Mein Trumpf: Donald and the 14-Point Definition of Fascism, or It Has Happened Here

Martin Bishop
4 min readDec 6, 2017

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If you look seriously at the most widely accepted 14-point definition of Fascism it is terrifying how precisely and completely Trump matches the definition on every single point.

A lot of people are in denial about this, but the USA has crossed the Rubicon. We are now a fascist nation according to a widely accepted 14-point definition of fascism (Dr. Lawrence Britt, 2003, “Fascism Anyone?”) that preceded Trump’s rise and was compiled from shared traits of 20th century fascists. The list and definitions presented are copied from a dailykos article (link at bottom). I have simply supplemented that list with links to news articles underscoring the presence of each factor in our current administration.

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
    * Make America Great Again, MAGA
    * http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-nationalism-racism-make-america-great-again-521083
    * http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/essay-donald-trump-and-the-new-american-nationalism-a-1092548.html
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. * https://www.amnestyusa.org/trump100days/
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
    * https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/27/trumps-dangerous-scapegoating-immigrants
    * http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/crime/331563-scapegoating-in-the-name-of-fighting-drugs-what-trump-and-duterte
  4. Supremacy of the Military Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
    * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d7_Z1f7NIE
  5. Rampant Sexism The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
    * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/
  6. Controlled Mass Media Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
    *https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/20/trumps-already-largely-won-his-war-against-the-media/?utm_term=.0131a0f73b61
  7. Obsession with National Security Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
    * THE WALL (Mexico)
    * https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/opinion/sunday/how-our-strategy-against-terrorism-gave-us-trump.html
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
    * http://www.businessinsider.com/separation-of-church-and-state-about-to-crumble-2017-7
  9. Corporate Power is Protected The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
    * https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/trumps-corporate-cabinet_b_14087282.html * https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/trump-taking-corporate-power-historic-extremes
  10. Labor Power is Suppressed Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
    * https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-unions-war-232382
    * http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/meet-the-anti-union-crusader-in-charge-of-rolling-back-regulations-at-trumps-labor-department/
    * Ivanka’s sweat shops
  11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
    * His vocabulary and sentence structure — — 3rd grade.
    * https://www.theodysseyonline.com/14-reasons-why-donald-trump-is-fascist?altdesign=socialux&utm_expid=.cZCE7oX8QCubI-ziFLsOXg.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
    * https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/articles/2017-07-13/donald-trump-and-the-triumph-of-anti-reason-in-america
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
    * https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/28/15457902/trump-criminal-justice-100-days
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
    * https://www.thenation.com/article/the-magnitude-of-trumps-cronyism-is-off-the-charts-even-for-washington/
    * https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/31/15959970/donald-trump-authoritarian-children-corruption
    * http://www.newsweek.com/2017/11/10/trump-administration-most-corrupt-history-698935.html
    * Ivanka, Jared, Donald Jr…
  14. Fraudulent Elections Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
    * Massive, Wholesale election fraud (not voter fraud) has been the norm in the USA since 2000 or before, especially after e-voting machines were instituted under the HAVA act.
    * Election fraud in 2016 was so massive in the Democratic primaries that exit polls had to be scuttled to avoid revealing the scope and depth of the fraud.

I’m not the only one who’s annotated this 14-point list for Trump:

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/14-reasons-why-donald-trump-is-fascist?altdesign=socialux&utm_expid=.cZCE7oX8QCubI-ziFLsOXg.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

The original list (unannotated) from DailyKos. Yes, it precedes Trump’s rise. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/20/1452457/-Time-to-pull-out-again-The-14-Points-of-Fascism

The original original list by Dr. Lawrence Britt: https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

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Martin Bishop
Martin Bishop

Written by Martin Bishop

Tirelessly advocating the apparently contrarian view that human extinction is worth avoiding.