NO, DONALD TRUMP IS NOT A FASCIST and we are in no danger of democracy ending

 NO, DONALD  TRUMP IS NOT  A FASCIST and we are in no danger of democracy ending

 

What is this “fascism” we hear so much about lately?

Wikipedia tells us Fascism is a far right, authoritarian and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism,  forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, egalitarianism, liberalism, socialism and Marxism, fascism is at the far right of the traditional left-right spectrum.

 

If we ask Bulgarian Communist Party chairman and general secretary of the Communist International Georgi Dimitrov, fascism is the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. 

Dimitrov further expanded on that definition; "Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.... The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country."

Exiled Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky said "The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery."

The Fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebeian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat and even to a certain extent, from the proletarian masses, Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.

The movement in Germany is analogous mostly to the Italian movement. It is a mass movement, with its leaders employing a great deal of socialist demagogy. This is necessary for the creation of the mass movement.

The genuine basis is the petty bourgeoisie. In Italy it is a very large base – the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany likewise, there is a large base for Fascism. In England there is less of that base because the proletariat is the overwhelming majority of the population: the peasant or farming stratum only an insignificant section.

It may be said, and this is true to a certain extent, that the new middle class, the functionaries of the state, the private administrators, etc., etc., can constitute such a base. But this is a new question that must be analyzed. This is a supposition. It is necessary to analyze just what it will be. It is necessary to foresee the Fascist movement growing from this or that element. But this is only a perspective which is controlled by events. I am not affirming that it is impossible for a Fascist movement to develop in England or for a Mosley or someone else to become a dictator. This is a question for the future. It is a far-fetched possibility.

To speak of it now as an imminent danger is not a prognosis but a mere prophecy. In order to be capable of foreseeing anything in the direction of Fascism, it is necessary to have a definition of that idea. What is Fascism? What is its base, its form and its characteristics? How will its development take place?

 

Fascism was a movement that emerged in continental Europe in the wake of the chaos of World War I, and Russian Revolution – the workers, farmers and servicemen  of the Russian Empire first overthrowing the imperial Russian government and creating a republic run  by the Russian upper classes, then overthrowing that republic and replacing it with a state that claimed to represent the working class of Russia in power.

 

That revolution was followed by the  working class and soldiers of Germany overthrowing  the emperor,  creating a republic, ending World War I and making an attempt to set up a working class run state in Germany.

 

This was followed by revolutions in the Russian colonies of Finland and Poland, the British colony of Ireland and in the remains of the Austro Hungarian Empire

In all of these countries the working class was the backbone of the revolution – in none of these countries was  the working class ever able to really assert power in their own right (not even in Russia, nominally a working class ruled state)

 

Fascism was the reaction of the capitalists, small business owners and professionals of Europe to a combative, independent, and communist oriented working class  that was able to overthrow the old system, but not strong  enough to actually rule the new order that rose in the wake of that collapse

 

Fascism later expanded to include Portugal in the 1920s, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece in the 1930s and Germany occupied Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway and Yugoslavia during World War II in the 1940s.

 

Fascism largely disintegrates in post WW II Europe – except for Spain and Portugal – and isn’t seen again as a significant political movement until the wave of working class revolts that swept Brazil, Argentina and Chile in the 1970s

With the collapse of fascist rule in Spain and Portugal in the 1970s and Brazil, Argentina and Chile in the 1980s, Fascism pretty much ceases to exist as a viable political movement at the end of the 20^th century

 

Today there’s not a single country in the world with fascists in  power, or where they even exist as a political mass movement

 

Also, Fascism was never a mass movement  in North America. In particular America has never had a fascist mass movement

 

America always had a weak labor movement; our unions were run by pro capitalist leaders, many of whom were gangsters openly in league with organized crime syndicates, many of whom were also openly racist towards Black, Latino, Asian and indigenous workers, almost all of whom were part of the Democratic Party machine.

 

America’s racially divided working class also lacked a mass workers party – not even a reformist pro capitalist social democratic workers party like the British Labor Party, let alone a mass socialist or communist party.

 

In that context there  was never a real possibility of revolution here,  thus the social conditions that would lead to fascist mass movements never existed in this  country.

 

America did have it’s own home grown racist mass movements – first and foremost the Ku Klux Klan organized by former Confederate Army officers, former slave owners and Democratic Party elected officials in the post civil war South.

California also had the Workingman’s Party, founded in the 1870s on a platform of expelling Chinese immigrant workers and dissolved in 1883 in the wake of the illegalization of Asian immigration by the Chinese Exclusion Act.

 

These movements were just the main organized expression of wealthy Americans’ efforts to whip up racist hated among White American workers aimed at Black, Latino, Asian and European  immigrant workers.

 

In the wake of mass movements for civil and human rights led by upper and middle class African Americans after World War II, there was a revival  of racist mass movements, especially in the South, and also  among the White communities in big cities  with large Black populations in the Northeast and Midwest.

 

These movements largely succeeded in keeping American workers divided by race – they’re the reason that unions are so weak in this country, also why we don’t have a workers party, also why America’s capitalist class has never faced the threat of revolution.

 

Those racial divisions are also why American workers have such a weak social safety net, why we go on strike so infrequently, why most of us don’t have a labor union and the few unions we have are so weak and ineffectual and why we do not have an independent workers party

 

Finally, America’s role as the world’s main imperialist power after World War II meant that the American capitalist class was profitable enough to buy the loyalty of farmers, small business owners, professionals and even a small prosperous minority of better off workers.

 

Thus the rulers of this country have never needed European or South American style fascism.

 

They have needed racist demagogues and they’ve had a lot of them over the last two centuries; Nathan Bedford Forrest, Denis Kearney, Father Charles Coughlin, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Orval Faubus, Antony Imperiale, Louise Day Hicks, Ed Koch, Rudolph Giuliani etc

 

That’s the tradition that Donald Trump comes out of  - and as racist  as it is, it’s not “fascist” in the least.

 

If that’s the case, then why all the vacuous nonsense about Trump being a “fascist” and a “threat to American democracy”?

 

That’s just electoral propaganda put out by the Democratic Party, to conceal the reality that there really isn’t much difference between the two parties of Wall Street  these days.

Both parties have nothing but austerity,  deportation, mass imprisonment, declining living standards and the threat of a third world war with Russia, China and Iran (American imperialism’s main rivals in the world today)

Trump’s wing of the Republican party demagogically promises to reduce the falling standard of living of the middle income section of the American working class – the Democrats can’t even offer those false promises.

 

So, they scare us with fascism talk that even they know is a flat out lie