The Logistics of Fascism

The Resistance has so far failed to explain how Trump could destroy “our democracy”

Don’t know much about history: the Resistance take on Trump

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In 2007, when Naomi Wolf was promoting her crack-brained theory that the genial George W. Bush was a literal Nazi, she summarized her argument in an article: “Fascist America, in 10 easy steps.” It went from Step 1, “Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy,” to Step 10, “Suspend the rule of law.” To be fair, Wolf’s summary was a reasonable description of the means employed by Hitler & Co. to impose Nazi rule on Germany. But her ten steps were phrased in vague, general terms, and this was convenient for her argument that George W. was plotting to transform America into the Fourth Reich. They had plenty of stretch.

I mention this long-ago exercise in the misappropriation of history because it’s enjoying a big revival in the Age of Trump. A narrative identifying the Prince of the Golden Escalator as a fascist who’s plotting to impose some kind of totalitarian regime on the United States is fervently embraced by Democrats and progressives—the Resistance, let us call them for the sake of convenience. These people point to all kinds of historical parallels, linking Hitler’s rise to power in Germany to Trump’s career on the national political stage.

There’s more than a touch of cognitive dissonance in this. On the one hand, the Resistance argues that Trump is an ignorant, incompetent dolt; on the other hand, they portray him as a Svengali with the power to cloud men’s minds and a nefarious plan to make himself President for Life. Now I happen to think that’s absurd. But assuming for the sake of argument that the Resistance is right about Trump, by what means could he seize total power and make himself a dictator? What are the logistics of fascism?

I keep asking this question of the Resistance and what I get back are evasions like this:

It’s pretty arrogant and unserious to dismiss the idea of Trump being a major threat to the republic when numerous members of his own Cabinet (including VP, multiple Defense secretaries, and Chief of Staff) have made a point of coming forward and describing him as such. Are they all “comrades” too? Pretending that regarding Trump as a threat is exclusively the province of leftists, and then rejecting it on that basis, is just a bad-faith cope at this point.

Trump is a bad man and I quite agree with those who consider him a threat to the orderly processes of constitutional government. But that’s not the point at issue. The Resistance says that Trump’s an actual, flesh-and-blood fascist who, if he’s elected, will destroy constitutional government and rule as a dictator. I’ve asked how that would work in practice—the nuts and bolts of a Trump/MAGA seizure of power. To date, no answer to this simple question has been offered.

We know how Hitler did it. It’s all there in the historical record—which should convince anybody not blinded by ideological rage that Trump couldn’t do the same.

To take a single example, one of the key moves in the Nazi consolidation of power was the nationalization of the German police. Under the Republic, police authority rested with the Länder—the German federal states—each one of which maintained a state police force. But there was this anomaly: Prussia was much the largest of the Länder, encompassing 62% of German territory and 61% of the country’s population, and its police force was correspondingly large. This worked to the advantage of Hitler during the Nazi consolidation of power.

In 1932, the conservative German chancellor, Franz von Papen, had deposed the left-wing Prussian government. Power was transferred to an appointed Reich Commissar and the Prussian State Police was placed under the command of an Army general. High police officials with connections to the parties of the Left were purged. After Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933, he appointed as Reich Commissar of the Interior for Prussia Hermann Göring, who acted quickly to Nazify the police. It was Göring who established within the force the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police), later to become notorious. Having gotten control of Germany’s largest police force, the Nazis used it ruthlessly against the political opposition in Prussia.

By 1936, the nationalization of police power was complete. In characteristic Nazi fashion, this was the outcome of a power struggle between Göring and Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, who elbowed Göring aside to become Chief of German Police.

Could such a thing happen in the United States? Could Trump the American Führer acquire a monopoly on police power? Obviously not.

In this country, police power is far more decentralized than it was in the Weimar Republic. Federal, state, regional and local authorities all exercise police authority and there’s no legal mechanism short of a constitutional amendment that could centralize it in any way. And a police state without total police power is an oxymoron.

It’s the same situation with every other locus of American political power. The president has no power to abolish or suppress the Constitution of the United States. He has no power to dissolve Congress. He has no power to cancel elections. He has no power to suspend or abolish civil rights and liberties. He has no power to depose state governments. All such measures, obviously necessary if a dictatorial regime is to be established, could only be carried out by extra-legal force. And no president has access to that kind of force.

But oh, the Resistance protests, Trump will sign an executive order! He’ll declare a state of emergency! Maybe so, but what would an executive order say? “Dear America, I have seized absolute power and am now President for Life”? That or anything like it would get him impeached the same afternoon. Nobody in the government, probably including his own minions, would go along. The armed forces of the United States, sworn as they are to support and defend the Constitution, would certainly decline to participate in a Trump/MAGA coup.

An examination of the way stations along Hitler’s path to power will show that they bear scant resemblance to anything going on in contemporary American politics. History does not repeat itself, though it does play variations on a theme. Yes, it’s possible that America could fall under the sway of an authoritarian government. But it wouldn’t be based on lumpen-populism in the style of MAGA. Much more plausible is an oligarchic people’s republic, nominally democratic, wielding power through the apparatus of the administrative state.

In the meantime, Donald Trump is bad enough that the Resistance could do without all this fascist threat to “our democracy” b.s. But equating the opposition with Hitler, Mussolini, etc. long ago became the ideological addiction for the Left. That’s why The End of America, Naomi Wolf’s ridiculous book portraying George W. Bush as a literal Nazi, received rave reviews from the comrades. Here’s how one of them slobbered over it:

You will be shocked and disturbed by this book. Most Americans reject outright any comparison of post 9/11 America with the fascism and totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Pinochet's Chile. Sadly, the parallels and similarities, what Wolf calls the “echoes” between those societies and America today, are all too compelling. (Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights)

Au contraire, Mr. Ratner, Wolf’s screed is a testament to historical illiteracy and shoddy reasoning. Nor has anything changed since Wolf published The End of America in 2007: If it’s not Woke, it’s fascist. That’s what passes for a compelling argument in the ranks of the Resistance. And they call Trump a doofus.