So much to unpack here!
To paraphrase John Oliver, he’s either a fascist or pretending to be a fascist and, at some point there is no difference there.
Everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth conforms perfectly to the 14 characteristics of fascism:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
Whether you believe him or not, Trump is campaigning as a fascist and people are supporting his fascist views.
I understand both Oghier’s and Timex’s views here so let me see if I can bridge the gap. While there is nothing worse or more dangerous than a fascist locking down the Republican nomination for president of The United States, the mask is so clearly off when it comes to Trump that I honestly believe him getting the nomination spells the end of the Republican Party as we know it. He is the final, illogical conclusion to a cynical political strategy that has warped the Republican party’s ideology into something deeply un-American. Cruz, on the other hand, represents something far more insidious. Because he is less overtly fascist, he can prolong the destructive ruse. Cruz may be every bit as radical as Trump but he’s savvy enough to know that you need to disguise that horror in a mask that is seemingly compatible with American values, even though it is anything but. In some ways, this makes Cruz more dangerous.
Trump can win the nomination and the platform this will give him to spout his heinous views will be truly damaging but I honestly believe that he cannot be elected President. It’s horrifying to have him in a position where this is a worst case scenario but I think he would be crushed in a general election. I do not believe that his toxic views represent anything close to a majority and, indeed, once he’s out of the splintered primary scenario, I wouldn’t be shocked to see his support top out at the crazification factor of 27%.
If Trump gets the nomination, I’m not sure they can recover and I’m not sure this is a bad thing but it begs the question of what comes next. I have a radical idea.
The battle playing out in the Democratic party right now is whether the party will return to its liberal roots or continue its evolution into a Center-Right party. We have seen conservative factions within the Democratic party before with the Blue Dog Democrats and the Reagan Democrats. A significant number of moderate conservatives have said they will cross over and vote Democratic to stop Trump. Why stop there? Why don’t we share the party for a time? If moderate conservatives starting running for office under the Democratic banner, they would probably be very successful. It would be one party rule but it would not be a unified party. The emphasis would shift from the current obstructionist two party model to a system made up of factions in which coalition building once again becomes critical to governance. The Republicans lost sight of the fact that politics requires compromise and the two party system encouraged this intransigence. A big tent Democratic party could be healthier in the long run.
Eventually you would expect a new party to evolve, probably on the Left. But in the meantime you’d have a party that believed in climate change (and science in general) but also was pretty cozy with Wall St and big business. You’d have a party that believed in the 2nd amendment right to bear arms (despite what the fear mongers in the Republican party would have you believe) but also supported common sense regulations. A party that believes in true religious freedom for all by supporting the founding principal separating church and state. A party that represents this country’s diversity on all fronts: racially, ethnically, religiously and politically. (Hispanics, for example, are generally conservative but have been driven into the Democrat’s arms by the racial prejudice of the Republicans.)
This is possibly a pipe dream and I know that many conservatives would struggle with the identity issue of keeping the Democratic name but I don’t know what the alternative is. I started out thinking that the principled conservatives like Timex would be without a home but then it occurred to me that, no, there is a home for them under the big tent. My joke that Hilary Clinton is a perfectly good Republican was only half in jest. The Democratic Party currently encompasses a pretty wide spectrum of political beliefs as evidenced by the power struggle currently playing itself out between the establishment and the Sanders Democratic Socialists.
Sorry, that was a book.
There are two types of populism – Authoritarian populism which can morph into fascism and whatever you call the other type of populism such as we saw in this country under FDR. (Sanders would call it Democratic Socialism.)
