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Trump and Mussolini (Massoud Malek, USA, 01/12/21 11:19 am)

Lately on the Forum, I am reading about the kangaroo court against Trump, that Trump is not a fascist, and finally, that Trump followers are the impoverished Americans who finally found a voice.

Since 2016, Donald Trump refused to accept any result that made his opponent the winner of an election. He repeatedly and clearly explained that he will never commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

Combined with Trump's relentless disinformation campaign, his celebration of violence against journalists, and incitement of armed militias, historians and experts on fascism warned that Trump is behaving like Benito Mussolini who introduced the Blackshirts in 1919.

In her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian, wrote:

"From 1922 to 1925, Mussolini was prime minister of a democratic coalition government. But he slowly chipped away at democratic institutions, insulting the press, using violence against the left, joking that he would be in office for 20 years, establishing a militia and a legislative body (the Grand Council) loyal to him."

Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, defines fascism as "a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation." He told NPR's All Things Considered: "The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors."

This time, there is no way to accept the quantum universe about the future or the argument of Newton's third law. The argument that Trump has about 88 million Twitter followers is irrelevant. Donald Trump must be punished harshly. The American democracy is much more important than a man who told the impoverished Americans that you should destroy the symbol of democracy.

Sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/historians-election-experts-warn-trump-behaving-like-mussolini-2020-9

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/06/910320018/fascism-scholar-says-u-s-is-losing-its-democratic-status

JE comments:  Eugenio Battaglia must be rubbing off on me:  With the (enormous) exception of leading his country into a suicidal war, Trump is in many ways worse than Mussolini.  For starters, Il Duce delivered infrastructure and many social benefits to the Italian people.

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