teams order a moment of silence for the racist Kirk.  Stephen Colbert previously and  now Jimmy Kimmel are forced off the air. Kimmel’s show is replaced with a Sinclair company prop-ed honoring Kirk’s life. A nationwide bending of the knee to racism and fascist dictate in Kirk’s honor is being spread and enforced throughout the culture.

This is, as Thom Hartman said a few days ago, the “Horst Wesseling” of America. Horst Wessel was a notorious Nazi brownshirt killed by communists in 1930 after Wessel had orchestrated an attack and assault on Communist Party headquarters. The Nazis turned Wessel into a national celebrity and martyr in their drive for fascist consolidation, the annihilation of the Jews,  and preparation for World War II

 Now in the U.S. after the Kirk murder, journalists, teachers, TV personalities,  and many others are targets of death threats and firings for either pointing out Kirk’s racist, anti-gay and anti-trans views or questioning the official story. Trump’s FCC assailed ABC who then fires Kimmel for questioning the regimes story about Kirk’s murderer and their motives. MSNBC fired Mathew Dowd for questioning the veracity of the regime’s argument. The last full time Washington Post Black columnist is fired for raising facts about Kirk’s actual views.

Trump sues the New York Times for stories he doesn’t like. Previously, he sued the Wall St. Journal for publishing a story on Trump’s disgusting “birthday card” to his buddy, rapist Jeffrey Epstein which his spokespeople alleged didn’t exist and he denied writing. Now of course, the card has been released and proven to exist, with his signature.  

Billionaire interests that back or acquiesce to fascism now have control of most of the major news outlets-CBS through Paramount who’s CEO is David Ellison-son of Oracle owner and billionaire Trump buddy Larry Ellison. Larry Ellison himself is now poised to take control of TikTok in the U.S.  X, owned by fascist Elon Musk.  Facebook and it’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg who has bent to Trump’s demands around abortion content and fact-checking, and appeared at his inauguration along with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.  ABC through Disney CEO Bob Iger who has increasingly bowed to Trump’s demands , including donating $15million to a future Trump foundation museum after a Trump lawsuit. Of course NPR was gutted of federal funding by Trump’s dissolving of the Corporation for Public Broadcast.

It’s readily apparent what all of  this suppression and capture of the press represents and where it goes. First the press is “the enemy of the people”- turned into the target of MAGA hate and sometimes open attack. Certain news media are cut off from access to the White House while right wing and fascist ones that have no credibility are brought in. Billionaires in concert with Trump buy up and force out any who would oppose him in the media. Others toe the line and shut up or join in the targeting of opposition voices.

Trump officials and spokespeople as a matter of course seek to performatively outdo each other to lambast and heap vitriole on the press for raising any questions about Trump’s polices. The goal, to force deference and submission and rule out of order anything that could be considered the least oppositional.

The MAGA base is encouraged to search for and identify oppositional voices in society and social media who can be accused of “celebrating” Kirk’s murder, often simply for noting what Kirk actually said in life. And now Trump calls for government agencies to move to silence and force off the air anyone who is critical of him. The next logical move could well be trying to outright criminalize criticism of him or his regime to silence and punish dissent.

All of these fascist moves now come of course on top of what the regime has already done or is in process of doing. Its mass kidnapping of immigrants for imprisonment and deportation without due process. Its arresting of citizens who are Black and brown especially, greenlit by the Supreme Court’s ethnic cleansing decision allowing this. Masked and unidentified federal agents roam major cities, farms, factories and rural areas grabbing brown people going to work, dropping off their children at school, working their jobs, attending immigration hearings. Concentration camps are built with plans for massive expansion,  and tens of billions are approved for this and to expand the army of ICE gestapo.

Trump has occupied the nation’s capital and second largest city with federal troops, setting up roadblocks, checkpoints, harassing and jailing Black youth and the homeless, and backing ICE arrests. He threatens more cities will follow.

Black figures in politics, entertainment and sports are slandered. Small steps after the George Floyd protests to incorporate DEI measures in government, corporation and NGOs are targeted and agencies continuing these practices face funding cuts. National Museums that tell the true history of America’s bloody history of slavery, Jim Crow and other oppression of Black people, genocide of native people, and women’s oppression are shut down or purged in favor of white supremacist fables of America’s greatness and power. Cultural institutions of enlightenment, creativity and expression are taken over to eliminate “wokeness”.

Government programs, departments and funding that help people survive health care crises, medical emergencies, combat diseases, that oversee food and health safety, that educate young people, are gutted and destroyed. Support for scientific and climate research is slashed. A campaign to slash funding for the war on cancer is directed by the regime, cutting funding 37%. The environment is targeted for massive destruction by logging of wild lands containing precious mature and old-growth forests,  and poisoning by greenhouse gases, pesticides and other pollution to fuel capitalist profiteering.

Open corruption and the buying of favors becomes the order of the day for Trump and his regime. Qatar gives Trump a new Air Force One. The U.S. agrees to sell rare AI chips to the U. A. E after a billionaire member of the royal family invests 2 billion in a Trump family cryptocurrency company. Personal “face time” at Presidential dinners  with Trump is traded for other investments in Trump or Trump family interests or other favors. Federal agencies overseeing corporate corruption and thievery are gutted by the thieves themselves and those who have interests in common.

Oppositional voices throughout the federal  government are silenced, fired or forced out, in some cases investigated for criminal charges. Former top officials, even of Trump’s first administration and former presidents are targeted for slander, investigation,  loss of secret service protection,  and possible charges. Democratic officials are arrested or assaulted for asking questions of Trump officials or trying to perform their legal oversight of immigration facilities.  

The atmosphere of obsequiousness, debasement,  and corruption seeps into every sphere of the federal government, throughout the GOP at every level and into society’s institutions. Universities, newspapers, media outlets and  law firms acquiesce to outrageous demands to bow to the Trump regime and perform service under threat of cuts to federal funds or other targeting. Student dissent and opposition on campus to Israeli genocide is targeted with help from the Democrats under the ridiculous banner of “anti-semitism” , even against Jewish organizations. The atmosphere on campus becomes one of fear to speak out and keeping ones head down.  

