Why Trump is more dangerous than just being a tyrant

Afterword

There can’t be many people in the world, with access to at least a radio, who haven’t heard of Donald Trump.  For many of them, Trump is a tyrant. Some people even call him a fascist or neo-fascist but without necessarily appreciating the accuracy of their description. For it is factually accurate — and all the more alarming for being so.  

I’d call him a latter-day fascist with specifically US features.

But what is fascism? Fascism, as used

German fascism was considerably more than just Hitler. The same applies to Trump. Were it not for the very real threat posed

Trump,

Drawing on the early years of Germany under fascist rule, as the genotype, a recent article provides some of the reasons it is apposite to describe Trump as a fascist. The article is written

All regimes in the fascist genus have as their principal object the destruction of liberal democracy. This is effected

Such regimes, once they have gained control of the executive branch of the state, whether

What would normally be considered extralegal coercion is justified in terms of various “states of exception” such as the declaration of a “national emergency” or martial law, along with the introduction of a leadership principle enhancing executive

This process, however, requires the support or acquiescence of the larger society. Hence, consolidation of such regimes is not the work of a day. Full dominance can only be achieved through a lengthy process that in Nazi Germany was known as Gleichschaltung, meaning synchronisation or falling into line, whereby the entire state apparatus and the larger cultural apparatus are brought step

In the destruction of the liberal democratic state, a fascist or neofascist movement needs to gain control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches; the administrative state or civil service bureaucracy; the military and national security apparatus; police; prisons; the political party apparatus; the public education system; and, below the national or federal level, regional and local governments. However, Gleichschaltung does not stop with the conquest of the state apparatus but necessarily extends to the entire cultural apparatus of society, including the media, the educational system as a whole (both public and private), the wider legal sphere (lawyers and law schools), trade unions, the sciences, and the arts — eliminating all areas of critical thought and potential opposition.

In Nazi Germany, Gleichschaltung began with the introduction of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in April 1933, shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. This law allowed for the firing of all “non-Aryans” or Jews and all political opponents (principally communists and socialists more generally) from the civil service, including judges, professors, art museum directors, teachers, musicians, and conductors — and immediately extended to the practice of the professions in general, for example, lawyers and notaries. The aim was to gain complete control over civil society — all the way to the creative arts. In the words of Hitler in Mein Kampf, “The purification of our civilisation must include almost every field. Theatre, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and displays must be cleansed of exhibitions of a world in a process of putrefication, and be put in the service of a moral idea, a principle of State and civilization”.

Gleichschaltung in Germany was carried out mainly in the first two years of the Nazi regime. An example in the universities can be seen in the appointment of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the official Nazi choice, as rector of the University of Freiburg in April 1933 — at the same time as the passage of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Heidegger introduced the Nazi salute at Freiburg, and denounced intellectuals he disliked to the Gestapo as friends of Jews, leading to their removal. In his inaugural address as rector, he presented the Führerprinzip (Führer Principle), according to which, in Heidegger’s words, “The Führer himself and he alone is the German reality, present and future, and its law. {The leading fascist jurist, Carl Schmitt, was prominent in the promotion and implementation of the Führer Principle — placing the leader above the written law, and, as he explained, the object of Gleichschaltung was achieved through the extermination of heterogeneity.}

The dramatic effects of Gleichschaltung in the cultural realm under Nazi rule could be seen in the attacks on “degenerate art”, that is, modern art, particularly Dadaism and expressionism, and all art attributed to Jews and “Cultural Bolsheviks”. In 1936, Count Klaus von Baudissin, a dedicated Nazi who, in 1934, had been appointed director of the Museum Folkwang in Essen, sold Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky’s famous painting Improvisation 28, declaring that it represented an attempt to “Russianise German art”. This quickly led to a general purge of art associated with “Cultural Bolshevism”. Much of the banned art, including hundreds of paintings, was confiscated at the orders of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to mount the infamous Degenerate Art exhibition in 1937. After visiting the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich, visitors cleansed themselves

