In a mid-October interview on Fox News Trump said, “We have two enemies—we have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries.”
He was referring to the nebulous “Deep State”, which in MAGA-speak means anyone and everyone who stands in the way of Trumpism. The cult of Trump, in turn, doesn’t really stand for anything beyond a United States dominated by a single party which favors Trump and his cronies; ultra-wealthy, hyper-conservative, mostly christian, nationalist, and the chauvinistic.
To be considered for his cabinet, you must be a loyalist willing to dismember and dismantle whatever Project 2025 says. Also, a history of sexual abuse, trafficking, drug use, public drunkenness, and a Trump pardon for fraud appear to be a plus.
Additionally, the “big tent” of MAGA-ism has found it useful to include wingnut branches of climate change denial, anti-vax, anti-flouride, anti-pasteurization, and many other anti-science factions. Don’t get me started on Q-Anon.
Trump, as with all demagogues, thrives on fear-driven politics. “They’re eating the cats!” They weren’t eating the cats, dogs, or geese. And to whatever extent the nation was concerned about immigration, Trump clearly didn’t support the bipartisan bill targeting that problem. He used his influence to block it.
Because fear of those immigrants won the election for him.
And because there’s nothing bipartisan about Trumpism.
That this amazing nation built by immigrants could be manipulated to fear them… The irony !
You know where else you could study a nation run by one party? In the 20th century, fascist Germany and Italy, soviet Russia, the Peoples Republic of China , and North Korea. And now in the 21st, Putin’s Russia, the PRC, and North Korea. (Yes, there are others, like Turkmenistan, and a growing list of flailing illiberal democracies.)
But I wanted to underscore what it took to retrieve Germany from totalitarianism.
Hitler was a demagogue cultist, who garnered power by targeting “the enemy within”, whose main project was national “purity”, and the “internal deportation” of “undesirables”.
Sound familiar? 15 to 20 million lives were lost removing fascism from Germany.
And make no mistake: Trumpism is fascism, plain and simple.