Now, the attempt is to roll everything up as regime officials sense if they don’t, it’s at least possible the wheels could come off. We must make sure they aren’t successful at carrying this out,  and that the reverse becomes reality.  Otherwise, the horrors we are already seeing are guaranteed to reach levels we can barely imagine. 

Massive, persistent, and courageous opposition to all of what is being attempted by Trump and his lackeys is absolutely essential if we are to have any hope at stopping fascist consolidation and turning this around. Protests to the firing of Kimmel and other figures, to federal troops, to ICE kidnappings,  to assaults on the press, to attempts to criminalize oppositional speech, to shut down and silence the media,  to attacks on progressive and leftist organizations and individuals-all of this must break  out and be built and fanned throughout the country.

National coordinated protests have to be called and grow and not let up or be one day affairs. No King’s Day Oct. 18^th must be so widespread, large and disruptive it can’t be ignored. And people have to pour into D.C. Nov. 5th for Refuse Fascism’s call for beginning the non-violent and on-going protests of millions to shut down the Trump regime and force it from power.

It’s very possibly, now or never.

By Curtis Johnson

This past week, Rachel Maddow warned in a way that feels increasingly brave given Trump’s attacks on the media, America today is a different country than before Trump 2.0 came to power. The reality is clear now, she said, America  has an authoritarian leader who is consolidating a dictatorship. She is right.

This is the case despite it being important to understand that Maddow’s perspective is hindered by belief in America and its “basic goodness” and “perfectibility”.  This includes basic support for its military, despite its role as a worldwide enforcer of brutal empire. The reality is, America both is, and is not a different country. Or better said, it IS, but this is based on a previous foundation and history of slavery, genocide, war and oppression.

 Nonetheless, the country is quickly being wrenched into a new form of consolidated fascist rule. A departure built on existing institutions of oppression. A rule where previous norms-formal democratic rights, due process, separation of powers including especially relative independence of the Department of Justice and FBI from the executive, and the rule of law in general-are being eviscerated and replaced with raw dictatorial power. Power that is concentrated in Trump above all, and his sycophantic minions and accomplices throughout the executive branch, Congress, the Supreme Court, military and law enforcement.

Yes, Maddow says, people continue to live their lives, go to work, to shows and concerts, fall in love and out of love, in and out of faith, etc. But she says, we live in a different country with secret and unaccountable masked police, detention prisons, and destruction of due process. “The things we worried about and feared are here”.

To differ on one point however, Maddow says the U.S. has detention camps, but not death camps, say as Nazi Germany did. But it must be said, Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as death camps. But as the situation accelerated especially with invasion of the Soviet Union, they were turned into death camps, built on the logic of Nazi ideology and its hatred of Jews and belief in “Aryan” superiority. One should ask, can anyone argue that the ideology of the Trump regime just would never lead it to this in what it considered “an emergency situation?”

Maddow showed powerful testimony  by a woman in Lincoln Nebraska at a town hall meeting held by MAGA mouthpiece Congressperson Mike Flood. The woman demanded, with the millions being spent on concentration camps and for ICE to illegally detain people, “how much do the taxpayers need to spend for a fascist country?”

ICE -Fascism’s Battering Ram

Maddow highlighted again, as she has stood out for among mainstream media, protest around the country against Trump and ICE. She told the story of a young Korean woman, Yeonsoo Go. Yeonsoo came to the U.S. in 2021 with her mother, a priest in a famous Episcopal church in NYC. Despite being a person with legal status, no charges against her, and no history of illegality, (or maybe BECAUSE of this), ICE kidnapped her and sent her to a detention camp in Louisiana.

At the end of the show, it broke that ICE had been forced to release her after much protest by leading religious figures, which is wonderful.

But in general, there is no pullback by ICE, despite important and serious resistance in LA and elsewhere. Indeed, ICE raids continue and have escalated throughout the country. And now billions are becoming available by Trump’s ugly new fascist bill, to recruit tens of thousands more secret police and expand concentration camps countrywide. 

Under Trump, ICE is playing a key role as a Nazi-style Gestapo for the elimination of democratic rights and due process. Immigrants being the initial target for kidnapping, mass imprisonment in concentration camps, and suspension of legal rights.  Democratic representatives are arrested. Armed troops are sent into LA and MacArthur Park, a center of immigrant gathering. LA is targeted for “liberation” as “Ice Barbie” Kristi Noem puts it, from democratically elected officials. They’ve sent people to off-site gulags in El Salvador and elsewhere while Trump muses about “the homegrowns are next”. They’ve built Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp  in the Everglades with plans and money allocated for many more,  and are protested by Japanese Americans for plans to reopen a former concentration camp for the Japanese during World War II.

In LA and elsewhere, ICE Gestapo has targeted people based on appearance and skin color-including U.S. citizens who’ve been jailed, usually released as far as we know. And continued on until they were somewhat limited by a judge who had to almost unbelievably make a ruling that “no, you can’t target people based on appearance.  You must have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing”. Which the regime is appealing and aiming for the pro-fascist Supreme Court to rule on.

All these previous norms- supposedly the hallmark of U.S. “justice”-innocent until proven guilty, not being targeted because of your skin color or the way you look and given due process, etc.-now under conversion to, “we can do anything we want to anyone, as long as we can get away with it”.   (Of course the previous norms talk rings hollow for Black and other people of color, for whom law enforcement and the imprisonment system has always been a tool of oppression, including unrelenting murder by police.) But now the attempt is to do so openly, routinely, gleefully, and as a matter of official policy from the highest level, first aimed at the Latino population but to be extended as needed.

The state is locking up a great majority of people who have no charges against them and those that do are primarily minor charges. Many kidnapped even have legal status. It’s ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing as a means of establishing fascism. Ethnic cleansing to create a scapegoat who can be blamed and held responsible for all the problems the country faces. Ethnic cleansing to whip up the worst, most racist, backward and ignorant sentiments among primarily the white populace and appeal to their wanting to unleash their anger and resentment against an “enemy” who has nothing to do with causing their deteriorating conditions of life and emptiness of their existence.   Ethnic cleansing to intimidate and threaten any and all who would oppose fascism and racism. And to put in place the apparatus, means and norms for repression of the entire populace to eliminate opposition, protest and dissent.  And the majority of people aren’t for it.

