My podcast returns

Plus, the Fascism Debate. Not again!

I’m back! Although, I haven’t been gone very long. If you missed my Oct. 10 newsletter, The Washington Times dropped the budget ax on my podcast. I now have great news to share. History As It Happens is back and you won’t have to go looking for me.

New episodes will appear on the same platforms and streaming services as every episode I’ve published since 2021, whether Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This means you won’t have to search around and resubscribe. My weekly newsletter will continue to be published every Friday morning straight to your inbox via Substack, where you will also find my archive of past newsletters and book reviews. 

The podcast will sound the same, from the theme music and production values to the non-partisan, thoughtful conversations and analysis of the historical origins of current events. I have new sponsors who will run ads during future episodes. I’ll continue to exercise editorial control, a freedom any journalist worth his salt must enjoy. Ah, one minor change: new episodes will be published every Tuesday and Friday (instead of Tuesday and Thursday). Now, let’s start talking about history again…   

Election of 2016

My next new episode will be published on Friday, Nov. 1 – the final installment of my monthly series on important elections in U.S. history. Historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel will deal with the enduring importance of an election that hasn’t ended: Donald J. Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in Nov. 2016.

It hasn’t ended insofar as Trump continues to dominate American political life after having taken over and redefined a major political party. He has long exhausted many of his outraged opponents and even allies. He is the most consequential politician of the 21st century. Pending the results on Nov. 5, his ruinous influence – on policy, international relations, public discourse, the news media – may last longer than anyone once imagined possible.

It remains difficult to fully grasp Trump’s appeal in light of what we thought we knew about politics and political discourse – assumptions that have long since been turned upside down. When the New York real estate developer-turned-reality TV star announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, after gliding down the escalator inside Trump Tower, many laughed at what looked like a publicity stunt – an act of brand enhancement. When Trump claimed that Mexico “sends” rapists and murderers across the border, we assumed such talk would prove disqualifying.

A decade later, nothing Trump says – or is reported to have said, such as praising Adolph Hitler – is enough to disqualify him, although he appears likely to lose the popular vote for a third time. It is also fair to wonder whether any sane, decent Republican candidate would have a commanding lead over the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump’s derangement and depravity may cap his popularity (personal approval rating) in the high 40s. In other words, Republicans might be running away with this thing were it not for him. But we can’t say were it not for Trump because he is the modern Republican Party. 

The return of “fascism”

It looks like the final days of the campaign will be full of fascism – or the Fascism Debate. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says Donald Trump is a fascist. At her CNN town hall event, Vice President Harris agreed. These political charges reignited a debate that usually rages online among historians, political pundits, journalists – and just about everyone with an X (formerly Twitter) account.

I have nothing new to add here. You may refer to my review of Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America (an anthology edited by historian Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins) for my arguments about why Trump is not a fascist. If I were to make any changes to what I wrote then, I would now refer to the mob violence of Jan. 6, 2021, as an insurrection or an act of insurrectionary violence, although not an attempted coup d’etat. But let’s not get bogged down in semantics as this debate usually does.

So, in place of any original analysis on my part, I will recommend some fresh reading and listening material, starting with this New York Times Magazine article by Elisabeth Zerofsky who landed an interview with 92-year-old fascism scholar Robert O. Paxton, a giant in his field.

Paxton once objected to calling Trump a fascist on historical grounds. He changed his mind after Jan. 6, although he continues to object to using the label on political grounds. This is because leveling the fascism charge distracts and confuses people rather than clarifying the danger to American democracy posed by Trumpism.

2) Historian Roger Griffin, whose scholarship on this subject is indispensable, appeared on Times Radio with Hugo Rifkind (the short interview starts about 15 1/2 minutes into the program). When asked whether Trump is a fascist, Griffin responded:

“First, we have to look at this word. It’s a classic example of a term that’s undergone what we call semantic inflation. It’s grown and grown in its application to the point where it’s become pretty well meaningless. Except, as an expletive, it’s very useful to use as a ‘boo word’ to denigrate anybody that you perceive to have authoritarian tendencies. You can use it about traffic wardens and parents… at that point, it is really gutted of any forensic meaning.” Griffin noted that in the Barbie movie, someone calls Barbie a fascist.  

3) Historian Omer Bartov was interviewed by The Forward. Here is part of Bartov’s response to the question of whether Trump and his movement are fascist:

“It’s obviously filled with resentment and rage, which is also part of fascism, and it’s an attempt to really change the entire American political system. But at the most you could say that it’s proto-fascist. There is no real paramilitary organization. I think Trump would like to have those. There is no real ideology behind it, apart from a few slogans. So I think he is trying to create something, but hasn’t created it. It’s by and large an authoritarian, populist, and generally white supremacist movement, although he does have support also from non-white elements in the society.”

I recommend reading the entire interview. The interviewer and Bartov bring up the work of two of the greatest living authorities on Hitler and the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans.

I spoke to Bartov in January when Democrats began comparing Trump’s remarks about immigrants to Hitler’s hateful rhetoric. I talked to Evans in August about his excellent new book Hitler’s People. In both interviews, I asked Bartov and Evans to weigh in on the Fascism Debate. 

4) Historian Daniel Bessner, who appeared on my podcast in May, shared on Twitter his March 2023 review of Bruce Kuklick’s Fascism Comes to America. Bessner noted:

“In the words of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who originated the phrase, a floating signifier is a term ‘void of meaning and thus apt to receive any meaning.’ At one point or another, every political perspective in the United States has been identified as fascist. In the last two decades alone, Jonah Goldberg railed against ‘liberal fascism’ as Chris Hedges dubbed the ‘Christian Right’ ‘American fascists.’ Dinesh D’Souza claimed that Hillary Clinton was fascist; Paul Krugman said the same about Trump. And even fringe ideologies weren’t safe: Sebastian Gorka linked socialism with fascism, while Nouriel Roubini made similar claims about libertarianism.”

An unwinnable debate?

What’s striking, though not surprising, is that so many of the Fascism Debate’s participants (online and on TV) do not know what they’re talking about. To be sure, the arguments of genuine experts and historians have sharpened my thinking about fascism. I know more today than I did a decade ago. Over the past four years, thanks to History As It Happens, I’ve had the honor of speaking to Griffin, Evans, Bartov, Kershaw, and Christopher Browning, among others, whose essential books about interwar Europe and the Third Reich line the shelves of my study. Bessner, who hosts the popular American Prestige podcast, contributed an essay to the aforementioned anthology.

Yet, in my view, ordinary voters are not interested in arcane debates about taxonomic terms. Nor do most people today believe America resembles 1930s Europe, a topic I discussed with Kershaw a couple years ago. Fascism was, after all, an interwar phenomenon.

Politically speaking, Harris’ decision to call Trump a fascist may be a sign of desperation – although I am puzzled as to why anyone believes Trump might be defeated by using a different word (at least for Harris) to characterize his awfulness rather than, say, emphasizing an inspiring vision for working-class Americans – an alternative to Trump’s faux populism. It is not necessary to attach an -ism to Trump’s ugly plan for rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants (laborers) and holding them in sprawling camps.

While someone will win the upcoming election, it seems no one is capable of “winning” – and thereby ending – the Fascism Debate. However, as the preceding paragraphs show, we can use it as an opportunity to learn something about history and political ideologies.