Why President Trump is not a Fascist

My old and highly esteemed friend Marine Corps General and former White House chief of staff John Kelly recently wrote in the New York Times that President Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government” and fits “the general definition of a fascist, for sure.”  While John Kelly is an immensely knowledgeable scholar of the art of war, well-read in military history and theory, he is less familiar with political theory.  If we understand what fascism was, and who created its current usage, we will see that the term in no way fits President Trump.

At their core, fascism and its cousin National Socialism were the most radical political theories of the 20th century.  They sought to eliminate the whole Judeo-Christian element in Western culture and return to the values of pre-Christian antiquity, where power was the highest good.  To that end, they transformed will from an instrumental virtue into a substantive virtue: any exercise of will, the stronger and more counter-factual the better, was good regardless of what was willed.  This view was so faulty that it led to fascism’s destruction, through such acts of will as Mussolini’s entry into World War II (against the advice of his foreign minister and military), Hitler’s invasion of Russia and even more his totally unnecessary declaration of war on the United States (also against the advice of his General Staff).  

The means fascism sought to achieve its goal was the creation of totalitarian states.  As Mussolini put it, “Everything for the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.”  Now in fact, Mussolini didn’t achieve that; as Hitler said of him, “He wants to be a dictator, but he’s too nice a guy.”  He did give Italy the best government it’s had since Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman Emperor, and the best it’s likely to have in the future.

But can we really think President Trump fits within these definitions of fascism?  That’s absurd.  He has no desire to destroy Judeo-Christian culture; on the contrary, he defends it from the cultural Marxists who explicitly do intend its destruction.  Can anyone argue he wants a totalitarian America where nothing exists outside the state?  He is a champion of federalism, as we see on the abortion issue, and federalism is the antidote to the all-powerful federal government the left has created.  As to the “dictator” bit, what the Fuhrer said applies:  he’s just too nice a guy.

So how come President Trump and others on the right, including myself, get called fascists?  The answer is that the Frankfurt School, the people who created the cultural Marxism we know as woke or political correctness, labeled anyone who opposed their Marxism a fascist.  This is the core of Theodore Adorno’s influential (and as social research fraudulent) book The Authoritarian Personality.  Adorno, with Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, were the Frankfurt School’s most important thinkers, and today their work is the basis for the cultural Marxism we see on so many college campuses and throughout the political, media, and entertainment elites.  But it’s bunk.  Most of the Americans who oppose cultural Marxism have no desire to return to the values of the ancient world.  Quite the opposite, as most are Christians.

I’ve known John Kelly since he was a major, and he is not a cultural Marxist.  That means he’s a fascist too, by the cultural Marxist.  So am I, so are you, and so are your dog and cat.  Words in the mouths of ideologues lose all their meaning.

If the cultural Marxists are enabled to continue using the power of the state to shove their evil ideology down American’s throats, the public’s response could be a genuine American fascism.  But I am pretty confident President Trump’s second term will see cultural Marxism driven back into the dark corners of academia where it belongs.  If anyone’s interested, I know some ways to do that.