False Dichotomy in the Fascism Debate

Both street violence and elite co-operation are on the path to fascist power

Proud Boys protesting in Washington, DC (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty)

Is Donald Trump a fascist? The debate, which started in 2015 and shows no sign of slowing down, has gone on so long that it has ceased to be a dialogue and has devolved into competing monologues, with both sides reiterating their stated positions with no hope of concession or convergence. One can find very smart writers (like Yale philosopher Jason Stanley) listing many ways in which Trump resembles classical fascism. Conversely, there are equally intelligent people (such as CUNY political scientist Corey Robin) providing equally long lists of reasons where Trump diverges from fascism. Over time, this has come to seem a less and less valuable argument since both sides have dug into their trenches with only marginal movement. 

One of the virtues of John Ganz’s writing, now found on his Unpopular Front newsletter, is that he isn’t willing to let this debate ossify. He takes the position that the fascism analogy has value, but he’s also willing to acknowledge where it is insufficient. Ganz’s approach to the debate is properly dialectical rather than polemical.

Ganz’s latest foray into this argument is particularly impressive for laying out exactly where the fascism analogy is most useful: in describing a recurring situation in modern liberal democracies where political paralysis feeds into Caesarist fantasies of a strong leader who appeals to nationalist mythmaking and draws support from a cross-class alliance dominated by family-run business owners. This seems like a useful model for thinking about not just Trump but also many authoritarians whether politically victorious (as Hitler and Mussolini were, for a time) or thwarted (as with their wannabe imitators in France and elsewhere). 

On Twitter, New York Magazine's  Eric Levitz wrote an interesting thread surveying Ganz’s disagreements with Corey Robin:

This [Unpopular Front] is a very good blog. Imo, seems clear that "fascism" is a useful context for understanding elements of Trump's politics. As John notes tho, crux of the debate is whether Trump is more fascistic than his GOP predecessors by degree or by category, on which I'm agnostic. 

2) I also think @CoreyRobin et al's primary concern is with whether we should understand the *most salient* threat facing democratic life in the U.S. as one of extra-political authoritarianism or anti-majoritarian constitutionalism. And I think they're right that it's the latter. 

3) I think it's reasonable for partisans of the Robin position on that question to feel that the fascism framework has been grossly overemphasized in mainstream discourse, which arguably casts the Proud Boys as a more salient threat to popular government than the Supreme Court. 

4) So, I think it makes some sense for them to engage the question as a sort of binary one where fascism is either the name of our democracy's most formidable foe, or else an analytical frame that can only ever obscure more than it reveals in the contemporary U.S. context. 

5) But I think @lionel_trolling [Ganz] has persuasively demonstrated that reading Trumpism in the context of 20th century fascism (and/or 19th century proto-fascism) can be a fruitful endeavor.

This is fair enough, but I think point 3 only makes sense if you think that “extra-political authoritarianism” (say, the January 6 attack on the Capital Building) exists as an alternative to “anti-majoritarian constitutionalism” (the use of anti-majority constitutionally prescribed institutions like gerrymandering, the courts, and the Electoral College to keep Trump in power despite a loss of the popular vote in two elections). 

It’s true that these two ways of gaining power involve distinct tactics. But it’s also the case that they often work hand in hand. Traditionally, the fascist path to power has involved a combination of street violence (such as Brownshirts stirring up strife to make the old order ungovernable) with legal legerdemain (respectable and even eminent jurists such as Carl Schmitt recasting the law to legitimize authoritarian rule). Ganz quotes the great scholar of fascism Robert Paxton to good effect here: “Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left.” 

The two sides of this epoxy were both on display in Trump’s thwarted insurrection, as farcical as it was: the violence of the Proud Boys and the legal tap dancing from figures such as John Eastman, who presented out a legal strategy for overturning the 2020 election. 

Even if we recognize that these schemes were, in typical Trumpian fashion, too absurd to succeed, they still followed the basic rule book of right-wing authoritarianism. If they weren’t fascist tout court, they had a fascistic dimension.

I’m inclined to agree with Corey Robin and Eric Levitz that “anti-majoritarian constitutionalism” is, by itself, a much more important source of right-wing power in America democracy than “extra-political authoritarianism.” Anti-majoritarian constitutionalism also poses a much bigger problem for anyone trying to maintain or expand American democracy.  But the important proviso is neither anti-majoritarian constitutional nor extra-political authoritarianism exist in isolation. They’ve often come together in American history, as in the building of Jim Crow segregation. Trump’s aborted insurrection on January 6 attempted to fuse them together again. This attempt is likely to be repeated in future assaults on democracy. For that reason, the debate on fascism, and the wider question of authoritarianism, can’t be shunted aside. 

Previous posts on this newsletter have dealt with the different strands of authoritarianism in the Republican party, including discussions of John Eastman and Madison Cawthorn. 

(Edited by Emily M. Keeler)

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