Today, Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) regime is introducing a similar process of Gleichschaltung aimed at both the state apparatus and the cultural apparatus. Immediately upon taking office in his second term following the 2024 elections, the Trump administration commenced the destruction of the federal civil service (or “administrative state”), reducing federal civilian government employment across the board, but specifically targeting those associated in any way with diversity, equity and inclusion, or “Cultural Marxism”. Arguing that whatever the president does is legal, the administration has fired off a long series of executive orders signed

When threatened with loss of federal funding and other coercive measures, numerous liberal institutions have capitulated (including several elite law firms; certain targeted universities, such as Columbia University; and key media, as in the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, which has declared that its opinion pages will now only carry views in line with MAGA ideology). 

Yet, others have tried to organise and resist. Judges in some cases have objected to the trampling of the law underfoot. A movement among lawyers is calling for the legal profession to refuse to negotiate with Trump. Harvard University has said no to Trump administration attacks on freedom of academic speech along with its demands with respect to the surveillance and deportation of visa students. (As a result, Harvard has been threatened with the loss of $9 billion in federal funds and the removal of its nonprofit status

The struggle is especially fierce in the arts. Almost 20 years ago, when British artist Chris Ofili’s remarkable painting, The Holy Virgin Mary, generated a public controversy, Trump, who was then considering a run for president, declared that “As president, I would ensure that the National Endowment of the Arts stops funding of this sort … It’s not art. It’s absolutely gross, degenerate stuff.” 

In the name of combating degenerate or “woke” art associated with “Cultural Marxism”, and eliminating “waste”, the budgets and

In his executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History, Trump targeted the Smithsonian American Art Museum, highlighting its exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, declaring that it presented the false view that “race is not a biological reality” but rather a “human invention”, and criticising it for its misdirected attacks on “institutional racism” and “scientific racism”. On this unreasoning basis, the executive order placed overall approval of Smithsonian exhibitions under the charge of Vice-president JD Vance.

It is clear that the Gleichschaltung now being imposed on the United States is aimed at bringing all political and cultural institutions into line with MAGA ideology. There can only be noncooperation with such efforts. Moreover, noncooperation under these circumstances cannot be passive. Active unified resistance

Reprinted

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Foster’s article was probably written in late May 2025.  On an event happened that perfectly exemplifies the US version of the Führer Principle of fascist Germany, the belief that the Führer “alone is the German reality, present and future, and its law”.  Essential to this principle is that the Führer has to be a megalomaniac and that he has supporters who believe that an all-powerful leader is what they need.

Trump is the US personification of the Führer. He proudly proclaims his megalomania for worldwide publicity.  One shouldn’t be surprised if Airforce One — the name for US presidents’ jet — is renamed President Trump Airforce One.  This would be fully in keeping with the literally 100 plus hotels, residential properties, golf courses and other properties that bear his name. Indeed, Wikipedia, has a specific subject heading “List of things named after Donald Trump”

Those people needing to be led — the flipside of the symbiotic relationship contained in the Führer Principle — brings us back to 22 July.  This is when the Republican majority in the Appropriations Committee of the US Congress voted to rename the Kennedy Center Opera House the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House.  The committee agreed that the continuation of funding of the 2,364-seat opera house was contingent on the name change (which still needs approval

Giving substance to Trump’s fascist designation is one thing. The more important part is to learn the lessons of the 1930s, namely, that appeasing the Führer not only didn’t work but encouraged Hitler to be even more outrageous in his actions. The response to Trump’s unilateral imposition of global tariffs on friends and foes alike has been one of appeasement.  Trump’s need for affirmation of his power is appeased

China stands alone as the only exception.  

What is required is a collective response, ideally with the backing of a United Nations General Assembly resolution. Hitler created an almost unthinkable alliance between virulently anti-communist countries and the Soviet Union during World War II. Trump invites some sort of similar alliance between the global countries hit

Jeff Rudin is at the Alternative Information and Development Centre in Cape Town.