The F-Word
It took nearly a decade but we’re finally ready to call a fascist politician out for being one.
A few months after Charlottesville, I got into a lengthy debate with an editor who had asked me to write an opinion piece for his publication. The issue is that I referred to Donald Trump as a “white supremacist,” and he wasn’t ready to use that phrase editorially. He agreed with me that Trump held white supremacist views but couldn’t find any other examples of media outlets calling Trump a white supremacist outright. He didn’t want to be the first, even coming from a guest writer. The outlet ended up not running my article.
That same month, I did an event with a member of Congress who is an old friend. I was shocked to hear them say that Trump was a danger but not a fascist and that many of our worst fears about his Administration were perhaps overblown. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what they actually believed or if they were just trying to reassure the audience (or reassure themselves).
Both of these incidents have been top of mind this week as the word fascist makes headlines. I know for a fact that the Congressperson is now comfortable calling Trump out for what he is and got to that point well before January 6. I haven’t spoken to the editor in ages but I suspect we’d have a very different conversation about my piece now.
We’ve obviously come a long way since 2017, but it’s wild to me that Trump’s fascism is only now breaking through as a major news story. Trump’s ideology has been evident from the start, and in every election cycle, his closing argument always comes down to white supremacy, fascism, hate, and white male grievance. This time around he’s talking about coming for “the enemy within” and promising to forcibly deport millions of people on the campaign trail.
Kamala Harris’ closing argument is that Trump is an “unserious man” who is unfit to be President. She’s long been comfortable saying that Trump held fascist views. At this week’s CNN Town Hall, she went a step further and called Trump a fascist outright. Harris also made remarks to the press when Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump a fascist who wants to be a dictator.
I’m glad we’re having this conversation, even at the last possible moment. I’m also extremely frustrated that we’re still not giving it the weight it deserves. Per research from Media Matters, most newspapers buried the Kelly news, even the New York Times, which had the scoop of Kelly making his remarks on tape! Worse still, the discourse has already moved on from Trump’s fascism and what that would mean if he came back to power. Now the press is reporting on Harris’ campaign strategy and chiding her for pivoting from joy to fascism in the campaign’s final days. The media is even chiding Harris for no longer talking about joy and making jokes about the vibes shifting again.
It’s not an accurate narrative. Freedom has always been the theme of Harris’ campaign. Her launch video is basically the same vibe as her closing argument, clearly contrasting Trump’s vision for America with her own.
Donald Trump is trying to seize power by any means necessary. No matter the election results, he plans to claim victory and say that the election was rigged. Should Trump succeed either through ballots or force, he and his MAGA coalition will immediately get to work breaking America down and rebuilding it into the fascist hellscape laid out in Project 2025. Trump is the fascist leader of a fascist coalition, and the MAGA base who support him knows the score just like the rest of us do. There is no ambiguity about any of this. We can and should call Trump a fascist.
I continue to believe that Harris will win. Yes, there is a large number of Americans who crave fascism, but they aren’t the majority. Most Americans want freedom. Our job in the final days is to do everything we can to turn that majority out to vote. Feel free to call Trump a fascist while you’re doing it.
ICYMI
This article is about one election official in one state but a version of it is playing out in all 50. In addition to running safe and secure elections, election officials and workers are now tasked with debunking conspiracies and false information as well.
'Take Back the States': The Far-Right Sheriffs Ready to Disrupt the Election (Wired)
Everything you need to know about Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf (a man I’ve written about previously), some of his fellow County Sheriffs, and what role they might play in a second Trump Coup attempt.
Conservative-backed Group is Creating a List of Federal Workers It Suspects Could Resist Trump Plans (AP)
The Heritage Foundation, the same folks who brought you Project 2025, is openly funding political operatives to create a targeted harassment campaign of Federal government workers at DHS.
OLD & NEW LIES IN 2024:How Newsrooms Can Build Trust & Debunk Election Lies for Voters (Free Press)
A helpful resource for newsrooms, journalists, and anyone trying to get accurate information out to the public about our upcoming election and the crucial days after.
Want even more links? Subscribers receive a special ICYMI edition of CARD on Fridays.
Blatant Self-Promotion
Some professional news from me: I’ve teamed up with Liz Lebrón and Rebecca Lenn from Inviolable Group, a firm dedicated to helping progressive organizations build resilience and defend themselves against targeted online attacks so they can execute their core missions. You can read more, including the announcement in Playbook, on LinkedIn.
We're available to consult for all your post-election needs and have some big things planned for 2025. Want to work together or start a conversation? Drop us a line at hello@inviolablegroup.com
I’m quoted in this piece from Bloomberg, a comprehensive analysis of Elon Musk’s content on X showing that Musk is the biggest promoter of anti-immigrant conspiracies on the platform.
That’s all for this week. I’ll see you again next Sunday.
ABSOLUTELY! We have been far too patient with the forces of white Supremacy from the beginning in this country. From the founding documents where we had to remove the positions against slavery to keep the slave states on board to the creation of the electoral college, allowing monuments to and bases named for confederates who fought against the U.S.A. to the southern myth that the Civil War was the war of northern aggression. We need to stop tip-toeing around this. America cannot achieve full greatness while refusing to acknowledge being birthed from our origional sin of racism. It's not ok.
Not-so-strange coincidence: I've been working on a piece titled "So Let's Talk About Fascism (Everybody Else Is, Right?)." In it I refer to Jim Crow as "fascism's first cousin." Academic refugees from Nazi Germany who wound up teaching in the South, often at HBCUs, saw and were startled by the connection. A member of my writers' group suggested that by definition fascism needs a single strongman at the top, so the Jim Crow South didn't qualify as fascist. The MAGA movement and the current GOP do qualify, with Trump as the strongman. I agree that Trump is a fascist, to the extent that he has any ideology at all, but I have a hard time seeing him as a strongman in the mold of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. He's more a means to an end for the men behind him, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Project 2025 crowd, and the rest of them: they don't have the charisma to rally great crowds or the votes to get into office legally, so they need a Trump. Whether they could control him if he got elected, I don't know and I don't think we're going to find out. But the odds look better than they were for the German conservatives in the early 1930s, if only because Hitler was 44 in 1933 while Trump is now 78.