The Daily Drumbeat

What we see from the fascist authorities are at least daily measures to establish new fascist norms throughout the institutions of power. They understand well, keeping up the momentum of fascist consolidation is key. Never openly backing down or apologizing, continuing to replace truth, science and logic, with lies and the “logic” of fascist power, is key.

Trump orders Texas republicans to redistrict congressional districts in a blatant power grab to ensure the GOP’s hold on Congress. No legal or legitimate reason is given to justify this and increasingly, the new norm is not even to offer any. This is to assert and demonstrate openly, that raw power is all that matters. Nothing else is required than, “we can, so we will”. In a sense, it is stunning, but perhaps shouldn’t be shocking, how easy it has been for fascists to take hold of the previous oppressive institutions and convert them fully, openly, unapologetically into tools of corruption and naked power.

Trump’s EPA announces their move to wipe out the endangerment finding under which greenhouse gases could be limited as they fuel the unfolding climate catastrophe. This, just one part of the Trumpian effort to do away with any limits to fossil fuel production or even the concept of study, concern or tracking of climate change.

When the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes statistics for May jobs report, Trump fires the head of the department., demonstrating once again the campaign to replace facts, truth with fascist propaganda. This is not just standard “governmental lying” as always seen in class society, but part of a plan to convert truth and the standard of truth from one based on reality demonstrable with evidence to whatever the “leader” says is true. Trump never offers evidence and the press never demands it.

Trump moves nuclear submarines closer to Russia in a power move to threaten around settling with the U.S. over Ukraine and Putin says they no longer have any obligation to abide by previous nuclear treaties. So, danger of world war increases. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs DOJ to investigate Obama and former Obama officials for allegedly creating fake intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 elections. So, the actual repressive moves against the opposition ratchet up. Even official ruling class figures, former presidents and heads of intelligence agencies now targeted!

And now, Trump has announced his regime will take over the Washington D.C. police  and send in the National Guard because of the threat from “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth.” Despite the fact, announced by D.C.’s Attorney General, that the crime rate in the city is at a 30-year low.

Fascism accelerating by Trump here is fueling and being fueled, by fascism and genocide by Israel in the Middle East. Twin fascisms pushing each other forward with mutual support. Odeh Hadalin, a contributor to the Oscar winning movie “No Other Land” is murdered by a Zionist settler who then is released and seen hanging out with the Israeli police and helping direct them to arrest other Palestinians in the West Bank. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson visits the community where Odeh has just been murdered and declares,  “The mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people.”

As the world in the main, horrifically, stands by and watches, Palestinian people are starved to death. Images of children with flesh hanging off their bones flash worldwide and starvation stalks the entire population.  Netanyahu announces Israeli plans to annex all of Gaza and Trump says that’s up to them.  The U.S. who has funded, armed and given political support to Israel throughout the genocide, under Trump has teamed up with Israel to further starve the population by the elimination of 400 UN feeding stations to set up just four phony,  Israeli controlled stations where over 1000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli troops after being herded together like animals.

Again On the Language of Fascism

As fascism accelerates here now in the U.S., I keep returning to reading about the language and ideology of the Nazi Third Reich that comes out in study of Victor Klemperer’s diary of life in Germany. In particular his second volume, “To the Bitter End”. This relates to a piece I did previously in Counterpunch.

Klemperer’s diary, especially in 1944 and 45, constantly touches on speculation of the Jewish population and others more broadly, including himself, as Germany is increasingly being defeated in the Soviet Union and in the west after the invasion of Normandy, about “how long” the regime will last.

At this moment, Klemperer speaks of the general fear that even in defeat, the remaining Jews will be slaughtered, as so many others already have been. That in revenge, the rest will be mass murdered at “five minutes to midnight”. The fear is ultimate, suffocating in cases. Alternately it creates apathy and refusal to believe it will actually end, because believing and then having hopes dashed would be suicidal after all that has already been suffered. Living in slavery, as Klemperer calls it.

Even as Germany is losing on all fronts and allied troops enter Germany territory east and west, the Hitler regime continues to espouse the coming victory based on “Aryan superiority”, new weaponry, and the love for country and Fuhrer of the German population.

Klemperer writes in September 1944, “The NSDAP’s (Nazi Party’s) ‘word of the week’ (Dresdener Zeitung, 18^th September) goes: ‘The coming victory will be the victory for us all. Today we must all accept responsibility for it, fanatically and unconditionally, Dr. Goebbels.’  (Always: Dr., their famous university man, always the worn out ‘fanatical’.) The headline above this text, which also sets the tone for the subsequent commentary. ‘The Creed of the National Community’. Final words of the commentary, ‘Now more than ever!’-This while there are battles on German soil, the English are twenty miles from Cologne and in Holland, they are air landing troops are on the right side of the Rhine delta! I ask myself again and again what kind of effect it has, whether it rouses people against the Allies or against the Nazis, whether it is the height of stupidity or the height of cleverness. Only success can answer that question. I believe by turns (changing my mind six times a day) that Germany must collapse in the next six weeks, and that Germany will stand its ground. And again and again: my reason hopes and believes but my heart doubts.”

Then next, he speaks of more articles in the press and banners in shop windows, “’Our will to live is stronger than our enemies’ will to destroy’. ‘Only a strong heart withstands the harshest test.’ An article by a Lieutenant Colonel Ellenbeck. ‘Daily reflection. What can I do to help my nation?’  Content: One minute of reflection every morning. Then weigh every word, show no weakness, be convinced of victory. Encourage those who show weakness, denounce defeatists. The really interesting thing about this sermon is its style. For the LTI, (Lanuage of the Third Reich) there is only the Goebbels-Hitler pattern-all the run-of-the-mill is imitation of that. “

The Goebbels-Hitler pattern. The propaganda never stops, the denial of reality, the assertion of final victory is eminent. Sound familiar?  The Trump regime operates with the same logic. Why? They must destroy the ability of people to learn the truth, and believe any admission of weakness will turn into further weakness, defeat, and losing the whole thing. A desperation. The Nazi language always asserting “Aryan” superiority, specialness, unprecedentedness, historic nature, the virtues and awe of their great “Fuhrer” who is invincible, “ordained by Providence”. As if bluster and assertion alone can overcome or supersede reality. 

