Whether you want to call this white nationalist extremism, or a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism - the answer is to raise the alarm. Don’t get bogged down in a debate over semantics and concepts.
Pay attention. Because this is what’s coming.
Pay attention. Because this is what’s coming.
I maintain that we should be judicious in our use of the term “fascism” - not because what’s happening isn’t bad / dangerous enough to merit the label (it absolutely is!), but because it sometimes comes with the implication that Trumpism is an aberration in U.S. history.
In the thread below, I outlined the reasons why I think we need to be careful not to let the term fascism distract us from the fact that Trumpism is deeply rooted in longstanding American traditions and continuities of racism and white Christian nationalism.
https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1416117210146279425
We must not separate Trump from the continuum of American history - specifically the long-standing anti-democratic, authoritarian impulses on the Right. A white reactionary counter-mobilization against racial and social progress: That’s the norm in U.S. history.
But: From an analytical perspective, this year, in particular, has certainly made the idea that Trumpism is a specifically American, 21st-century version of fascism a lot more plausible - and we urgently need to explore the fascist tendencies and traditions on the American Right.
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