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#Trump’s skills & talents go unrecognized when we see him as a conventional candidate—a person who seeks to explain policies that might improve lives, or who works to create the appearance of empathy. Yet this is our shortcoming more than his. Trump has always been a presence, not an absence: the presence of #fascism. What does this mean?

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.

@Nonilex Or it can be a conspiracy of doctors, scientists, and government to poison you with #vaccines, ignoring the fact that they've saved hundreds of millions of lives. And on and on.