"Fascism is supposed to look a certain way: black-clad, uniformed, synchronised and menacing. It is not supposed to look like an overweight president who can't pronounce acetaminophen and who bumbles, for a full minute, about how he would have renovated the UN's New York headquarters with marble floors, rather than a terrazzo. But as Umberto Eco remarked in his timeless essay on identifying the eternal nature of fascism: Life is not that simple."
"Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Historians, scholars and even some insiders from the first Trump administration have seen through the comedic quality of the disguise. They appear to have seen in Donald Trump himself and those around him, Eco's core criteria: the call to tradition and the rejection of reason, the fear of difference, the hostility towards disagreement, the ressentiment, the machismo, the degradation of language into newspeak, the cult of a strong leader."
"Since then, the Trump administration has deployed the US military and National Guard to cities against the will of their state governors. It has put pressure on state legislatures to disenfranchise opposition voters in extraordinary ways, and floated the idea of disenfranchising all voters residing outside the US by ending mail-in voting. It has used the power of the state to censor books, bully the media and cancel comedians who regularly make fun of Trump."
Ur-Fascism can reappear in unexpected, non‑stereotypical forms rather than as uniformed movements. Donald Trump and his circle display Eco's criteria: call to tradition, rejection of reason, fear of difference, hostility to disagreement, ressentiment, machismo, degradation of language into newspeak, and the cult of a strong leader. The administration has deployed the military and National Guard to cities against governors' wishes, pressured state legislatures to disenfranchise opposition voters, proposed ending mail‑in voting for overseas residents, censored books, bullied the media, and targeted comedians. Executive power has been seized through tariffs, immigration policy, and exemptions to extract corporate compliance. Legalistic debates risk obscuring constitutional erosion.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]