How incompetence delivered the US from fascism

There is no doubt that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are right wing populists [1]. Only a year and a half ago it seemed reasonable to go one step further and describe them as fascist. In this post I suggested two criteria that differentiated right wing populists from fascists: the use of violence for political ends and a rejection of democracy. With his enabling and failure to stop the insurrection of 6th January 2020 Trump crossed the line of both. After regaining office in 2024 he showed no inhibition in using violence to both secure territory or resources overseas or (via ICE) to intimidate parts of the country that didn’t vote for him. If you prefer a more detailed analysis this post by John Ganz is well worth reading. He looks back at an earlier post written two years ago where he outlined twelve developments that would confirm Trump and MAGA as fascist in character. While most have happened, what didn’t was the development of January 6th into a generalised use of…

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