This may sound harsh, but I agree with @jasonintrator. Too many commentators thought their expertise on European fascism enabled them to weigh in on Trumpism, not realizing that they actually lacked an adequate understanding of the American (Far) Right, past and present.
https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1493192678133141506
One such case is Richard Evans, specifically his essay “Why Trump isn’t a fascist,” published a week after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. newstatesman.com/long-reads/202…
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.
Evans’ essay is in line with the overall line of thinking that the term “fascism” basically 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.
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 and contexts. That’s not the same, however, as making an argument about the American Far Right.
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 European interwar period” argument.
And in what must be said is 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.”
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.”
https://twitter.com/wildtmichael/status/1348194911720534017
And, of course, Robert O. Paxton, probably the best-known scholar of fascism and the author of “The Anatomy of Fascism,” a standard account, has come around to calling Trumpism “fascism” after the January 6 attack. newsweek.com/robert-paxton-…
The key problem 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 (Far) Right.
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.”
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 to keep in check those who deviate by whatever means.
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.
That is not an adequate characterization of what happened on and around January 6, however, 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.
It is striking how generally unaware Evans seems to be of the actual state of the conservative movement or the direction the Republican Party has taken. And let’s just say that his praise for the Supreme Court for supposedly standing up to Trump hasn’t aged very well.
He sees Congress triumphing over Trump – and never mentions that almost all Republican lawmakers stood with the ex-President right until the end and were pushing the Big Lie of widespread election fraud while Evans was writing his essay.
And Evans praises election officials for resisting Trump’s pressure – while Republicans all over the country were, and still are, all in on erecting one-party-rule systems on the state level.
Evans doesn’t even seem troubled by the fact that a majority of Republicans believed 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?
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.
Yes, it’s important to emphasize the specific historical circumstances that led to the rise of fascism in Europe’s interwar period, and it’s crucial to keep those in mind when using the term in any political context.
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.
My own interpretation, by the way, is that the animating vision and ideology on the Right is best described as white Christian nationalism. Within that broader context, we need to acknowledge a domestic tradition of fascism / fascistic tendencies, and that’s where Trumpism falls.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
