tzimmer_history

tzimmer_history, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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/

tzimmer_history, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

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, 17 days ago

@andrew Very kind - thank you, Andrew!

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

Beyond just functioning as a tool for upholding political power, white vigilante violence also serves as a way to enforce the underlying reactionary vision for which there is no majority support in America – and no one understands this better than the Right itself. 8/

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

The Right envisions a society in which white conservatives are enabled to serve as deputies of the white nationalist state to help keep those “others” in check, and to enforce a reactionary social and moral order through the threat of vigilante violence. 9/

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

Every time I mention how the Right is embracing vigilantism, I get a flurry of “Where were you when those woke barbarians destroyed our cities in the summer of 2020?! The violence is coming from the Left!!!” replies. 10/

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

This idea has become dogma on the Right: That the country is facing an onslaught from a powerful, radically “Un-American,” extremist “Left” that is violently threatening to destroy everything the nation is supposed to stand for. 11/

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

Rightwing extremism was never fully purged from mainstream conservatism. And after Obama – often derided as a radical “socialist” – was elected president, the idea that more drastic action was urgently needed was spreading fast into the center of conservative politics. 12/

tzimmer_history, 23 days ago

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, 23 days ago

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