OPINION: The fascist who would be president

A dictionary definition of fascism: “a populist political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

Sinclair Lewis, the celebrated novelist and playwright, titled his 1935 dystopian story of American fascism “It Can’t Happen Here,” but Lewis knew it could happen here. One suspects Lewis would not be surprised that it is happening in the form of a corrupt charlatan from the outer boroughs of New York.

Most American journalists and many commentators long resisted calling Trumpism what it is — fascism — but not any longer.

“Donald Trump has been on a fascist romp,” writes The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols. “At rallies in Colorado and California, he amped up his usual rants, and added a rancid grace note by suggesting that a woman heckler should “get the hell knocked out of her” by her mother after she gets back home. But … he outdid himself in an interview on Fox News, by saying that ‘the enemy within’ — Americans he described as ‘radical left lunatics,’ including Rep. Adam Schiff, of California, whom he mentioned by name — are more dangerous than Russia or China, and could be ‘very easily handled’ by the National Guard or the U.S. military.”

Too many Americans — way too many — have become numb to this completely unprecedented language from an American politician, particularly one trying to return to the White House.

Anne Applebaum, a scholar of Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin’s war against his own people, says: “In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes.”

Say it out loud: Donald Trump is a fascist, a modern-day Benito Mussolini, using the precise phrases of El Duce and Adolf Hitler. No politician in American history has described his political opponents as “enemies of the people” or an entire class “as vermin,” or threatened to turn the military on opponents. This is the language of fascism.

In addition to the dictionary definition, fascism depends, among other factors, upon:

Discrediting an independent press. Trump has done this repeatedly, most recently saying CBS should “lose a license” and be liquidated for broadcasting an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That attack on the press, only the latest from Trump, drew a sharp and rare rebuke from the chairperson of the Federal Communications Commission. “While repeated attacks against broadcast stations by the former president may now be familiar, these threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored,” the FCC’s Jessica Rosenworcel said.

Perpetuating an enormous lie. Trump has many big lies, including the whopper about a stolen election in 2020, and his latest lie attempts to rewrite the history of his insurrection. “His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021,” as the New York Times reported, “came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of ‘love.’ ”

In his novel “1984,” George Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

This Trump lie is beyond belief. His asking his supporters — indeed all of us — to ignore the riot at the Capitol that he instigated, hoping apparently that an enormous lie will help him avoid his own legal jeopardy as the only president ever to oppose a peaceful transfer of power.

A subservient political and business elite: No sitting Republican member of Congress dares take issue with Trump’s American fascism, and the wealthiest man in the world, South African-born Elon Musk, is spending millions to curry favor with Trump and elect him. He’s not alone. Those who intend to clean up with AI technology or crypto currency are all in. Even those who recognize the folly of Trump’s promise of immense tariffs on imported goods have convinced themselves it’s just a little fascist rhetoric.

“The Republican officials I talk to are hoping that this is just Trump’s bluster — that he’s not actually serious about imposing tariffs but is rather using tariff threats to bully other nations into becoming more friendly to the U.S.,” Brian Riedl, a former aide to GOP Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio, told the Times. “But they’re in denial about this.” Likewise, the business elite of Weimar Germany, who believed a buffoonish Hitler would be useful to them, but also under their control, were wrong, too.

Fascists depend on perverting the legal system, a tactic Trump has mastered by using the judicial branch’s own rules — and his appointed judges — to stymie any day of reckoning. His handpicked Supreme Court has, in the most frightening ruling since Dred Scott, given Trump broad immunity for past and future crimes.

The former chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, calls Trump “fascist to the core.” His former chief of staff, John Kelly, a Marine general says, “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

Make no mistake. The election on Nov. 5 is not about inflation, housing prices or a migrant crisis, all issues that are international in scope that require hard work and bipartisan cooperation to solve.

The election is about Trump and his fascism. Mark me as an “enemy of the people,” an enemy of the people who would subvert the Constitution, use the American military against political opponents and those who lie about what can be observed with their own eyes.

It’s not as though we haven’t been warned. Trump says he wants to be a dictator, wants to deport 12 million humans — think about the police state that would require — and free the Jan. 6 rioters.

Is this American fascism really the future we want for our country?

Johnson, of Manzanita, Ore., served as chief of staff to the late former Idaho Gov. Cecil D. Andrus. His new book on the U.S. Senate in the 1960s — “Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate” — has been published by the University of Oklahoma Press.