Tag Archives: MAGA

Call It What It Is

Yesterday, I posted about the importance of using accurate language, arguing that the media’s penchant for failing to distinguish between far-right ideologues and genuine conservatives blurs reality and distorts public understanding of where America finds itself.

Today, I want to address another issue of labelling: the common complaint that calling MAGA folks fascist or fascist-adjacent is an unfair aspect of the name-calling that Trump has made a prominent feature of our politics–that use of that label is no different from the claims of those so-called “conservatives” that advocates for national health care are all communists.

Yesterday, I compared the actions and rhetoric of Trump and MAGA to the definition of conservative, and found an obvious mismatch. Today, I want to compare them to the definition of fascist, in order to determine whether that label really is an example of uncivil exaggeration and misdirection, or whether it’s an accurate description of what we are seeing.

I’m not the first to engage in that comparison; The Bulwark recently provided an excellent overview of the similarities that justify the label. (Interestingly, The Bulwark is published by “never Trump” conservatives–actual conservatives who know the difference between conservative philosophy and far-Right radicalism.) The essay began by quoting John F. Kelly, a now-retired Marine Corps general who, for a year and a half during Trump’s first term, was the White House chief of staff.

Shortly before the 2024 election, in a New York Times interview, Kelly was asked whether he thought Trump was a fascist. Kelly began his response by reading a definition of fascism.

Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.

Kelly then ticked off the ways in which Trump met that definition, concluding that he “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure. . . . He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

It’s one thing to recognize that Trump himself is a fascist–that’s hard to deny, especially given his ramped-up megalomania since returning to the Oval Office. But what about his base? What about the MAGA movement? The Bulwark article cited a 1995 observation by Italian novelist and critic Umberto Eco, who defined the fascism he saw emerging as “a fuzzy totalitarianism” that he dubbed Ur-fascism. Eco proceeded to outline a list of its characteristics:

The most prominent feature of Ur-fascism, according to Eco, is the cult of tradition and the rejection of the modern world. In the irrational worldview of the Ur-fascist, disagreement is treason. Other prominent features of fascism that Eco detailed included the following:

“Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders.”
“Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.”
“At the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
“The Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo. . . . Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”

The Bulwark article ended with a plea to MAGA folks to recognize these similarities and leave the movement. I’m afraid that such a plea is hopelessly naive. Hard-core MAGA folks are all-in on their ahistorical devotion to “tradition” and their hatred of those “Others” who populate modern societies. They have perfected the informational bubble they inhabit, and far from being appalled by the inhumanity of ICE raids or the anti-Americanism of Trump’s Executive Orders or the damage being done to America’s global stature, they applaud Trump’s increasingly autocratic (and arguably insane) behaviors.

Calling this administration and its supporters fascists is neither an exaggeration nor an inappropriate epithet. It is a word–a label– that accurately describes both Trump and a significant percentage of his MAGA supporters. The rest of us need to acknowledge that, and the fact that most of those supporters are irretrievably lost to the American Idea.

It is up to the rest of us–to the majority of sane Americans– to reject the fascist project and save the Republic. The situation really is that dire.

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Data? What Data?

It’s bad enough that a substantial percentage of our fellow Americans reject probative evidence that is inconsistent with their preferred realities. What is arguably worse is the administration’s effort to erase such evidence–its conduct of a war on data that might undercut Trump’s fantasy realities.

The New Republic recently focused on that war.

Trump has always made things up. Remember that he entered politics promoting the hoax that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. But what’s new about Trump’s second presidency is that not only have his lies escalated in dimension and scope, becoming increasingly brazen and weird—London is under sharia law!—but he’s also waging a concerted all-out war on facts that contradict his narrative, which is to say, all reliable sources of data.

As the article notes–and as most academics know–for many years, the government has been one of the best sources of data available; not only has it been an important source of probative, vetted information, it has made that information easily accessible to journalists and citizenry alike.  That informational history is under attack by Trump, who–as the article notes– doesn’t want any facts to get in the way of his made-up stories.

