>> Donald Trump's reelection campaign from the ads that he's running, the way that he's
talking on the campaign trail, the convention that he just had, he has sort of solidified
that effort around a few core appeals to his base and those sorts of appeals with their
fairly obvious connections to violence that's going on against protesters and things about
that.
Things like that have led many people to talk about fascism in a way that has always sort
of been around in American politics but is seeming more relevant on a daily basis. And
so we decided it was a good time to have back on the show, the man who literally wrote the
book on fascism, the book is How Fascism Works, The Politics of Us and Them.
Joining us once again on The Damage Report is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy
at Yale University, Jason Stanley. Welcome back to the show.
>> Thank you very much for having me, John. >> Glad to have you here, it's been a bit
since we last spoke and the world has absolutely fallen apart during that time.
And so I have a feeling that that probably plays into a little bit of this as well. But
I was curious when we reached out for you to come back on the show, we had just experienced
the convention. And that was a very interesting view into not necessarily what the Republican
Party actually thinks is happening in the country but what they want to focus on.
What did you think about those nights of speeches? >> Well, I thought that it was a cult of the
leader. The Republican platform was devoted simply to Trump. I mean, there wasn't the
Republican platform other than Trump, which is a cult of a leader. We saw four of the
six long speeches at the Republican National Convention given by Trump's.
So the identity of the Republican Party seems to be taken over just by Trumpism, by the
social and political movement of Trumpism. We had throughout. We had strange, we had
this kind of conspiracy theory in Tim Scott's speech. He talked about Manhattan elites and
Hollywood moguls being a threat to America.
We found which sort of sort of Protocols of Elders of Zion kind of iconography there.
We had repeated painting of the Democratic Party, the political opposition at this point
as dangerous Marxists and radicals which we've seen continue. So the idea is that the options
we face are between Communism and the Republican Party.
So this kind of demonization of opponents is very disturbing in a democracy.
>> Yeah, certainly, demonization of opponents of presenting protesters as enemies certainly,
the lines seem to be being drawn very starkly. And so I think that you've mentioned one there.
But I'm curious now that we're very much in campaign mode, previous times when we've talked,
it was just during Trump's term.
It was him weathering crises and things like that. In his campaign speeches, the way his
surrogates are talking about him, are you noticing any new or stronger sort of things
you would commonly associate with fascist ideology and those sorts of tropes?.
>> Absolutely, so when my book first came out in 2018, people said it's not fascism
because there's no militias on the street.
There is no winking. There's no relationship between the government and militias, armed
militias on the street. Now we have open urgings or open connection, communication between
the President and his campaign it seems and these militias. He's calling on people, ordinary
citizens to arm themselves and protect the polls.
We had the Department of Administration official raise panic about leftists and surgeons who
are going to be threats to the nation this week. We had the president praising a right-wing
vigilante who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And we had him praising the US
Marshals killing someone who killed a right-wing protester.
So we have this praising of violence of vigilantes and militia members who take the president's
side and then a call for harsh administrative and state reprisals against those who stand
against him. Obviously I'm not condoning violence against anyone here, but the government should
not be talking about state officials making retribution.
That's not something we should hear from our administration. We should not hear the administration
urging violence. We have law breaking going on. We have a pandemic happening and we have
breaking rules about social distancing and gatherings. And the Republican National Convention
itself was in violation of the Hatch Act.
He was using the White House for political purposes. So we have this kind of open flaunting
of rules and that open flaunting is because in this kind of ideology and fascist ideology,
the rules are whatever the leader wants. And we're seeing that more and more. We're seeing
the idea, the fascist authority is the leader's authority.
And again and again, we're seeing that. We're seeing all opposition painted as illegitimate.
And finally, another objection people made to me was, it's not fascist ideology unless
you see the mechanism of democracy itself being challenged. And we're having the mechanism
of democracy itself being challenged. The election system is being challenged as rigged
and corrupt.
>> Yeah, there's a lot there that I wanna return to. But one other objection that we
talked about before we started this interview that possibly flows from that is it's not
fascism if it's just, and one of those is if it's really just a cult of personality.
Is this really fascism or is this Trumpism?
I don't know exactly what the distinctions are supposed to be between those but what
do you think about that attempt to explain it?
>> Yeah, that's a great point and an important point to respond to. People say fascist ideology
is a kind of racial hierarchy, a glorification of the nation, and we lack that kind of grand
vision here.
This is kind of more of a sort of monarchy dictatorship, a kind of model if it's authoritarianism
we're looking at, but I would push back on that. The cult in fascist ideology, the leader
represents the nation, and that we saw time and time again in the Republican National
Convention.
And we're seeing it again in the campaign. Trump is the nation. Trump is the people.
In fascist ideology, the leader is the personification of the nation and the personification of his
supporters. And we are seeing that crystallization here. We're seeing all the iconic imagery
of the nation superimposed upon Trump.
And Trump, in turn, is supposed to represent the nation. So I don't think when people say
this is just about Trump and Trumpism, that it means we're not seeing the culmination
of fascist ideology and the threat of an authoritarianism with a fascist cast. Because an authoritarianism
with a fascist cast involves a leader who represents the nation, and whose claims and
whose authorities cannot be overruled by anyone else, the Congress, the courts past President.
>> Yeah, and he certainly doesn't think that he can be. So just to be clear, so if Trump
loses in November, you don't expect that the Republican Party then says, well, that was
interesting time. And now we're the party of Bob Dole again. Would you expect that the
next round of contenders for the Republican nomination are going to be playing into some
of the same sorts of tropes that Donald Trump has made core to his his presidency?
>> Absolutely, I think that there are systemic issues here that make us vulnerable to this
kind of politics that date back for decades. Newt Gingrich ushered in a kind of war, politics
as war where the opposition party is completely illegitimate. And to some extent, Biden represents
a counter to that.
But Newt Gingrich had the idea, you block the opposing party no matter what. They are
illegitimate. That is a kind of politics that is anti-democratic, a red warns of the dangers
of loyalty to party over parties. And the Republicans have long said if we can't rule,
no one should.
So there is that, there's the pain. There's what Timothy Snyder calls the politics of
pain, where either you haven't health insurance or you don't. And given such a system, such
a broken system with health insurance, with jobs, with childcare, there's this winner
takes all system, which makes people think that if they have something it's because others
don't.
And that will always lead Americans to think that politics is a war over scarce resources.
And then of course, there's the ever present drumbeat of police violence against Black
Americans and massive structural racial inequality that will divide Americans along racial lines.
Poor Whites will say, what about our pain?
We're being overlooked in this, or this is a threat to our safety. And this kind of racial
politics will always then feed the flames of a future demagogue.