Year in a word: Fascism
Open the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
(noun) Political ideology – once thought to be dead – which seems to be experiencing a global renaissance
The 2024 US election was unusual in that it was hotly debated over whether one of the candidates was a fascist. General John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff in his first term, fueled the debate by telling reporters that his former boss fit the definition of fascism. to the definition he found online. . . characterized by dictatorial leadership, centralized autonomy, militarism, violent suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.”
Trump’s campaign responded to the accusation by saying that Kelly had “incriminated himself” and repeated the false accusations. Some of Trump’s more sophisticated defenders have argued that the charge is misplaced because Trump is not a militarist. Indeed, the incoming president campaigned as a pro-peace candidate and promised to end wars forever.
The Harris campaign, however, used Kelly’s charge. The Democrats clearly believed that any candidate infected with fascism would be rejected. But they may have overestimated the depth of the average voter’s historical knowledge. The campaign trail found that most voters associated fascism with Hitler with and Hitler with the holocaust Because no one believed that Trump was planning to build American Auschwitz, it was relatively easy for the Republican Party to dismiss accusations of fascism as liberal hysteria.
Historians of the 1930s, however, believe that Trump and some other world leaders, such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, are reviving aspects of the fascist tradition. , not just in America.
English