Trump's F-Bomb Blitz

The other F-word.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump, Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.” -General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Bob Woodward

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Historians: He’s a fascist

Political scientists: He’s a fascist

His own aides: He’s a fascist

The NYT: He shows a wistful longing for a bygone era of global politics. — Historian Kevin Kruse

Two guys with daddy issues and penis envy

Happy Sunday. There are 23 days until Election Day. The race is still tied.

So maybe this is a bad time to indulge our usual festivals of horse-racy frivolity, distraction, and bullshit. Because, folks, this is really not a drill.

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Revisiting Godwin’s Law

Believe it or not, I’ve tried (with only limited and sporadic success) to avoid using the f-word to describe our Mango Mussolini. Calling him a fascist runs the risk of sounding simultaneously over-the-top and same-old-same-old, because we’ve been doing this for nine years now. And we all know the hackneyed cliche (often misattributed to Godwin’s Law) that whenever you start invoking Nazi-analogies, you’re probably losing the argument.

We should also be clear-eyed about this: there are now several generations of voters who don’t even know what you’re talking about, because our dumbing down of education has been followed by the pure inanity of a social media universe that is clueless about anything that happened before last year.

So, let’s concede that anything like history or its lessons is a foreign country for many of our fellow amnesiac Americans. (You doubt me? Check this out: “Adolf Hitler had 'some good ideas', a fifth of Gen Z Americans believe according to Daily Mail poll.”)

Let’s go back to Godwin’s law for a moment. The adage (which is not actually a law at all), was offered by author Mike Godwin, who observed, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

But this is where the misunderstandings have come in.

Via Wikipedia: “Godwin himself rejects the idea that whoever invokes Godwin's law has lost the argument, and suggests that, applied appropriately, the rule ‘should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter.’”

After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, for example, Godwin himself tweeted out: ‘By All Means, Compare These Shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.”

Godwin had begun to worry that “the sheer absurdity of so many hyperbolic Nazi comparisons in popular culture” might make us “less vigilant about the possible reemergence of actual fascism in the world.” In fact, Godwin wrote: “comparisons to Hitler or to Nazis need to take place when people are beginning to act like Hitler or like Nazis.”

“Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy,” Godwin wrote.

Last year Godwin himself explicitly embraced the Trump-Hitler comparison: “Yes,” he wrote in The Washington Post, “It’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t let me stop you.”

Godwin cited Trump’s authoritarian itch for a single leader; his penchant for dehumanizing political enemies as “vermin”; and claims that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” which, of course, was one of Hitler’s own talking points.

“We had the luxury of deriving humor from Hitler and Nazi comparisons when doing so was almost always hyperbole,” he wrote. “It’s not a luxury we can afford anymore.

“Total Fascist”

This brings us back to this moment — just three weeks before the Election — and the need to point out once again what is staring us in the face. Aaron Rupar observes:

Trump’s closing message is a full blown hate campaign against black and brown people. Historians will look back in astonishment that this terrifying reality wasn’t the subject of wall to wall coverage and commentary in weeks leading up to this election. He’s not hiding anything.

Indeed, he is not.

And some scholars and journalists are trying to sound the alarm.

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As the election nears, Trump is ramping that rhetoric. At his weekend rally in Aurora Colorado, Trump amplified (debunked) lies about migrants, and continued “to use dehumanizing rhetoric, referring to violent immigrants as ‘animals,’ ‘barbaric thugs’ and ‘sadistic monsters.’ At one point, he falsely claimed that Ms. Harris had “infested” buildings in Aurora with gang members.”¹

Politico is out with a flagrant act of journalism on the trend: “We watched 20 Trump rallies. His racist, anti-immigrant messaging is getting darker.”

The review found “a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.”

“He’s been taking Americans and his followers on a journey since really 2015 conditioning them … step by step instilling hatred in a group, and then escalating,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about authoritarianism and fascism and has been outspoken about the dangers of a second Trump administration.

“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements. These are actual Nazi sentiments,” said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute…. “Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews. These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”

None of this normal

My message to conservative voters: None of this fits into the parameters of anything we’ve seen in American politics for more than a century. In comparison to Trump’s rhetorical blasts of hate, segregationist George Wallace sounds like a run-of-the-mill constitutionalist.

Most important of all: None of this is about conserving anything. This isn’t about right vs. left or D vs. R; this isn’t Ford vs. Carter; or Dole vs. Clinton; or McCain vs. Obama.

You may feel all warm and fuzzy writing-in George Washington or Edmund Burke. But they are not on the ballot. There’s only way to stop Trump from getting back into power and you know what that is… even if it goes against your ideological instincts and your partisan muscle memory.

Here’s my full interview with Milwaukee’s NBC affiliate last week:

BONUS: Liz Cheney continues to sound the alarm.

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday issued a series of dire warnings about a potential future Trump administration, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that people ought to “carefully” consider what another Trump presidency would look like….

"Donald Trump believes he will be immune for anything he does once he’s in office," she said. "He will not respect the rulings of our courts, and people have to realize our courts can’t enforce their own rulings. So if a president refuses to carry out his obligation to do so, then we are no longer a nation of laws."

"The people that stopped him from his worst desires last time around won’t serve again," she added.

Cheney also declined to disagree with remarks from retired Gen. Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump and President Joe Biden, calling Trump "a fascist to the core" in a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward.

"I have tremendous respect for General Milley, and I see no reason to disagree with that assessment," Cheney said.

Sunday dogs

Auggie ended up with all the balls.

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Auggie took some time out from playing ball to watch “Sense and Sensibility” last night. (Although he was also angling for more treats from his mom.)

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Fern and Leo are getting ready for Halloween.

Finally

1. Via the NYT: “The city put out a statement on Friday pre-emptively fact-checking the former president ahead of his rally.

“A gang has not ‘taken over’ the city,” it said. “The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true. It is tragic that select individuals and entities have mischaracterized our city based on some specific incidents.”

“Major crimes, it continued, are down more than 17 percent in Aurora. And “the city is actively deploying every legal tool to ensure CBZ Management is accountable for its properties and meets its responsibilities.”

And here is the statement of Aurora, Colorado, Mayor Mike Coffman:

There were thousands of people who attended the rally today, some of whom might have visited Aurora for the first time, who were able to see firsthand the mischaracterizations of our great community. I am disappointed that the former president did not get to experience more of our city for himself.

I cannot overstate enough that nothing was said today that has not been said before and for which the city has not responded with facts. Again, the reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city — and our state — have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city's identity and sense of safety.

The city and state have not been 'taken over' or 'invaded' or 'occupied' by migrant gangs. The incidents that have occurred in Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, have been limited to a handful of specific apartment complexes, and our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns and will continue to do so.