Sound familiar? So Trumpian! So reminiscent in language and approach. Yes, a very different country, different parameters, history and without a pre-determined path. Yet, consistent in language and basic goals of unchallenged power.

And no, the position of the defeated German Reich is not reflected in the actual situation of the Trump regime. But in ideology and method the same and so revealing of an underlying weakness.  Where every sycophant and lackey in the ruling party must of necessity worship and heap ridiculous, outlandish, even silly praise on for the amazing insight and great leadership of Trump. Who,  falsely as it’s claimed,  “the American people so overwhelmingly elected” to create all the horrors he has. (Despite polls of 37% in support vs. 59% in opposition.). The leader who “God has chosen”.  So transparently and demonstrably false.

Without substance, hollow and false, and yes, desperate.

Who knows where this all ends up. But truth matters and reality asserts itself. At least truth can matter if fought for consistently. The regimes’ defeats are not primary. I would argue they are unfortunately mainly succeeding. Things are increasingly dangerous, and they could win out in the drive to fully consolidate fascism.  

But also underlying, there is desperation and danger for them. Exactly so because of what they are doing to so many, how open and outrageous they are doing this, and how they are turning so many against them. The protest and resistance to Trump and the system in general matter a great deal, especially in this context. Yet even so, there is a tremendous need to reach new levels where millions consistently and without pause put this regime on the defense and turn things so it can no longer govern in this way. This could be accomplished. Will it be? Without the people making this happen, no one will save us- humanity, and the planet. .

from Counterpunch

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/06/the-language-of-fascism/

May 6, 2025

Curtis Johnson

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Image by Mika Baumeister.

Since the advent of Trump 2.0 in January of this year, it has become increasingly clear that this time around, we face a more virulent and all-encompassing attempt to impose fascism than the first try.

I’ve searched for ways to explain what was occurring and what I might contribute to opposing it, including through writing. I was surprised by the speed and extremity of what was happening. What I expected to be a more slow-moving Orban or Putinesque version of fascism/authoritarianism, seemed more akin to the Nazi experience.

I’ve been somewhat a student of the history of Nazism in Germany and was struck by how the language and methods of Trump et al resembled much of that of the Nazis, albeit in a greatly altered situation including the peculiar history and reality of the United States. No, I’m not arguing that this is a replica with the same predictable outcome. Far from it, and the outcome is unwritten.

What I am arguing though is the parallels and dangers shouldn’t be ignored.

One thing that presented itself to me was the need and potential importance of recording observations of events under the “new” Trump regime, as well as the growing resistance to it. I was drawn to read Victor Klemperer’s two volume Diary, I Will Bear Witness of daily life as a Jewish academic in Nazi Germany from 1933-1945.

Klemperer details from a very personal perspective the encirclement and escalating suppression of Jewish life, and especially that of he and his “Aryan” wife Eva, as well as their circle of friends and associates. Victor miraculously survived the holocaust, largely due to Eva’s background. When the firebombing of Dresden by the U.S destroyed the city in 1945, Victor and Eva managed to escape. Ripping off the yellow star the Nazis required Jews to wear upon penalty of death, Victor left with Eva and made their way to allied lines

I’m just finishing volume I, which ends in 1941. Through this volume, Klemperer, who was a professor/author on French and world literature, documents the language of the Third Reich. He has an idea, which he despairs of even being able to execute due to the increasing threat of death, of someday writing a book on it. In fact, he survived and did publish that book, which I plan to read.

Reading Klemperer’s diary rings a frightening warning from history as fascism unfolds now in the U.S. I can’t shake the feeling that reading this is prologue, albeit as I say in a different situation and time with different parameters or potential results, and being deeply shaken and disturbed by that.

Klemperer, a military veteran who has always considered himself German and Protestant rather than Jewish, is finding himself increasingly estranged from that feeling of “Germaness”.

In 1938, he writes of this being “knocked out of him”, and says, “too much of what, in the past, I took lightly, viewed as an embarrassing minor phenomenon, I now consider to be German and typical. The superlativism, which is a special hallmark of the language of the Third Reich…. the Nazis do it in a way that is half megalomania, half frantic autosuggestion. One of their favorite words is ‘eternal’.”

Trumpist language oozes superlativism. In typical manner, Trump lauded his “accomplishments” in 43 days during his State of the Union address- “The American dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback, the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again.  There’s never been anything like it.”

In 1936, Klemperer writes, “The Fuhrer must be followed blindly, blindly! They do not need to explain anything at all, since they are accountable to no one. Today it occurred to me: Never has the tension between human power and powerlessness, human knowledge and human stupidity been so overwhelmingly great as now.” I am reminded here of the destruction of scientific research by the Trump regime, but also the lock-step sycophancy of the GOP in extolling Trump’s first 100 days.

With the mad celebration of the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and its increased vitriol against Jews, Klemperer recounts “a broad yellow handbill with the Star of David has been stuck to every post of our fence. ‘Jew’. Warning against the unflagged plague barracks. Der Sturmer has dug up its usual ritual murder; I would truly not be surprised if next I were to find the body of a child in the garden.”

He speaks of Hitler presenting Goering with his “marshal’s baton in a great ceremony. They have no sense of the comic impression they make. Their conscious humor is spite against the defenseless”. And further, “For some days now divine right has been given ever more prominence. Again and again in the newspaper. He is the instrument of Providence- the hands that write ‘no’ (in the April 1938 vote to endorse the regime) will wither- the sacred election. .. We think he will have himself crowned Emperor.”

This all sounds quite familiar. Trump speaking of himself as “the King”, tweeting memes of himself wearing a crown. He mused about seizing a third term despite Constitutional limits. How many of his supporters imagine him as “picked by God” after surviving an assassination attempt last summer. Now, Trump has gone so far as to tweet a meme of himself as the new pope!

In a recent interview on “Trump’s first 100 days” with The Atlantic, Trump claims he “runs the country and runs the world”.

