Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social)

The idea that a second Trump presidency would basically just be more of the same, a kind of rerun of the first, is diagnostically not plausible at all, and it is politically dangerous. Both Trump himself and the rightwing forces around him have drastically radicalized.

We are here because of a system-wide failure to hold Trump accountable and mount an effective defense against the onslaught of authoritarian minority rule. And so, we are left with an election as the desperate last stand of a democracy under siege.

The fault lines in the struggle over whether or not the democratic experiment should be continued map exactly onto the fault lines of the struggle between the two parties. Democracy itself is now a partisan issue. Therefore, in every election, democracy itself is on the ballot.

And a second Trump presidency would be working with a fully Trumpified GOP, a reactionary super-majority on the Supreme Court, and with the omnipresent threat of escalating political violence intimidating anyone who dares to dissent.

Why the Stakes in this Election Are So Enormously High
 
Democracy itself is on the ballot. If Trump wins, the extreme Right will be in a much better position than ever before to abolish it.
 
New piece:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/why-the-stakes-in-this-election-are

Consider this my closing argument: As of right now, only one of the two major parties in the United States, the Democratic Party, for all its many flaws, is a (small-d) democratic party. The other one is firmly in the hands of a radicalizing ethno-nationalist movement.

I open and end the piece with a quote from James Baldwin:

“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”

This should be the paradigm that guides our political imagination and choices.

People need to accept that things can change – in either direction: It really could get much, much worse. But it could also get better. There is nothing inevitable about either doom or progress. We are neither fated nor guaranteed to experience the status quo for all eternity.

That is why Reconstruction is such a key historical reference. America’s first attempt at biracial democracy was quickly drowned in ostensibly “race-neutral” laws and escalating white supremacist violence. It took a century to get the country back to that level of democracy.

The lesson from U.S. history, if there is one, is not that progress is impossible. There has been tremendous progress at times! But we must not assume directionality in history. There is no arc, there is no linear progression, no utopian end goal we are destined to reach somehow.

Weekend reading:

The combination of a deep-seated mythology of American exceptionalism, progress gospel, (willful) historical ignorance, and a lack of political imagination has created a situation in which a lot of people simply refuse to take the Trumpist threat seriously.

This week’s piece:

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/it-could-definitely-happen-here

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.

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

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.