The floodgates have opened in the ongoing debate as to whether the Kaiser of Chaos is a fascist. Vice President Harris called him a “petty tyrant” in her Ellipse speech last night. She was comparing him to Mad King George III, but a petty tyrant is a petty tyrant, not to be confused with this guy:

Fascists break hearts but aren’t heartbreakers. I’m not sure if that makes any sense, so let’s play some more music:

I opened this post on a humorous note because I can’t help myself. I also think that everyone needs to accept the fact that fascism and buffoonery go together like peas and carrots. I like what the Morning Memo guy said about it recently:

“What has only become obvious over the past decade (to those of us who haven’t professionally studied fascism in Europe in the 1930s) is that the buffoonery and the fascism go hand in hand. They are inseparable. The buffoonery doesn’t make the fascism less dangerous, and the fascism doesn’t make the buffoonery less ridiculous. Both are spectacles in their own way, delighting willing audiences with their bombast, transgressiveness, and appeal to base emotions.

It’s only when we try to analyze the buffoonery and the fascism separately that we make the mistake of treating them as different impulses in apparent conflict, rather than similar dynamics acting in unison. Trump’s adoring audiences – so often derided as unsophisticated marks – have no trouble seeing the buffoonery and the fascism as part of the same set piece. They don’t see a tension there.”

Neither David Kurtz nor I have professionally studied fascism in the 1930s but I have links to some articles about scholars who have. My opinions are informed but as an amateur historian there are holes in my knowledge. Let’s hear from some folks who know their shit.

Robert Paxton is one of the foremost scholars of European fascism. His groundbreaking 1972 book about Vichy France cut against the grain of the comforting story the French told themselves about World War II. The French fractured fairy take was that they were dragged kicking and screaming into collaboration with the Nazis. Instead, there was a backlash to the Popular Front government, which led to an explosion of homegrown French fascists eager to betray their enemies and collaborate with the Nazis. Informed Americans are depressingly familiar with backlashes.

For a long time, Paxton was reluctant to call Donald Trump a fascist. The dipshit insurrection changed that. He still thinks it may not be useful to call MAGA a Nazi movement. I get that. I was too until they forced the issue with their closing argument, which boils down to Heil Trump.

For more details on Professor Paxton’s change of heart check out Elisabeth Zerofsky’s detailed profile in the NYT Magazine.

I’ll try and be less verbose in introducing the next series of links.

Anne Applebaum: Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.

A Vanity Fair Interview with Timothy Snyder on American Fascism Under Trump.

Most of us know Snyder from his appearances on MSNBC where he’s a particular favorite of my main man Lawrence O’Donnell. Professor Snyder recently posted this video online:

People are talking about fascism. I've heard from people who are baffled that we haven't been speaking of fascism more and earlier, and from people who want to know what it means – and from people who want me to explain why fascism is bad.
Please share! Please vote! pic.twitter.com/zxVnn38dyH

— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) October 29, 2024

Finally, Fiona. Dr. Fiona Hill was a devastating witness at hearings for the first Trump impeachment. You know, the one in which he tried to coerce Zelensky into investigating Biden.

Dr. Hill is currently working for Keir Starmer’s Labour government, but she’s kept her eye on the growth of American autocracy under her former boss, Donald Trump.

Hill was interviewed by Politico Magazine about Trump, Putin, Elon Musk, and our topic du jour, fascism.

Like Professor Paxton, Dr. Hill isn’t sure that dropping the F word is helpful, she prefers to call the Kaiser of Chaos an autocrat:

“The problem with the framing of this debate is that once you start to throw out a label like fascism, people’s minds tend to shut down. People can’t really grasp, what does that label mean? I think it’s much more helpful to think about it as a style of governance, a way that people approach power and the use of power, which many of us would call the abuse and misuse of power.”

I respectfully disagree but Hill’s insights into Trump, Musk, and Putin make this an invaluable read.

The last word goes to Jack Kennedy: