The Trumpist program

Image: Rosemary Ketchum
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By FERNANDO SARTI FERREIRA*

The “revolution of order” only gains traction where the most relevant progressive and left-wing groups are defeated or transformed into guarantors of order

Paxton got lost in the mazes of fascism

On November 24, 2016, Spiegel International Magazine, in an article entitled “How Much Mussolini is There in Donald Trump?”, published the opinion of the most important living scholar of fascism, historian Robert Paxton. Paxton stated that, despite some similarities with historical fascist leaders, Trump was not a fascist. In October 2024, in an interview with The New York Times, the historian stated that he was now certain that Trump was a fascist. His opinion had changed after the attempted invasion of the Capitol, as if Trumpism had crossed the line between fascism and the far right.

Paxton's work is notable for its many possible similarities with another classic text on the subject, namely Nico Poulantzas's book Dictatorship and Fascism. The main point of similarity was that it pointed out that fascism was not a bolt from the blue, but a plastic, opportunistic movement that, for the most part, had not transformed into a government or even promoted a change of regime – that is, Hitler and Mussolini were exceptions and not the rule. Paxton was categorical in his book: to consider fascism as a specific moment in its development is a mistake, due to the very characteristics of the movement. This is exactly what the historian did.

In fact, warning about the rise of fascism – or neo-fascism – in the present day has been a thankless task until now. It meant adopting a position that was subject to constraints and silence. There was a tremendous effort by journalists and social scientists who were very well-positioned in the mainstream media to attack and discredit this perspective. They listed the countless differences between the current far right and classical fascism. Curiously, they were never able to answer why these, and not the also countless similarities, were more important in the analysis of the phenomenon. In the end, as Andrea Mammone pointed out in the distant year of 2009, this militant effort to mitigate these movements helped to democratically legitimize the new expressions of fascism.

Let's go back to January 6th

In the Maria Antônia Bulletin No. 63 of January 6, 2021, the following can be read: “The Washington Beer Hall Putsch will not work. It has already worked. A rupture has occurred. Biden and the opposition social and political forces watched in silence. Trump called for the invasion, the president of Congress and the president-elect humiliated themselves and begged him to go public and ask people to go home. The president went online, celebrated the invasion and asked them to go home, since the gang there, who “fraud the election”, cannot be trusted. Making an allusion to Disney, the Chip and Dale of bourgeois democracy went into a tailspin, as in every fascist coup: bourgeois democracy depends on the extreme right to survive and when this threatens its very existence, it can do nothing but talk about abstractions such as legality, order and peace. The “democrats” are part of the same political camp as the far right, and are incapable of acting violently against its bastard child, fascism. Furthermore, a forceful action against the far right would authorize a radical fight against it from the left. The invasion should be treated by bourgeois democracy as a common protest and not as a military action, because in this way the anti-fascist platform is not legitimized. Hitler was given a retreat in a prison after the 1923 Putsch, from where he could continue building his movement, writing his book and ruminating on his mistakes. Should the left and progressive forces come forward to put the party of order in power? They should, if they can impose a high price for it. A universal, public and free health care system is well worth Biden’s inauguration.”[I].

The diagnosis of Biden’s failure before he was even born was not a guess or premonition, but the most likely outcome given the fact that we are dealing with fascism. Now, moderate government (fascism in government, one of the moments described by Paxton) will begin to give way to regime change – his choice for radicalization. And as with everything related to fascism in the present time, it will not be exactly like in the classical period.

Common sense revolution

In his inauguration speech, Trump openly adopted the political program of fascism – even though the troop of commentators who accuse him of lacking some element to characterize him as such is already in action. Not when he spoke of mass deportations, the militarization of the police or the persecution of women and other subaltern groups. The announcement came in a lapidary phrase: “we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense.” The expression is ambiguous. “Common sense” was mostly translated as “good sense”, that is, that Trump would be appealing to what would be merely conservative values ​​– to the relief of many commentators. However, translated as the “revolution of common sense”, the expression comes closer to the concrete content of the Trumpist program: a stabilizing action of the current order disguised as a millennial crusade of heroic vitalism. Or, as João Bernardo points out, a revolution driven by the desire for a radical transformation of individuals' living conditions, but which does not call into question the foundations of the social structure responsible for producing these terrible living conditions. On the contrary, it points to the radical reaffirmation of these foundations as the solution.

