Great reflection on the debate over Trump as a “fascist” and, more generally, the uses and abuses of the #fascism concept in the current political discourse. I’d like to add a few thoughts and observations: 1/
https://twitter.com/lionel_trolling/status/1380132832199241730
In a vacuum, I think it’s fair to argue that the term “fascism” is sometimes used a little too indiscriminately, and that the indiscriminate use of the term can obscure more than it illuminates. 2/
There’s nothing unique about this tendency to overuse the term “fascism,” of course: The way the term “socialism” is used in the political debate, for instance, obviously bears little resemblance to what historians of the left would recognize. 3/
Most of the time, such terms aren’t used to make a historically informed argument – they are battle cries, intended to signal maximal distance from a political opponent, to disavow and de-legitimize a position or enemy. 4/
What about Trump and the American Right though? Some historians have made the argument that the term “fascism” can’t be removed from the specifics of Europe’s interwar period, that it should basically be reserved for movements that arose in the aftermath of World War I. 5/
Again, in a vacuum, I am somewhat sympathetic to this line of thinking, as long as it’s a general argument about the importance of distinct historical constellations. That’s not the same, however, as making an argument about the American Far Right. 6/
We should be careful not to conflate the two – which is what certain scholars of Nazism and European fascism do. Crucially, those Europeanist contributions to the debate over Trumpism have sometimes displayed a striking lack of awareness for the specifics of U.S. history. 7/
Let’s look at Richard Evans’ essay “Why Trump isn’t a fascist,” published a week after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. It’s a good example of the “Remember the specifics of the interwar period” argument – and indicative of why it often falls short. 8/ newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/…
Richard Evans is one of the pre-eminent scholars of Nazism – and arguably one of the best-known historians in the world. I respect him greatly, especially his earlier work that focused on nineteenth-century German social history; the focus on Nazism actually came quite late. 9/
Asked to comment on Trump and the debate over whether or not Trumpism is fascism, Evans answers with a maximalist version of the “Can’t be, if it’s not the interwar period” argument – best captured by @SethCotlar here: 10/
https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1349756769166233602?s=20
And in typical Evans fashion, he thinks anyone who disagrees does so because they basically don’t know what they’re talking about – in his words: “But few who have described Trump as a fascist can be called real experts in the field.” 11/
It’s a remarkably arrogant statement – and it’s also manifestly untrue. Here, for instance, is German historian Michael Wildt, absolutely an expert on Nazism, calling Trump and his supporters “modern fascism.” 12/
https://twitter.com/WildtMichael/status/1348194911720534017?s=20
The bigger problem, however, is that Evans is commenting on something on which he simply is not a “real expert” himself: The past and present of U.S. politics in general, and specifically the past and present state of the American Right. 13/
Here’s what Evans has to offer on Trump. He argues that Trump is not, contrary to real fascists, a proponent of the totalitarian state, but “has encouraged a warped vision of personal freedom: a society in which people aren’t subject to government regulation or supervision”. 14/
That’s not, however, a plausible statement, considering that the core promise of Trumpism has been to mobilize and use the coercive powers of the state to uphold a certain social order in which white men are at the top, and keep in check those who deviate by whatever means. 15/
To Evans, Trump is merely a chaos agent, incapable of "real fascism" – and so, to him, the attack on Congress could not have been an attempted coup, "not a pre-planned attempt to seize the reins of government," as Trump is "too chaotic and undisciplined" to pull that off. 16/
That, again, is not an adequate characterization of what happened on January 6, and Evans’ singular, simplistic focus on Trump leads him to overlook not only the role of far-right groups, but also the complicity of Republican officials on all levels of government. 17/
It is striking how generally unaware Evans seems to be of the actual state of the conservative movement and the direction the Republican Party has taken. He lauds the Supreme Court for standing up to Trump – the same SC that gutted the Voting Rights Act. 18/
He sees Congress triumphing over Trump – and never mentions that almost all Republican lawmakers stood with the ex-President right until the end and are still pushing the Big Lie of widespread election fraud. 19/
And he praises election officials for resisting Trump’s pressure – while Republicans all over the country are all in on erecting one-party minority rule. 20/
https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1377601202016419842?s=20
Evans doesn’t even seem troubled by the fact that a majority of Republicans believe Joe Biden didn’t win a fair election: “But that does not mean they want the constitution to be overthrown, merely that they don’t think it’s been employed fairly.” Uhm, what? 21/
Yes, Richard Evans is an expert on Nazism. But he’s decidedly not an expert on U.S. history and politics, on the history of white supremacy in America, the American Far Right, and the conservative movement. "Real experts" on those fields won’t recognize Evans’ America. 22/
To sum up, it’s important to emphasize the specific historical circumstances that led to the rise of fascism in the interwar period, and it’s crucial to keep those in mind when using the term in any political context. 23/
But it does not follow that whoever speaks of fascism in America must be ignorant of fascism’s history. All too often, those who vehemently oppose the use of the term in a U.S. context betray an inadequate understanding of the Far Right and white supremacy in America. /end
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