So many other examples of Americanized but Naziesque type language or imagery from regime officials stand out, including their glee in crushing the powerless. Musk with a chain saw on stage, bragging of putting USAID into the “woodchipper” despite the deaths it will cause, declaring social security which millions have paid into and rely on for survival a “Ponzi scheme”. The thinly veiled but obvious Nazi salutes of Bannon and Musk. The constant bragging by Trump and his toadies about their “right” to annex Greenland and deport whoever they want without regard to the law, The constant, “biggest ever” crowds at his election rallies and his first inauguration, the plan for a June military parade in D.C. honoring him. The constant demands of other Trump officials demanding world leaders “thank” and bow down to him.

The approach is so comic, so seemingly bizarre, so brazen, and transparent. So lunatic and out to lunch yet at the same moment so dangerous. They view reality as whatever those in power can bludgeon people into accepting and they intend to do so no matter how extreme.

Many other examples spring to mind of the fascist Trumpian language and propaganda. The constant use by the curent regime of the Nazi playbook of “accusing the other side of what you yourself are doing” –(from Goebbels reportedly)-characterizing press exposure of Trump’s misdeeds or crimes as “fake news” and the press as “enemy of the people”, targeting political opponents for investigation or jail as corrective justice against those who conducted a “witch hunt” after Trump (for obvious crimes he committed), targeting and threatening to impeach the “radical activist judges”, who would dare to cross him on due process.

Calling the scrubbing of the racist history of America from museums, institutions, government agencies and websites, or ridding them of programs or language that just slightly took account of historic discrimination against people of color as “reversing racial discrimination” (toward white people!-just replace Aryan with this for the U.S.) Promoting the spread of misinformation, lies, and fascist narratives as “promoting freedom” that has been suppressed by “the woke culture”. The analogies are too numerous to recount, the speed of attack too fast to ignore.

A Case Study of Trumpian Fascist Propaganda

April 29th, Trump interviewed with Terry Moran from ABC News on his first 100 Days. In this, he admitted he could bring Kilmar Obrego Garcia home from the Salvadoran CECOT prison, but his lawyers don’t want him to and so he doesn’t have plans to. Trump’s statement proves false the previous blather from Trump officials like Pam Bondi and Steven Miller that the U.S. couldn’t return Kilmar despite court rulings including the Supreme Court, because it was solely up to El Salvador.

Of course originally, a DOJ lawyer in court said Kilmar had been deported “by administrative error”, (for which he was then fired by Bondi apparently). Later, refusing to be seen as misstepping, regime officials claimed this wasn’t the case. They fastened on the lie Kilmar was a MS-13 gang member, which they have since stuck with despite the almost complete lack of evidence.

Trump argued with Moran that Obrego Garcia literally had “MS-13” tattooed on his fingers. Trump had earlier tweeted out a photograph of Obrego Garcia’s hand which is apparently a photo-shop produced photo. Some source had taken a photo of Garcia’s hand, which has tattoos on it, and “interpreted” the symbols on it- (a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a crucifix, and a skull)- as indicating “M S 1 3”. These enumerations were then digitally added above the actual symbols to create this impression. Experts aware of MS13 tatoos say the actual symbols that are on Kilmar’s hand aren’t indicative of MS13 gang tattoos. One, a Salvadoran journalist who has written a book on MS13 said, “Never, ever, did any of the hundreds of sources I spoke to say anything that would allow us to believe Trump’s strange interpretation of tattoos”.

Undeterred by the truth, Trump argued those letters and numbers were actually and literally on Kilmar’s hand in the photo. He argued Moran should just agree with him and say yes, they were on his hands!

Now, it’s being reported in NYT that the State Department in response to the Federal court that ordered his return and after the Supreme Court ordered the regime to “facilitate” his return, had inquired with El Salvador about returning Garcia but that Salvadoran dictator Bukele had refused to release him because he was Salvadoran. Thus it seemed regime officials may have been planning to use this to claim to appear to be in correspondence with the Supreme Court order to “facilitate” Kilmar’s return-saying they tried, but failed. But now Trump has let out this is all bullshit, just that his lawyers don’t want to.

But this is common Trumpism, one might say, Trumpism 101. Completely opposing statements are given from one day to the next from Trump or top Trump officials. There is a pretense, sometimes unchallenged by the press, that these statements aren’t in complete opposition to each other and at the same time a refusal to offer any coherence or clarity. And then again, resetting a path to bully their way forward when exposed. This is part of the use of language to eliminate truth and logic.

A big part of the fascist “language and method” is to send up a cloud of conflicting bullshit from various officials, often involving the dictator in chief himself-to create a fog of confusion and obfuscation that becomes difficult to walk back through, separate out and document who said what when and make it hard to even pin down either the argument or “bottom line” of what the regime says when it gets in trouble.

In an interview, journalist and author Masha Gessen speaks of Trump’s “bully lie”. Lying with a wink that you know what you’re saying is transparently and provably false, but that you have power over others, so you determine what to believe. The choice provided by power is, accept it and maybe you will be allowed to live and prosper in the world we own and rule, refuse to, and you’ll pay the price. In Trump’s world and the one he seeks to create, there is no truth, really, no evidence, no logic, no reason, no “thinking things through”-just power in charge to follow and be obedient to, or suffer.

Curtis Johnson is a former research scientist, freelance writer, and environmental activist. He has reported and written on the Gulf oil spill, the battle to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Western wildfires, the threat to orcas and wild salmon, the extinction and climate crisis, as well as the fight for justice for families of those murdered by police and to stop Trump’s fascism. Follow him on bluesky: curtisjohnson97404.bsky.social or his blog at https://forplanetandhumanity.com/author/forplanetandhumanity/  

I focused in recent pieces (see below)  on  the personal profiteering, power-grabbing motivations of those at the top of the Trump/Musk regime.

Surely, personal aggrandizement/profit-making/capital expansion of those associated with the regime is a part of the picture I think. Especially with Musk and the other tech/cypto/fossil fuel/social media bro elements that count themselves as Trump supporters and associates. But increasingly this seems only a part of the picture.  