To declare that Trump has been right and the scientists have been wrong about climate change is so counterfactual that it requires a massive suppression of available data. Good thing Trump has thought of that. Through a combination of layoffs and weird directives, his administration has dramatically reduced its ability to collect data on industrial pollution that causes climate change, extreme weather caused by climate change, greenhouse gases contributing to climate change—really any facts related to the climate crisis. To take just one example, an effort launched by the Biden administration to collect emissions data was canceled by Trump on his first day in office. The same could be said about his Tylenol claims; lucky for him he has made significant cuts to autism research.

What about the autism claims unsupported by any credible medical research? Or the wild and dangerous claims from Trump and RFK Jr. about vaccines? As the article points out, those vaccine claims will be insufficiently challenged since he has cut vaccine research by more than half a billion dollars.

It goes on. And on.

Trump’s commitment to falsehood—and to eradicating facts at their roots—is not limited to science and public health. This summer he claimed that his policies were leading America into “another golden age” and that economic growth under his presidency “shatters expectations.” The data said otherwise: Whether you’re talking about job growth, inflation, or just about any other measure, the numbers did not chart in a direction favorable to the president. Here again, Trump is not willing to tolerate the facts: When the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month reported numbers that contradicted his sunny narrative, he fired the head of the agency.

Trump constantly says bizarre and unsupportedd things about crime–at least, in cities run by Democrats. He claims violence is surging although it’s  decreasing, actually, in some places, at historic rates,  He constantly blames immigrants, although relatively little crime is committed by immigrants, and he and MAGA are now trying to blame mass murders on transgender Americans, despite the fact that only 0.1 percent of mass shootings are committed by transgender people—and very few murders of any kind.

Are these and multiple other assertions inconsistent with the data? Well, there’s an easy “fix” to that–stop gathering and reporting the data.

Trump’s Agriculture Department cut its annual food insecurity survey, so Americans won’t know how many people are going hungry as a result of Trump’s cuts to food stamps and his inflationary tariffs.

We also won’t know how children are doing in school after his massive cuts to K-12 education, since the administration gutted the Department of Education’s research offices and the National Center for Education Statistics.

States, universities, and other nonprofits are trying to make up for the loss of the data, but in many cases the information provided by the federal government was irreplaceable.

When every day brings a new assault on our constitution and the rule of law, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that data, research, and facts are dangers to authoritarian regimes. Trump doesn’t know much, but he does understand that “data provides the basis for arguments, and he does not want any arguments. He also understands that facts and knowledge can only be nourished and sustained by institutions and experts, so he is destroying those institutions and pink-slipping those experts.”

If and when we rid ourselves of Trump and the MAGA plague, rebuilding and restoration will take many years…..

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It’s All Out In The Open Now

We’ve come a long way, baby, from the days when our American bigots used to chafe at the “political correctness” that kept them from openly expressing their disdain for those despised “others.” As I have previously pointed out, the most consistent “through line” of America’s current, terrible administration has been its open assault on the civility that once kept people from broadcasting their hatreds; it has consistently conveyed its permission–indeed, encouragement–to voice them.

The Trump administration and Red state MAGA culture warriors enthusiastically attack anything that smacks of efforts to level the civic playing field–going after any program that hints of acceptance of diversity. At the federal level, Trump has fired talented and competent people of color and replaced them with wildly incompetent clowns whose most obvious (and often only) qualification for the job is White skin. Closer to home, our embarrassing and unethical Attorney General is harassing teachers and nonprofit organizations that display any concern for fair play or inclusion (one of the unfortunate teachers who made it onto Rokita’s threatening list of teachers he deems too liberal to be in a classroom is deemed guilty of being “unAmerican” because she included a rainbow flag in her room…).

Recently, media reports that the Trump administration has fired FBI agents who had the temerity to kneel in support of racial justice protests

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The bureau last spring had reassigned the agents but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press.

The number of FBI employees terminated was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20…

The FBI Agents Association confirmed in a statement late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful. It called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel’s disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees.

These firings follow others that targeted agents who investigated the January 6th insurrection, or who looked into Trump’s illegal retention of classified documents. Lawsuits stemming from those actions, which were patently illegal, allege that those dismissals are part of an ongoing effort to remove any FBI officers who investigated Trump or his cronies.

