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   Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:39 JST Thomas Zimmer

   Donald Trump’s closing pitch to the American people: Rage, intimidation, and vengeful violence. He is promising fascism.
    
   No more plausible deniability for anyone who refuses to see the threat.
    
   Wrote this before Trump’s aggressively fascist MSG rally – seems appropriate to repost it now:
    
   https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:36 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     But we are, in fact, in a much more dangerous situation precisely because Trumpism is operating within a major party and has managed to take full control of it, dominate it, ostracize all meaningful resistance – meaning it has a direct and plausible avenue to taking power.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:36 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     Trump is the fascistic leader of a rightwing coalition that unites all shades of reaction and is entirely dominated by extremism. Should Trump emerge victorious from the election, America will not become a fascist dictatorship overnight. But the Trumpist Right will try.

     Robert Link repeated this.
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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:36 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     Donald Trump, American Fascist
      
     Trumpism is what a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism looks like.

     And next week, fascism is on the ballot.
      
     https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:37 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     Trumpism is in line with long-standing anti-democratic tendencies and impulses that have always defined modern conservatism as a political project. And fascism is not something foreign to American society: There is a domestic tradition of violent extremism and, yes, fascism.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:37 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     In this sense, Trumpism stands in continuity with some very old ideas and movements – and in continuity with the often violent counter-mobilization that has accompanied every real or even just perceived progress towards egalitarian democracy in U.S. history.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:37 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     At the same time, the status of these extremist forces within the Right has changed. They have moved to the power centers of conservative politics, and as a result, the Right has radicalized dramatically – something the superficial institutional continuity of the GOP helps obscure.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:38 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     That’s not a policy prescription. Or messaging advice. It’s not merely about semantics. Or moral imperatives. It’s not just a slur. It’s a substantive diagnosis. Whether or not the label has any electoral effect does nothing to either support or undermine it.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:38 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     Trump has a fascistic diagnosis of problem – and offers a fascistic solution. The nation is in decline, besieged by invading “Others” and the “enemy within”; only a providential leader, fueled by a radicalizing mass base, can restore glory by violently purging these enemies.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:38 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     Trumpism regards any opposition to this project of national purification and re-birth as fundamentally illegitimate. It is dogma among Trump’s supporters that he as their leader embodies the will of the true people, the Volk – Trump is the tribune of “real America.”

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:38 JST Thomas Zimmer

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     The idea that it is somehow ridiculous, alarmist, or otherwise beyond the pale to call Trumpism fascist relies on a naively dismissive view of Trump – and on ignoring the accelerating radicalization on the Right that is happening around and in support of Trump.

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     Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 01:13:39 JST Thomas Zimmer

     in reply to

     Trump is not “the new Hitler” and he is not “just like Mussolini.” We are not facing an exact replica of the Ur-fascism that rose to power in Europe’s interwar period. But Trumpism is a specifically American, specifically twenty-first century version of fascism.