On the other hand, there is an increasingly apparent goal by this regime of achieving Steve Bannon’s (whether he is part of it or not) “deconstruction of the administrative state”. Here, an attempt to destroy or at least gut key governmental agencies, departments or related institutions. Among them-the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Forest and Park Services, the IRS,  the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau (CFPB), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) , the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the VA, the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)-(especially in regard to Medicaid), and others.

Trump et al have made it government policy to assault, curtail, or eliminate any programs, policies or information relating to discrimination against people of color, women and LGBTQ folks and any previous anti-discrimination efforts (paltry and ineffective as they may have been). Curtailment and slashing of programs and information is also taking place related to  disease protection and prevention, climate and other scientific research, foreign aid, food safety, aviation safety,  legal protection, oversight of corrupt practices, environmental and biodiversity protection, and others.

The gutting or shuttering of key parts of the federal government and firing of soon to be tens of thousands of federal employees seems aimed at a number of things. 1. Providing income for another vast tax break and incentives for capital expansion/profit-making for large corporations. 2. In tandem, elimination of regulations, limitations, and controls over U.S. capitalist corporations. 3. Eliminating forces within government who would seek to limit or oppose the institution of Trump’s policies and consolidating fascist control of all aspects of government and society. 4. To eliminate or dramatically cut aspects of government that tens of millions of particularly poorer and middle-class people rely on to survive, with particular disproportionate impact on  people of color, immigrants, women  and LGBTQ folk. The goal-to push these sections of people down and immiserate them further to spread chaos, fear and inability to resist.

Another aspect of the remaking of the form of government rule is the transformation of the agencies that make up the repressive apparatus of the state.

-The turning of the Department Of Justice (DOJ)  into an instrument of Trumpian dictates and persecution of “enemies” instead of an agency making decisions on prosecution or law enforcement in regard to the law and previous legal norms with some degree of independence.

-Attacking judges and giving rise to a campaign of threats from the Trump base against the Judiciary, to transform it into a more pliable instrument of state repression and dictate.

-A  transformation of the FBI, the nation’s “leading” law enforcement agency into a more thoroughly controllable force for executive-directed repression and persecution. Examples–firing officials who played a part in investigating Trump and MAGA crimes or were judged to be too much guided by legality or duty to previous legal norms. And appointing a head in Kash Patel who is a proven loyalist guided by the MAGA world-view and  purveyor of outlandish conspiracy theory. There’s no doubt much more here of course than yet seen or known.

-Transformation of the military, led by Christian nationalist fascist Pete Hegseth. Under Hegseth, the military is to become  an institution not only enforcing U.S. imperialist rule and war-as it always has been- but an even more ruthless force for carrying out the dictates of the fascist Trump regime globally and domestically. Here the Trump threats to seize Greenland, to make Canada “the 51st state” and assign the Pentagon to develop a plan for an invasion of Panama should not be underestimated.

Some forms of this transforming already occurring include:

-eliminating all DEI polices and thus any pretense of applying anti-discrimination policies for people of color, women or LGBTQ members

– removal of key generals and admirals-particularly people of color and women or gay ones.

-Attempts to expunge and bar transgender soldiers from the military.

Another part of transforming the military is the dismissal of Judge Advocate General (JAG) officials/lawyers that were supposedly charged with making sure the military abides by laws and regulations and upholding justice within the military. This last move is intended I believe to help clear the way of oversight or legal “niceties” restricting military war crimes . This is a declaration  to further  “take off the gloves” in war-fighting, to be even further unhindered by the Geneva convention rules on military conflict,  as well as use of the military for domestic law enforcement, repression and even war against “the enemy within”, (as Hegseth has advocated for).

-Seeking to strip Congressional oversight or control over key levers of power, particularly in regard to removing legislative power in favor of executive order and power. This is a key element for fascism, concentrating power in the “leader” and the executive branch. One key element in doing this is bypassing or seeking to remove Congressional control of governmental funding. This was a central feature in the latest budget resolution passing both houses of Congress after the capitulation and obeisance of Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer. Court case after court case has ruled against the regime on its illegal and unconstitutional actions by executive order essentially removing Congressional control over funding of programs, policies and agencies, but the regime is either slow-walking  in following these orders, continually appealing them to avoid enforcement,  or outright refusing to abide by them.

The Democrats continue to in the main refuse to really mount any type of united challenge to this, except for some individuals doing so at times, and some minor outbursts or challenges that don’t threaten the regime’s onslaught. And they as a party continue in this vein despite massive opposition and outcry from their base as well as the outrage even beginning to spread into sections of the Trump or GOP base.

The Fascist Remaking of Society- an American Version of the Nazi’s “Gleichschaltung”

There is little question now, I believe,  that what we’re experiencing is an American version of the imposition of a full fascist remaking of society akin to the “Gleichschaltung” transformation of Germany that the Nazis undertook after Hitler was sworn in as chancellor in 1933. Gleichschaltung was a term in Nazi Germany for the “synchronizing” or “harmonizing” of all aspects of German society and culture in line with the dictates of the Nazi regime and Hitler.

A  key nodal point in this transformation was the passing of the Enabling Act in March 1933 that gave Hitler and his cabinet the power to make and enforce laws without approval of the Reichstag (German parliament). Notably, Hitler consolidated his dictatorial powers including implementing the Enabling Act after a fire was set burning down the Reichstag. The Nazis pinned it on Communists and used it to compel the German President von Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties and to target opponents for mass arrest, including the Communist Party. Who was behind the arson has never been completely proven, but many see this as the work of the Nazis themselves. At any rate, they seized on the fire to consolidate fascist rule, an important lesson to keep in mind in these times.

It’s hard to capture what is occurring  now in the U.S. as it is quite all-encompassing and fast moving. It’s hard to put into words the breadth and speed of what is being dismantled, in some cases what is being put in place, or left to rot in wreckage. In many ways, many of the forms this is taking can’t be fully recounted because they are so far-reaching, being done so quickly, and in some cases not documented.

A List of Some Examples From Just the Last Week

The below is of course , on top of what has transpired since Trump took power Jan. 20 and began eviscerating governmental institutions and agencies, the firing of tens of thousands of government workers, etc.