There is, rather clearly, also an effort to rid the FBI of officers who display support for racial justice.

In the short time Trump has been in office, he has gutted the Justice Department and turned the DOJ and FBI into compliant tools of his corrupt and lawless administration. Lawmakers and government lawyers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s multiple grifts, allowing him to run the administration like a Mafia boss, and rake in billions of dollars in what are outright bribes. Investigations of Trump allies have been dismissed, while efforts to take vengeance against those who have incurred Trump’s anger have ramped up, leading to meritless indictments (Comey) and invasive and publicized searches (Bolton).

Needless to say, these are the tactics of fascists and autocrats, not the proper activities of an American administration.

And that brings me back to what constitutes the underlying strength of this horrifying, unAmerican cabal: racism (with a side of misogyny). I cannot account for the corruption of the six “Conservative” justices on the Supreme Court, but it has become quite obvious that the Republicans in Congress are completely in thrall to the GOP’s MAGA base–the White supremacists who continue to support Trump because he’s making bigotry acceptable again.

Are groceries more expensive? Is health insurance becoming unaffordable again? Has America’s position and power in the world declined precipitously? Are masked thugs snatching people off the streets? Is public health declining? Is your city struggling due to the federal cutoff of previously authorized funds? Are free speech and the rule of law under attack? Has persistent incompetence and dysfunction caused a government shutdown?

None of that matters to MAGA folks so long as Trump gives them permission to express contempt for those detested “others.”

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Memorize This Paragraph!

A recent paragraph in a Lincoln Square newsletter really–really–struck me. Here’s that paragraph:

The Republican Party in 2025 is locked in a state of sycophantic paralysis. MAGA is not just Trump’s mood swings; it’s a tribal identity. Step out of line, and you get exiled. That’s why even senators with Ivy League résumés suddenly sound like they’re auditioning for a spot on a right-wing podcast — they’re terrified of losing the mob’s loyalty. And here’s the uncomfortable truth Democrats keep sidestepping: a huge chunk of MAGA voters are perfectly willing to suffer. They’ll put up with higher prices, worse health care, collapsing schools, potholes the size of moon craters — and they’ll smile through it — so long as the pain lands harder on someone they hate. Call it recreational spite or political CrossFit: the pain is the point, and the workout “counts” if the libs hurt more. That’s the dynamic behind why they support him.

There’s a substantial body of research confirming that puzzling observation. Illogical as it seems, people who harbor bigotries–people who hate those they label “other”–really are willing to overlook damage they suffer personally if they believe that “those people” are being hurt even more.

Bizarre as that finding is, it explains a lot.

The author quoted Lyndon Johnson, who made the statement as he was signing the Civil Rights Act. Johnson acknowledged that he was signing a measure that would cost Democrats the votes of much of the South (this was back when Southern Democrats were the racists; Democratic support for the Civil Rights Act probably was a factor in the defection of those racists from the party and their migration into today’s White Christian Nationalist cult, aka the GOP.) Johnson quite accurately noted that “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

As the author noted, “MAGA is basically the LBJ theorem in a red hat. The cruelty isn’t the glitch, it’s the subscription plan — the down payment on the fantasy that at least you’re not on the bottom rung.”

Philosophers and theologians, not to mention psychiatrists, can theorize over the deficits in personality and humanity that lead otherwise normal humans to detest those “others” to such a degree that they will accept considerable personal privation if only they can be convinced that those others are suffering more…

The essay referenced the psychological research that explores–but doesn’t explain–this phenomenon.

There’s actual scholarship that explains why this kind of thinking has such a grip. Relative deprivation theory tells us people don’t measure life by absolutes; they measure by comparisons. You’ll tolerate your own struggles as long as your neighbor isn’t doing better; the second you think they’re moving up, resentment flares. Then comes the darker twist. In 2009, Combs and colleagues documented partisan schadenfreude — the perverse pleasure people feel when the “other side” suffers, even if they’re collateral damage themselves. That’s the political equivalent of the Joker in The Dark Knight setting a mountain of his own stolen cash on fire just to watch Gotham panic. Or think of Cartman, South Park’s eternal bully, who will happily wreck his own life if it means making someone else miserable — and still ends up the kid everyone hates. That’s the mindset: voters cheering their own decline as long as someone they despise loses more.