The order threatened without there being any threat to the order

In 1922, the Italian anarchist Luigi Fabbri, when analyzing the outcome of the Italian biennio rosso, stated:

The long-awaited and much-heralded revolution had not come, despite all the good opportunities; and in a certain sense it may be said that it was not desired. But the fact that it had weighed as a threat for almost two years was enough to provoke the counter-revolution. Thus there was a counter-revolution without a revolution, a true preventive counter-revolution, of which fascism was the most active and impressive factor.[ii]

 Eric Fromm, in turn, in 1941, pointed out that in interwar Germany, after a period of hope and progress, workers experienced an “[…] uninterrupted succession of defeats”. The philosopher and psychoanalyst concluded that “[…] By the early 1930s, the fruits of their initial victories had been completely lost, and as a consequence, [the German working class] fell prey to a deep sense of resignation and distrust of their leaders.”[iii]. In other words, despite the mobilization of anti-leftist and anti-progressive panic being one of the ideas mobilized as the greatest force by fascists, the “revolution of order” only gains traction where the most relevant progressive and leftist groups are defeated or transformed into guarantors of order, incapable in one way or another of presenting a solution to the moment of crisis. In this situation, the fact that the social order is threatened without there being any threat to order is a central aspect for understanding the success of fascism.

 If the defeat of the European Revolution and its limitation to the territory of the former Russian Empire, in addition to the adherence to post-war constitutional reforms by socialist parties, marked the rise of fascism on that continent between the wars, the downfall of “real socialism” and of regimes inspired by or reactive to some degree to the Soviet economic and social model, in addition to the adherence since the 1980s of social-democratic and socialist parties to the neoliberal prescription (“[…] the most resolute in applying neoliberal policies”, as Perry Anderson stated), make up the elements of defeat and adherence to the order of the hegemonic left-wing groups in Europe at the present time.[iv].

In relation to the USA, where the socialist left has never been a relevant political force, it is worth pointing out that progressive liberalism and the heterodox economic policy of FD Roosevelt held back the extreme right in the 1930s. A situation diametrically opposed to that of the last 30 years. According to Michael Kazin[v], the Democrats, during the Clinton administration (1993-2001), when declaring the end of the “era of big government” and that the balanced budget enjoyed broad bipartisan agreement, had finally abandoned the idea that “budget deficits were fine as long as spending created jobs and lifted Americans out of poverty”. Complementing their adherence to the most radical orthodoxy, the Democrats repealed the Glass-Steagal Act in 1999. According to the author, “The party that was once known for fighting for the interests of wage earners and small farmers against big business now seemed intent on rolling back nearly every regulation that dissatisfied CEOs”. A new role that would be elevated to paroxysm after the 2008 crisis.

The big file

Laerte has a classic cartoon strip. In it, we see frame by frame a telephone token approaching the Earth, as if it were an asteroid of apocalyptic dimensions, accompanied by the text “The big token, at some point, will fall”. The real problem of the last 15 years has never been about whether or not the framing of the extreme right as fascism is correct, but the degree of fascistization in the various social formations. A problem that seems to be starting to become clear to many more influential analysts. Perhaps too late.

*Fernando Sarti Ferreira He has a PhD in economic history from USP.

Notes


[I] Fernando Ferreira and Rosa Gomes, “The crazy adventures of Chip and Dale of bourgeois democracy”, Maria Antonia - Bulletin of GMARX-USP. São Paulo, Year 1, nº 63, 06/01/2021.

[ii] Luigi Fabbri, Preventive control, Milan, Zero in Condotta, (1922), 2009, p. 45

[iii] Erich Fromm, the fear to the freedom, Buenos Aires, Paidos, 2015 (1941), p. 244.

[iv] Perry Anderson, “Taking Stock of Neoliberalism,” in Emir Sader and Pablo Gentili (eds.), Post-neoliberalism: social policies and the democratic state, Rio de Janeiro, Peace and Land, 1995, p. 9-23.

[v] Michael Kazin, What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022


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