-Beginning the elimination of the Department of Education.

-Sending DOGE personnel backed by FBI agents with assistance from DC police to do an armed takeover of an independent non-profit the U.S. Center for Peace.

-Arresting for deportation a number of foreign nationals at Universities here legally with green cards or visas alleging either terrorist support because they protested U.S. foreign policy and Israeli genocide in Gaza (Mahmoud Khalil a Palestinian at Columbia), or in at least one case even when they hadn’t protested but had a father in law that was a former advisor to Hamas and had been “actively  spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-semitism on social media” according to the regime, (Indian national Badar Khan Suri at Georgetown university). Note the last, arresting people for what they allegedly posted on social media-a big fascist leap.  

So the goal here, is attempting to legally transform political dissent into terrorism. It is starting with immigrants but soon to be used against all, as needed, as well as to silence dissent. They are refusing to even make a logical argument or provide any evidence in front of judges of why these people are terrorists, or to bring charges, to provide often even any pre-existing legal basis for deporting them, but doing so anyway.   Essentiallly, they have started disappearing people without access to lawyers or their families-at least for a period (in case of Mahmoud).

-Invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, (which has only been used in times of war previously, and last was used to intern the Japanese in WWII) to arrest and deport 200 Venezuelans to El Salvadoran prisons, despite a judicial ruling forbidding it, alleging membership in a Venezuelan gang. Now admitting, some of these deportees are not even accused of a crime, but saying their deportation was still warranted because they weren’t in the U.S. long enough to commit crimes. Essentially, “pre-crime” punishment. Clearly as well, some of these folks weren’t associated with any gang, but the regime refuses to release any information about them or who they are.

-Moving to remake the Universities with funding cut-offs (60 threatened as of now),  to force implementation of fascist style suppression of thought and dissent and suppressing essential and even life-saving research. Essentially, to Nazify the University system and starve it. As Vance said several years ago- the Universities are the enemy.

This isn’t simply a grabbing of power for profiteering and personal control, although it is that.  They seek to absolutely remake the society into a fascist, White-supremacist capitalist/imperialist country. Doing away with any programs, policies, agencies or information that takes any account of discrimination against people of color, women or LGBTQ folks-all in the name of  fighting racism (against whites!) and “protecting women”. Literally, nazi-style leaders, some of whom like Musk have publicly given the Nazi sieg heil salute (of course pretending that wasn’t their intention later) and supporting neo-fascists and authoritarians globally, using “anti-semitism” as a cover for suppressing political dissent.

-Seeking to do away with any regulations holding back the expansion and profitability of capital no matter how damaging. See destruction of EPA, Trump executive order to massively expand logging, assaults on the NLRB, dismantling of USDA and undermining of food safety standards. See speech by Trump donor Peter Thiel  on intention to get rid of regulations that “hinder business expansion”, to give developers ability to build, build, build, with lie about some of this being “affordable housing”. The last is a useful ruse developers have been using in cities to justify tree/ecosystem destruction in search of  building investment and construction profits. In tune with this, the same cover  of building affordable housing is being used to announce the sell-off of  public lands for housing.  Also, see Vance speech to tech industry on cutting regulations on industry and  claiming to use tariffs to cut off U.S. reliance on foreign labor (at least Vance says this), to bring back manufacturing to U.S. with lie that this will build back a “golden era” for workers.

-Eliminating the rule of law-refusing to abide by judicial orders, unleashing targeting of judges for fascist MAGA attack-the latest by what Trump and his  spokespeople say about Judge Boasberg being impeached and being a radical-left lunatic. This is also aimed at intimidating judges into submission. This is also at play with any GOP Congresspeople who are feeling growing heat from constituents. If they don’t comply with the full fascist program, Trump will call them out, they will be “primaried” and they will be threatened publicly with the lunatic MAGA base encouraged to target them with online threats and potential physical violence against them or their families.

Here too, a remaking of the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, a long-standing principle of bourgeois jurisprudence, into a person is guilty if the regime or it’s representatives say it’s guilty. Just declaring guilt or innocence based on the opinions of the regime and removing protections for those who would oppose them.

This approach will be deepened and broadened to any political opponents, immigrants or citizens, and include any opposition in any institutions of government, in Congress. It will eventually of course be spread to the media, which so far has not in the main been the target-beyond the enemies of the people statements by Trump and others, and MAGA threats and attacks that have happened to this point, as well as opening up access to right-wing media in White House and kicking out what are viewed as opposition media from access-Reuters, AP, etc.

Things are moving quickly, massive resistance the only way out.  With the anger and protest that have built, this is possible. This did not exist to the degree it does here in the early days of Nazi Germany, so it is extremely precious. But without it growing to millions acting continually, fascism can’t be stopped.

There’s a fair bit of truth in a recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Ezra Klein analyzing Trump’s first two weeks in office, titled “Don’t Believe Him”. It’s well worth listening to, thinking about, and discussing.

Klein says Trump’s strategy is to “flood the zone”- a Bannonesque “muzzle velocity” plan of issuing a flurry of executive orders and pronouncements to overwhelm, intimidate  and defeat opposition. The aim being to create the illusion that Trump’s regime appears all powerful and so is. The piece also points to some of the real weaknesses that lay underneath this plan.

I would add some other thoughts however.

These fascists are serious about arrogating complete power to themselves by fiat- based on executive order, threats, and pronouncements, overwhelming opposition. This IS very dangerous. It’s a fascist program of destroying the rule of law, making white supremacy, mysoginy and American chauvinism the unquestioned mode of rule. It is already leading, to real horrors,  and will lead to many more. And it holds even a genocidal potential, if it continues and is allowed to consolidate and escalate.

But these fascists also have real problems in accomplishing this. They are seeking to “flood the zone” and demonstrate command. But command will only be accomplished if people acquiesce to it and bow down.

So I believe the lesson is not simply “Don’t Believe Him”, as Klein says.  But understand what they are seeking to do, understand the weaknesses that lay underneath it, and act in united opposition.

If people speak out, oppose it in every way possible, and unite to resist in every sphere-and hopefully quickly-coming into mass resistance, fascism can fail.

