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tzimmer_history

@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social

Historian at Georgetown - Democracy and Its Discontents - Podcast: Is This Democracy https://anchor.fm/is-this-democracy - Newsletter: Democracy Americana https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/

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Fascism in America?

The fascism debate rages on: Here is why it matters, what the main contentions are, and why the arguments of the Skeptics are increasingly untethered from what is happening on the Right.

Some thoughts from my new piece:

🧵1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/fascism-in-america

tzimmer_history,
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I dove deep into the fascism wars: Is Trump adequately described as a fascist? Should we situate Trumpism in the historical and ideological tradition of fascism? Or is all this fascism talk just an insidious form of liberal “alarmism” meant to distract us from the real problems? 2/

tzimmer_history,
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I put a lot of work into clarifying the stakes in this debate, providing an overview of the key arguments on either side, and outlining why I am convinced that Trumpism does indeed represent a specifically American, specifically 21st-century version of fascism. 3/

tzimmer_history,
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But a group of leftwing intellectuals and academics – the Skeptics – is convinced the fascism talk is silly and even dangerous. The recently published anthology “Did It Happen Here?” is heavily indexed towards the idea that it’s all neurotic, self-serving liberal alarmism. 4/

tzimmer_history,
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We need to distinguish between an analytical and a political dimension of the fascism debate. On the political level, the question is: Is it politically useful – and to whom? To what end? – to call Trump and Trumpism fascism? Or is it counter-productive, even dangerous? 5/

tzimmer_history,
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The analytical question is a very different one: Does it help us understand Trumpism better if we connect it to, and situate it within, an international or domestic fascist tradition? Does the fascism concept illuminate certain distinct features of Trumpism? 6/

tzimmer_history,
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What makes the analytical debate complicated is the fact that there is no consensus definition of fascism – there are different definitions and approaches, plural. Fascism always had an idiosyncratic quality to it, and fascist politics also radicalized over time. 7/

tzimmer_history,
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Here’s the case for applying the fascism concept to Trump/Trumpism: Trump has a fascistic way of describing the problem – and offers a fascistic solution. According to the Trumpists, the country is in decline, threatened by “diseased” outsiders and the “leftist” enemy within. 8/

tzimmer_history,
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If Trump is to be believed, in order to restore this declining nation to former glory, to Make it Great Again, it has as to be “purified” – the enemies have to be purged. Trump has repeatedly promised a deportation operation of unprecedented scale, targeting non-white people. 9/

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The Trumpists believe only one man, one providential leader, can guide the nation to its re-birth and former glory – a charismatic leader from outside the conservative establishment, fueled by a radicalizing mass base that is bound to him by a cult of personality. 10/

tzimmer_history,
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Trumpism regards any opposition to this project of national purification and re-birth as fundamentally illegitimate. It is dogma among Trump’s supporters that he as their leader embodies the will of the true people, the Volk, “real America.” 11/

tzimmer_history,
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The counterargument presented by the fascism Skeptics relies on a rather cursory, abstract view of Trump, Trumpism, and the Right that seemingly hasn’t been updated in quite a while – and on dismissing all the concrete planning efforts around Trump as entirely meaningless. 12/

tzimmer_history,
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Fascism can only rise under certain indispensable conditions, and it can’t be fascism because there is no strong communist movement or party, no acute leftist threat, in the United States? Well, that’s certainly not how anyone of significance on the Right sees it. 13/

tzimmer_history,
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The idea that radical leftist forces are laying siege to America and have taken over most major institutions, that a “counter-revolution” is needed to save the nation, forms the core of rightwing political identity and the permission structure that governs conservative politics. 14/

tzimmer_history,
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No fascistic mass organization? But the position of extremists within the Right and in relation to the power centers of the GOP has shifted rather dramatically; they now see themselves, and are viewed by Trump and his supporters, as part of a new rightwing coalition. 15/

tzimmer_history,
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Trump is not using violence systematically? Well, all strands of the Right – Republican elected officials, the media machine, the reactionary intellectual sphere, the conservative base – are openly and aggressively embracing rightwing vigilante violence. 16/

tzimmer_history,
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Trump has not coherent ideology? Granted, this particular wannabe-leader himself is not sitting down to dictate his manifesto. But the people behind “Project 2025” and those in the Claremont orbit are animated by a very clear worldview and vision for the country. 17/

tzimmer_history,
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The argument is not that every institution of establishment conservatism has been replaced by fascist structures. The point is that, first, fascist elements exist in a coalition with established reactionary and conservative forces and are increasingly in charge of that alliance. 18/

tzimmer_history,
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Secondly, the recent trajectory of established institutions like Claremont and Heritage is among the clearest indications we have of how much the power centers of conservative politics have radicalized, how much a lust for “counter-revolution” has come to define today’s Right. 19/

tzimmer_history,
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I don’t think foregrounding the fascism terminology, concept, and historical analogy is the only way to adequately capture these developments. But reflecting on these tendencies as variants of fascism allows us – forces us – to properly grapple with what is happening over there. 20/

tzimmer_history, to random
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Fascism in America?

The fascism debate rages on: Here is why it matters, what the main contentions are, and why the arguments of the Skeptics are increasingly untethered from what is happening on the Right.

New piece:

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/fascism-in-america

tzimmer_history,
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@andrew Very kind - thank you, Andrew!

tzimmer_history, to random
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I joined The Big Picture for a Q&A about “Project 2025”: What it is, the extreme worldview of the reactionaries behind it, what it would do to America, and why it provides such a crucial insight into the state of the Right today.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/project-2025-thomas-zimmer-trump

tzimmer_history, to random
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Vigilante Violence Is Part of the Right’s Plan

I wrote this exactly a year ago, and today – as Texas Gov. Abbott has pardoned convicted killer Daniel Perry – is, sadly, a good day to repost it: The open embrace of violence plays a key role in the broader rightwing mobilization against democracy.

Some thoughts: 1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/vigilante-violence-is-part-of-the

image/jpeg

tzimmer_history,
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The summer of 2020 further escalated this perception of imminent threat: It has become a key element of rightwing political identity to view the protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd as – as irrefutable proof that “the Left” had started its full-on assault. 13/

tzimmer_history,
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This interpretation provides a permission structure for the embrace of political violence. Building up this supposedly totalitarian threat from the “Left” enables the Right to justify its actions within the long-established framework of conservative self-victimization. /end

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/vigilante-violence-is-part-of-the

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