When Kamala Harris’s late entry into the presidential race began, the campaign theme was “the politics of joy.” This was a damage-control strategy by her handlers to neutralize her nervous habit of over-smiling and loudly cackling at things that weren’t funny or when she was at a loss for an answer to a pointed question. In the latter stages of the campaign when her act got old, her shortcomings became glaring, and her polls started tanking, desperation set in. The campaign dropped its lame defense of the Biden/Harris administration’s indefensible policy failures and Harris’s incomprehensible word salads and pivoted to a vicious personal attack on Donald Trump.
They branded him as a convicted felon (true, but in a farcical kangaroo-court verdict that would surely be reversed on appeal), equated him to Adolph Hitler, and labeled him with that dreaded invective ”fascist.” This is an over-used trite insult devoid of its actual meaning, thrown around indiscriminately by hysterical politicized dimwits in the manner of a four-year-old calling a playmate a “doo-doo head.” You’d think Biden and Harris, who dabbled in geopolitics and foreign affairs, would know what a fascist actually is. For their edification and that of ignorant college students who also abuse the term, here’s its definition and pedigree.
Fascism rooted in collectivism
“Fascism” is rooted in the Italian word “fascio” for “bundle” or “group.” It’s inherently collectivist. Fascism, Nazism and communism are all variations of the politics of the Left. The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Modern Economics defines fascism as a totalitarian, “collective” system that entirely eliminates individualism and imposes central control on all economic, political and social activities. Although the appearance of private ownership of production is maintained, extreme restrictions are placed on economic freedom and decisions on production, investment, prices and wages are all subject to arbitrary government control.
That doesn’t sound much like Trump, who’s a capitalist, billionaire businessman. Based on their records, it far better describes radical Democrat progressives like Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and college Marxists. It’s today’s leftist Democrats that want an “administrative state” governed by elitists in Washington to run the country. This was the dream of Democrat President Woodrow Wilson back in the early 20th century. Even benevolent socialism sets no limit to government and ultimately metastasizes to some form of totalitarianism. North Korea, Communist China, Cuba, and the former USSR (Union of Soviet “Socialist” Republics) are all based on a socialist vision.
Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin were cut from the same cloth. In constructing his Third Reich, Hitler borrowed from Mussolini’s fascist model, described above, in Italy after World War I. Hitler believed in nationalist socialism (abbreviated as “Nazi”) as contrasted to Marx and Lenin who were ideological international socialists. Hitler didn’t give a damn about social justice or the welfare of the world, he just wanted to dominate it.
Trump as antifascist
Mussolini’s fascist Black Shirt thugs disrupted public gatherings, plundered, and beat up political opponents in the streets, as did Hitler’s fascist Brown Shirts. In the U.S., those violent tactics are the work of Antifa thugs on the anarchist left, rioters and looters. Disruptive and destructive tactics are used by America-hating and antisemitic Marxist college students who “occupy” college campuses burning American flags and cheering for Hamas over the Israelis. Republicans and conservatives don’t behave like that.
Trump rallies are festive events, not disruptive political protests. The disgraceful January 6 Capitol break-in by a small fraction of crazies among the tens of thousands that attended that “mostly peaceful” rally was the work of an unruly mob of isolated outliers. Be serious, this regrettable episode came nowhere close to a so-called “insurrection” that neither intended nor was capable of overthrowing our government.
Sure, Trump is bombastic, boastful, mercurial, impulsive, and more. But he’s also a patriot who loves America, and most of the policies he professes are just what the country needs right now. He’s an NYC tough guy, which is why he might actually make a dent in the administrative state.
But he’s no threat to “democracy.” That’s hyperbole. The Constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances, and SCOTUS would prevent that. The mission of Trump, Republicans in Congress, and Elon and Vivek at DOGE is to limit government, as our founders intended, not make it all-powerful. What the Left really fears is that Trump is a threat to their fascist ideology.
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for CompleteColorado.com.
