Trump has been very open about his plans to use law enforcement to harass his political enemies and to replace thousands of apolitical experts in the federal government with political hacks. Those initiatives, however deplorable, do not make him a fascist. The weaponization of law enforcement goes back to Richard Nixon; the changes to the bureaucracy have a pedigree that extends all the way back to Andrew Jackson.
The line between Nixon and fascism will be defined by the answers to two questions:
- Will Trump ignore court orders that he dislikes?
- Will he use his emergency powers and the Insurrection Act to crush dissent?
Even Nixon didn’t do anything like that. Crossing that line makes America a fascist country.
I don’t know the answers to my questions. What I do know is: Trump is angry and wants revenge; he frequently expresses his contempt for the judicial system, most recently by violating the gag order in his criminal trial; he openly mused about using the Insurrection Act during his first term; he frequently uses language associated with dictators to describe his opponents; he encouraged the use of violence to overturn the results of the 2020 election; he will be surrounded by people who will egg him on instead of trying to stop him in his second term; Republicans in Congress will do nothing to keep him in bounds; he cannot be removed from office through the impeachment process; and he is effectively immune from criminal prosecution if and when he leaves the White House. Why would I give him the benefit of the doubt under those circumstances?