America and the world are watching and wondering as the final countdown to the 2024 U.S. presidential race ticks inexorably toward election day on Nov. 5. The contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump is viewed by millions as a choice between optimism or authoritarianism.
On the campaign trail, Trump’s onstage antics and his ever-darker rhetoric have led to questions about his mental and physical ability to handle another four years in the White House. Whether he is baffling crowds by acting as deejay Donald J. and dancing awkwardly at a campaign appearance, or cursing in the presence of a Catholic cardinal at a charity dinner, or waxing enviously about the size of a famous golfer’s genitalia during one of his never-ending rallies, Trump on the stump is increasingly hostile and sophomoric as his campaign nears its denouement. His clownishness and puerile performances mask a more menacing side to the former president. Many Americans—including conservative members of Trump’s Republican Party—are decrying the fascist tendencies in Trump’s drive to recapture the White House and wreak revenge on those he calls “enemies within.”
In his new blockbuster book War, journalist Bob Woodward reports that Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s term, called the former president “a total fascist” and “fascist to the core.” In the book, Woodward says Trump was “the most reckless and impulsive president in American history” who is “far worse than Richard Nixon.” It was Woodward and his Washington Post sidekick, Carl Bernstein, who exposed Nixon’s criminality during the Watergate caper that led to his resignation from the presidency in 1974. Woodward’s new book is a warning of worse political chicanery to come if voters return Trump to the Oval Office just days from now.
Both Democrat Harris and her Republican supporter Liz Cheney have agreed that fascism is an accurate word to describe the dangers of a second coming of Donald Trump. Dictator Benito Mussolini, who foisted fascism on Italy prior to World War II, called fascism “the marriage of corporation and state.” In language that could have come from the Trump campaign’s own playbook, Mussolini declared, “We do not argue with those who disagree with us. We destroy them.”
Trump’s brand of American authoritarianism merges corporations with the state while also linking hands with the religious right-wing of American politics. “Christian nationalist” congregations are supporting Trump as a new messiah who will give the sword of political power to their conservative cult. The same thing happened in Adolf Hitler’s Germany during the 1930s, when many Christian churches across that country supported the rise of the Nazi reich.
Before her death in 2022, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned of the parallels between fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and a president like Trump. In her 2018 book titled Fascism: A Warning she wrote, “20th century fascism began with a magnetic leader exploiting widespread dissatisfaction by promising all things.” She called Trump “the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history” and said, “President Trump’s eyes light up when strongmen steamroll opposition, brush aside legal constraints, ignore criticism, and do whatever it takes to get their way.”
Americans seem about evenly divided in their support of Harris or Trump during this election, but among the world’s political strongmen and dictators, it’s not even close. From Russia to Asia to South America to Europe to the Middle East, authoritarian regimes are all aboard the Trump train. Here at home, Americans by the millions will flock to the polls to vote for Trump in spite of his bellicose bombast about suspending the Constitution, shutting down opposition media and pardoning his MAGA mobsters who stormed Capitol Hill during the infamous insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Many voters in “the land of the free” seem all too willing to trade precious freedoms for some chimerical vision of an ascendant America led by Donald Trump and his henchmen.
America’s first president, George Washington, said, “Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism.” Eighteenth century evangelist John Wesley said, “Act as if the whole election depended on your single vote.” Remember their advice on election day, Nov. 5.
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