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When the Soviets called their enemies “#fascists,” they turned the word into a meaningless insult. Putinist #Russia has preserved the habit: a “fascist” is anyone who opposes the wishes of a Russian #dictator. So Ukrainians defending their country from Russian invaders are “fascists.” This is a trick that #Trump has copied. He, like Vladimir #Putin, refers to his enemies as “fascists,” w/no #ideological significance at all. It is simply a term of opprobrium.

#Putin & #Trump are both, in fact, #fascists. And their use of the word, though meant to confuse, reminds us of one of fascism’s essential characteristics. A fascist is unconcerned w/the connection between #words & #meanings. He does not serve the #language; the language serves him. When a fascist calls a liberal a “fascist,” the term begins to work in a different way, as the servant of a particular person, rather than as a bearer of meaning.

That’s quite a #fascist achievement. Faced w/complexity of #history, #liberals struggle w/the overwhelming volume of questions to be asked, answers to be offered. Like communism, fascism is an answer to all questions, but a different kind of answer. #Communism assures us that we can, thanks to science, find an underlying direction in all events, toward a better future. This is (/was) seductive. #Fascism reduces the imbroglio of sensation to what the Leader says.

A #liberal has to tell a hundred stories, or a thousand. A #communist has one story, which might not turn out to be true. A #fascist just has to be a #storyteller. Because words do not attach to meanings, the stories don’t need to be consistent. They don’t need to accord w/external #reality. A fascist storyteller just has to find a pulse & hold it. This can proceed through rehearsal, as w/ #Hitler, or by way of trial & error, as w/ #Trump.

That requires presence, which #Trump has always had. His #charisma need not resonate w/you: probably, #Hitler’s & #Mussolini’s would not have reached you, either. But it is nevertheless a talent. To be a #fascist & to call someone else a fascist requires a cunning that is natural to Trump. And in that naming of the #enemy, absurd as it is, we see the second major element of #fascism.

A Leader…initiates #politics by choosing an #enemy. As the #Nazi legal thinker Carl Schmitt maintained, the choice is arbitrary. It has little or no basis in #reality. It takes its force from the decisive will of the Leader. People who watched #Trump’s TV ads…had not been harmed by a #transgender person, or by an #immigrant, or by a #woman of #color. The magic lies in the daring it takes to declare a weaker group to be part of an overwhelming #conspiracy.

The 1 thing that is not arbitrary about the choice of an #enemy is that it must #exploit #vulnerabilities. The #Trump ads projected a fantasy of #KamalaHarris allowing millions of sex-changed foreigners to take jobs from Americans. This touches, all at once, on #gender, #economic, & #sexual vulnerability. We are unprotected & impoverished & will be replaced by something alien. And this is all orchestrated by a shadowy enemy in the background—in this case, a woman of color who knows how to laugh.

#GreatReplacementTheory is an example of an unoriginal #fascist lie: conspirators will make you impotent & bring others to take your place in the world. The…complexity of the world resolves itself as a #conspiracy, just as the attendant #anxiety is resolved by #hatred. This works w/almost any combination of enemies. It can be a conspiracy of #DeepState politicians to kidnap babies, or a conspiracy of Jews to corrupt women. #Fascism wins when the enmity summoned begins to tell the story itself.