Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social), page 3

Crucial piece by Mike Podhorzer on how polls are obscuring the extremist nature of Trump’s plans.

I’ll add a related thought: Since the mainstream discourse stipulates that extremism must be “fringe” in America, anything that has broad support is reflexively sanitized as *not* extremism.

https://www.weekendreading.net/p/poll-washing-our-way-to-fascism

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.
https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113333986289814438

Weekend reading: I wrote about Donald Trump’s closing pitch to the American people: Rage, intimidation, and vengeful violence.
 
He is threatening – or promising, if you ask his supporters – fascism. No more plausible deniability for anyone who refuses to see the threat.

This week’s piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

Trump has a fascistic way of describing the 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. 4/

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. 3/

Mere weeks before the election, I revisit the Fascism Debate and discuss where we stand after Trump has, even by his own standards, gone on a rampage recently. If anyone thought more evidence was needed before we could call it fascist, the Trumpists have certainly provided it. 2/

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. 8/

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. 7/

The argument is not that every institution of establishment conservatism has been replaced by fascist structures. The Right is best approached as a coalition of forces, ideas, people who reject egalitarian democracy. And as of right now, the radicals are firmly in charge of that alliance. 6/

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.” 5/

Donald Trump, American Fascist
 
Trumpism is what a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism looks like. And in November, fascism is on the ballot.

More here - please consider subscribing:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

Even as a best-case scenario, it will be a long, sustained struggle to move the country forward towards the kind of stable, truly egalitarian democracy it has never yet been. But if Trump is not defeated, things will get worse. Much worse. 11/

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. 10/

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. 9/

Donald Trump, American Fascist
 
Trumpism is what a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism looks like. And in November, fascism is on the ballot.
 
Some thoughts from my new piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-fascist

This situation is acutely dangerous, because it means that for the foreseeable future, the fate of democracy - not merely in an abstract, formalistic way, but with all the fundamental rights and respect for pluralism by which it should be defined - is on the ballot in every single election.
https://mastodon.social/@tzimmer_history/113272196658840533

ICYMI on the weekend: I wrote about how Project 2025 broke through the noise and became a toxic brand.
 
There is an important lesson here about how to cover and discuss the radicalizing Right.
 
Some thoughts from my new piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/how-project-2025-became-toxic-and

The NYT sees a “fault line”…

Well, yes, the fault line is between those who believe these are personal decisions and the ethno-nationalists in charge of the GOP who fundamentally reject the idea of privacy and instead insist women accept their duty to bear children in service of the “homeland.”

You can read his type of “news analysis” in today’s NYT and come away thinking we’re just looking at the same-old conflict between “liberals prioritizing a right to privacy” vs “conservatives caring about the nuclear family.”

But that completely obscures the extremism on the Right.

Three moments from the Republican Convention.

One: On the final day, Hulk Hogan promised only Trump could “straighten this country out, for all the real Americans.” That was the key theme in Hogan’s speech – “real America.” He repeated the term seven times. 4/