Once I read this, I began to recognize how it works in Trumpland.

Are those tariffs making groceries and everyday items more expensive? Are even immigrants who are in the country legally terrified of the ICE masked bullies who are rounding up anyone with dark skin? Is the war being waged against science–very much including medical science–making it more likely that you will contract a disease, or that a cure for what ails you won’t be forthcoming? Those and other negative consequences of official corruption and stupidity are bearable, because Trump is keeping his promise to go after “those people.” If there has been one through-line in this administration, it has been the unremitting effort to stamp out the progress made by women, people of color and LGBTQ folks, and to elevate White psuedo-Christian males to their former (albeit unearned) social dominance.

File under “pathetic.”

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The Assault On Knowledge

Americans who follow the news even slightly, are aware of the daily, major assaults from this administration on the Constitution and our liberties. We’re aware of RFK, Jr.’s insane attacks on medical science and the likely negative effects on our health, the assaults on ships from foreign countries in defiance of international law, the economic damage being caused by Trump’s insane (and illegal) tariffs and his war on immigrants, and the administration’s vicious and escalating attacks on journalism and free speech. 

What most Americans tend to miss are Trump’s entirely illegal refusals to honor spending decisions made by Congress, despite the fact that the Constitution vests those decisions solely in the legislative branch, not in the executive. The sudden cut-offs of thousands of promised grants will hobble all sorts of research for many years to come–including research into cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimers–and the negative consequences will go far beyond medical science research.

A former academic colleague recently shared a notice that the Trump administration is withholding payment of the final year of a four-year grant–a grant to a program at Indiana University that has been continuously supported by the federal government since 1959. That ongoing support was based upon a determination that the program was an important part of the United States’ defense effort, as described in the post-Sputnik National Security in Education Act of 1958, and the subsequent David L. Boren National Security Education Act (NSEA) passed in 1991. 

IU’s program supported students studying several of the foreign languages that enable American diplomats to communicate with and recognize threats from individuals and governments of foreign countries. The grants were intended to “address the U.S. shortfall in experts with critical language and international area knowledge needed for national security,” and were intended to enable students to “study languages and regions vital to national security.”  

The remnants of the Department of Education informed IU that the final year of the grant would not be forthcoming, because “the international and foreign language education grant programs are not a priority of the administration,” and that the programs are “inconsistent with administration priorities and do not advance American interests or values.”

As a result of the funding cut-off, a number of graduate students will be unable to continue their graduate studies. It is yet another facet of this administration’s unremitting attack on education at all levels.

How do arbitrary and capricious–and patently illegal–actions like this harm American interests? Let us count the ways…

Rather obviously, the lack of individuals able to understand foreign communications will make it more difficult to conduct international affairs and to recognize threats to U.S. interests. Those interests may not be a “priority” of this administration, but they’ve been a very high priority of previous administrations–and of the legislators who continued to authorize and fund the programs. 

It’s unlikely that most Americans will ever hear of the discontinuation of this particular program, or the negative results that will flow from the significant number of other abruptly terminated education programs and research projects. What we will experience, however, is a steady diminution in national health and in economic well-being, and a substantially reduced ability to protect American interests internationally. 

Of course, as the missive from the Department of Education candidly admitted, the protection of America’s interests are not a priority of this administration. That has been obvious for some time. The clear priority of Trump and his collection of clowns, misfits and grifters is the exercise of power and the ability to line their pockets–the corruption of this administration puts Teapot Dome to shame.

The even clearer priority of Trump’s MAGA followers is reversing the legal and social gains of women and minorities–rooting out efforts to level the playing field for non-Whites, non-Christians and non-males. They neither know nor care that those priorities weaken America.

We need to turn out eleven million protestors for the second “No Kings” Day on October 18th.

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