A Few Observations to Consider

Like the Nazis, these Trumpian fascists are seeking to destroy people’s ability to understand or have the tools to figure out what the truth is. They want to replace using evidence to determine the truth with Trump’s and other leading fascists “common sense”. In other words, stuff they make up or that simply reflects their bias and serves their political needs.

Like the Nazis, they are brutal aggressors with no compassion for anyone who are not like them. They hold a disdain and hatred for people of color, anything that smacks of intellectual thought or reason, and an arrogance toward non-Americans.

Like the Nazis, they are filled with arrogant hubris about their ability to fool people, to frighten and intimidate them into silence, and to rule over them like dictators, Gods or Kings. Like the Nazis, they are fully willing- and already moving to-use extreme repression by the “legal system”, the police, the prisons, and the military to crush opponents.

At the core of this American fascist project as well is a deep mysoginy and a lunatic Biblical literalist/dark-ages conception of how society must be remade, even as some of them-(such as Trump or Musk) have no religious belief of any kind.

Unlike the Nazis, they are less fully unified around a core fascist ideology, or an extreme program of seizing land, territory and domination for expanding the “living space” (Lebensraum) of the “volk” of their nation,  spreading their empire though war. They could care less about “the volk”- in this case the MAGA base. To the fascist Trumpians, the MAGA base are simply willing tools to be manipulated, used and abused as a stepping stone for their own wealth, domination and power. Many among them are mainly out to expand ultimate personal wealth and power and willing to use absolute corruption in grabbing it for themselves as opposed to belief in a core philosophy 

In terms of Trump especially, he is as much motivated by a desire to get revenge on his enemies and crush them to win in a personal narcisstic drive, as by anything he actually believes in. Yet, there are a mix of varied interests and motivations among this fascist cabal, some with more ability to plan and scheme or think things through than others.

Although they have an arrogant, imperialist conception of American power and empire, America’s power and empire is in steep decline, and at least at this time, there is little thirst among the populace broadly for sending American troops into war. In this lack of a steel core ideology or vision, is a weakness, a certain use of bluster as power that reveals also a strategic weakness. There is also however a real danger in this, because Trumpists are possibly even more likely than past U.S. imperialists to use nuclear weapons as a means of defeating rivals. And imperialist rivalry, especially with China, will likely escalate.

Like the Nazis as well, Trump’s fascism is an outgrowth of capitalism, rooted deeply in the entire history, development, and ethos of the society’s it springs from, and also as a very extreme version or form of rule that replaces the appearance (not essence) of democracy, free speech, individual rights, and formal rule of law, with open, terroristic dictatorship relying on force and violence to crush opposition.

Some of the Problems and Weaknesses for the Trumpers

If Trump’s regime goes ahead with threats to fire or lay off thousands of civil service employees who carry out the bureaucracy of writing the checks and administering health services, medicare, social security or any of the other daily tasks of the federal government to try to put in their place only fascist loyalists, who will replace them? What if any actual skills or ability will any of these people have to run the operations of governments that is necessary to provide any stability to people’s lives? What chaos could ensue from this?

As the CDC, FDA, etc. are purged, and  anti-science types like RFK run the instruments governing people’s health and welfare, what costs will result? What new pandemics will spread, or even run amuck? How many will be poisoned by complete failure to monitor or prepare for, or even warn people as standards of safety are tossed aside? What further airplane crashes will result if Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” slashes funding, removes experts and guts airline safety measures to cut costs?

As “drill, baby, drill” and unchecked logging of our forests that Trump is trying to install rips forward, the further unraveling of earth’s ecosystems and life support systems will only increase, with increasing chaos from massive storms, more powerful wildfires such as the recent burning of parts of LA, and growing chaos.

Will Trump’s arrogant tariffs against not only America’s enemies but it’s trading partners succeed in bludgeoning them into deals more favorable or will they lead to a trade war and increasing economic chaos, price rises, etc. ? How much of is bluster, for show?

Will their racist plans to mass deport immigrants-even send them  to Guantanamo Bay concentration camps, lead to acquiescense and the appearance of victory to Trump’s racist base, or economic chaos as whole industries that depend on immigrant labor are hamstrung and grind to a halt?.

And instead of ruling by fear and crushing opposition, will mass deportation attempts instead lead to massive resistance among immigrants, their allies, people of conscience, and refusal from churches, schools, some local governments, etc. to allow ICE to steal people away, and an undermining of the appearance of fascist power? Or all of the above? This is very likely to be a very back and forth and chaotic process. Resistance does appear already to be building in this sphere.

Will Trump orders to install “patriotic education”, whitewashing America’s history of slavery, genocide of native peoples, Jim Crow lynching, police murder and mass incarceration of people of color,  succeed in brainwashing millions of youth to obey and follow? Remembering, this is already a generation, of at least many millions, who have witnessed Gaza genocide on social media and hate it, who often have friends of different nationalities and gender identities and are in general more progressive than their elders. Or instead will the attempted brainwash raise up hatred and mass rejection among this generation and the next?

Will the attempts to install an even more virulent, thoroughly, white supremacist, woman-hating society than even the “normal” forms this has taken throughout American history, raise up a storm of opposition from Black people, other oppressed nationalities, from women?

None of these things are decided, but by understanding what the fascists are seeking to do, the real danger, but also the real weaknesses and potential for a whole different thing to be brought forward, and the possibility of different sections of people to unite against fascism, there is real potential to turn this around and defeat it, if we act.

But I would add, time is not necessarily on our side. We can’t sit back and wait. Consolidating fascism can attain a momentum whereby it becomes much harder, if not impossible to defeat it, or even oppose it. We have to act now, and spread resistance.

Also, anyone who thinks, “this will be a bad 4 years but I’ll just keep my head down and try to make it through” is living an illusion. If fascism consolidates, it will be horrific, and it will not hold a free and fair election again, even as relatively unfair as the past several have been, (if voter suppression and intimidation of officials are taken into account). Trump and his backers have already proven a disdain for fair elections, and that they will go to any lengths to hold onto power. This will be the case even more in 2028 than in 2020, if they are fully able to consolidate fascist rule.