Historical vision, moral witnessing and democratic ideals are now buried in a glut of misinformation and the spectacle of political corruption, plague of consumerism and a culture of immediacy. Trump's disimagination and depoliticizing propaganda machines produced a relentless tsunami of emotionally charged events that obliterated the space and time for contemplating the past while freezing the present in a fragmented display of shocks and spectacles.
Trumpism, with its mix of noxious white supremacist politics and poisonous use of conservative mainstream press and right-wing social media, represents a new form of fascism in which older elements of a fascist past are recycled, modified and updated. One example pertaining to Trumpism can be seen in the systemic lying that was not only at the heart of Hitler's regime, but central to Trump's rise to power and the development of his social base, though the latter expressed itself in a different context and through a unique set of cultural apparatuses. Timothy Snyder is instructive on this issue:
"Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump "...is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true."
Under such circumstances, the lessons of history disappear along with similarities between an authoritarian past and an authoritarian present. One consequence is that public consciousness of the space needed for critical reflection withers along with a rendering of the past as a source of critical insight. History, with its dangerous memories, becomes something that cannot happen in the present; that is, it cannot happen in a country that makes a claim to exceptionalism and in doing so argues, until recently, that Trump's behavior is more performative than dangerous.
In this discourse, the shadows of an updated fascist politics disappears in the long-standing claims that Trump was merely incompetent and that his politics were inept and bore no resemblance to an incipient dictator. Of course, with Trump's obvious role in inciting and legitimating the rebellious attack on the Capitol, liberal discourse has moved from calling him incompetent to dangerous.
Conservatives who believe that the market is the only template for politics and governance refuse to see Trump's reign as an outgrowth of their own disdain for the welfare state and redistribution of wealth and power, while liberals live in fear of recognizing that neoliberal capitalism poses the greatest threat to democracy, and creates the conditions for the ongoing threat of fascism. This view provides a breeding ground for liberals who argue that Trumpism is a passing and failed anti-democratic exception to the rule, regardless of the violence that has been a hallmark of the Trump regime.
For instance, the historical record needs to be revisited regarding the liberal view of Trumpism, especially evident in the work of Samuel Moyn, who argued that traditional institutional checks proved successful against Trumpism. Moyn also claimed falsely that Trump provided a "portal for all comers to search for alternatives beyond [neoliberalism], and never provided a systemic threat to American democracy."
Moyn's notion that Trump was anti-militarist and a champion of the working class, at least initially, rings especially false, in light of current events. Not only did Trump give the financial elite a $1.5 trillion tax break at the expense of funding crucial social programs, he also passed endless policies that promoted what Saharra Griffin and Malkie Wall, research assistants for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, call corporate wage theft. Trump's policies included derailing "an Obama-era plan to extend overtime protections to more Americans and instead lowered the salary threshold." Workers [were] denied an estimated $1.2 billion in earnings annually due to Trump's overtime protection rollback."
Trumpism made it difficult for workers to unionize while making it easier for employers to eliminate unions. This anti-worker campaign also included reducing workplace safety regulations, discriminating against people with disabilities and the weakening of civil rights protections for workers.
What is lost in the view of most liberals is that Trumpism is the endpoint of the historical failure of capitalism which has morphed into a nihilistic death drive -- a quickened call to ugliness, violence and dehumanization -- reinforced by market values that destroy any sense of moral and social responsibility.
Trumpism is not simply about Trump the bungling leader, a decrepit Republican Party, or a weak president, as Moyn, Jeet Heer, Cass Sunstein, Ross Douthat, and others have wrongly argued. What is lost in their politics of denialism is an honest look at the emergence of Trump's undisguised authoritarian impulses. Also overlooked here are the mobilizing elements of a fascist politics that is an extension of capitalism and whose recent endpoint emerged with the violent assault on both the Capitol and democracy itself.
Trumpism may not constitute a fully formed fascist regime, but as Sarah Churchill, Timothy Snyder, Paul Street and Jason Stanley have argued, the Trump regime has consistently embraced the long standing and malignant traditions of American fascism.
Snyder dismisses the liberal claim that the fascist label does not apply to Trump because his ideology and policies do not invite a direct comparison. He writes:
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