Photograph Source: Deans Charbal – CC BY-SA 4.0

Let’s not wait for historians to analyze the Trump era and ask; Are Trump and his MAGA followers aberrations in American history or manifestations of a significant autocratic leitmotif of American historical fascism? Individuals can have bad days and stretches of unusual, destructive behavior. But what about societies democratically choosing to be led autocratically? When Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly says that the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” there should be immediate concerns after the November 5 election. Democracies can turn fascist. We know Hitler came to power in 1934 through Germany’s legal political processes, an Austrian plebiscite approved Anschluss. And in the U.S.? Donald Trump and his followers challenge whether the U.S. is going to follow a charismatic, authoritarian leader down the path of fascism.

The recent election has Trump controlling the executive, legislative and Supreme Court. For the next four years, there will be no separation of powers, checks and balances or guardrails.

There are precedents in discussing how fascism comes about. Germany had a debate in the 1980s about how Hitler came to power. The historikerstreit focused on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in larger German history. Numerous questions were raised: Was National Socialism an anomaly because of pressure from the Soviet Union and political failures after World War I or a linear continuation of underlining facets of the “German national character”? What did the average person know and when did she know about the extermination camps? Why were Germans so enthusiastic about Hitler and the Nazis? Was there a fundamental, Aryan mentality Hitler appealed to?

It is important that the United States have a historikerstreit now before the worst actualizes. Why wait forty years? Questions should be raised today about the place of Trump and his MAGA followers in the larger context of American history. After all, someone who rejected the officially confirmed results of the 2020 election and did all in his power to overcome the peaceful transfer of power is now the president again.

How did this happen? Why were MAGA followers so enthusiastic about Trump? How to analyze his campaigning to occupy the country’s highest office while awkwardly dancing for forty minutes to a bizarre mix of music during a rally? How to understand the MAGA crowd’s enthusiasm for his disjointed, rambling, misogynist, homophobic, violent language? How will the obscenely vulgar Madison Square Garden rally be evaluated in comparison to previous presidential campaigns?

Can we compare Trump to Hitler’s march to power? Could fascism happen in the United States? For those thinking I’m pushing this too far, please read the 2018 collection of essays Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America edited by Cass R. Sunstein, in which eminent scholars examine U.S. history and how democracies can crumble in a follow-up to Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 It Can’t Happen Here.

A similar experience to Trump’s in American history did happen on a smaller scale during the McCarthy era. The Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy, held a series of Congressional hearings on the role of the Soviet Union and their spies in the American government. The period, which reached its zenith from the late 1940s through the 1950s, was filled with hysteria about communist influence. “Were you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” rang through the halls of Congress, Hollywood and elsewhere.  As part of that same period, Richard Nixon used the fear of “fellow travellers” in 1950 when he referred to an early political opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, as the “Pink Lady, pink right down to her underwear.” (For Trump, Harris is Pink Lady 2.0.)

It is important to remember that the turning point of the McCarthy period came when Lawrence Welch asked the Senator; “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” on national television. The bubble had been burst, it was the beginning of McCarthy’s personal downfall.

I have often wondered if a similar moment could happen with Trump. Probably not. In today’s context, the question of Trump’s decency is irrelevant. As Maureen Dowd astutely noted; “Republican politicians bending to Trump’s will don’t know what shame is. And Trump, brazenly projecting every bad thing that he does onto his rivals, and boldly hawking sneakers, Bibles and cologne like a late-night cable huckster, has no shame.”

McCarthy had his communists. Trump has migrants and his “enemies from within.” Both played to fear of the Other, those not considered true Americans. Trump, like McCarthy, pictures himself the guarantor of the public’s safety.

Hitler’s rise to power. The McCarthy era. The Trump decade. The rise of National Socialism led to World War II, and an estimated 30 to 40 million deaths. That fascist era ended by military defeat. The McCarthy era caused no direct deaths, but it left a permanent scar on United States democracy and the image of a free, open and inclusive society. That Cold War mentality has not receded. It remains a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy whether dealing with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, migrants or whatever other enemy pops up at the moment as the Axis of Evil.

And the Trump decade? Trump has already left scars domestically through his appointments to the Supreme Court. The number of deaths from overturning Roe vs Wade are difficult to calculate, but they are there. The international system has suffered as well. The United States’ leadership in global cooperation has been replaced by a transactional, interest-driven mentality that sees more and more countries opting out of the U.S.’s sphere of influence. What country would count on U.S. support when its possible future leader hints at withdrawing from NATO and downplays any form of international cooperation not in America’s interest?

Trump is unique. “No similar figure in American history has ever had such a strong grip on so many,” as presidential historian Jon Meacham has written.

How to return the U.S. to normalcy? With his victory and control of the Congress there is no guarantee that the scars from his era will ever disappear. The McCarthy era is still with us in the background. It took the Germans decades after 1945 to return to some normalcy.

So let’s not wait for historians to analyze the Trump era or have a great debate like the historikerstreitabout Trump’s place in American history. The November 5 election could be the beginning of a prolonged Trump phenomenon. The election failed to put Trump and his followers as footnotes in history. Their power has been amplified and extended.

What to do? We want normalcy, and we want it now. The problem is how to get there.

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