How could it have come to this? Ex-President Donald Trump has now won the presidential election of 2024 against Vice-President Kamala Harris with 51% against 48% of the popular vote and 322 as against 223 votes in the Electoral College . His Republicans -and they are his – have also taken control the Senate 52 to 48 and the House of Representatives. As for the Supreme Court, it is already dominated by conservatives, including three Trump appointees. The deck is stacked against the exercise of checks and balances. Institutional separation of powers is hanging by a thread; perhaps so is American democracy.
We were prepared for Harris to lose by a paper-thin margin. Popular wisdom had it that Harris would win the popular vote and lose the electoral college. Some of us awaited an “October surprise” in the form of a fabricated crisis, perhaps an “American Reichstag fire,” which would propel Trump into power. Especially since former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 5 million votes, and President Joe Biden won by 7 million, few of us expected that the ex-president would whip Harris by 4 million votes. In the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s late withdrawal from the presidential race, which followed his dreadful debate performance against Trump, Vice-President Harris was anointed the next presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. There was no primary and no intra-party debate. Harris began the race riding a wave of enthusiasm. She garnered millions in donations during the first week, seamlessly appropriated Biden’s field operation, and crisscrossed our divided country offering a message of hope and reconciliation.
But that was virtually all she offered -other than on housing. First-generation home-buyers would receive $25,000 for a down-payment on mortgages and the Vice President promised to build 3 million more rental units and affordable homes. The other planks in her program reiterated the tried and true promises any Democrat might make: restore abortion rights, ban assault rifles, enact a minimum tax for billionaires, expand the child tax credit, and cap insulin prices at $35 for those with diabetes. She also supported legislation to stem immigration in a bill taken over from Biden that had initially received support from conservatives in the House of Representatives; it was ready for passage, until Trump expressed his displeasure, and the bill was voted down. Trump wished to keep the issue alive, and prevent Democrats from claiming credit for solving the immigration problem– he was obviously successful.
Vice President Kamala Harris is a bright, articulate, sophisticated, and center-left, woman of color with a fine quality of mind; she formerly served as a no-nonsense prosecutor and then as an undistinguished senator from California. It’s unclear whether any of her serious rivals in the Democratic Party could have done much better and it’s also unclear whether Biden could have done much worse. Harris showed empathy for those burdened by inflation and rising food prices, called for continued military aid for Ukraine and Israel, expressed support for international climate change treaties and NATO, and -above all else- highlighted the threat to democracy that Trump posed.
None of this spoke to the cultural, political, and economic crisis that has entangled the United States. Its institutions will likely ward off the threat of fascist transformation. But that is small comfort today, when the threat is grave. My generation grew up with images of Nazis implanted in our brains. The Eichmann trial was fresh in our memory and, in the 1960s, no demonstration was complete without some sign condemning “AmeriKa,” We used the term fascist indiscriminately to describe any conservative we didn’t like: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George W. Bush, and the rest. But I don’t think any of us really believed what we were saying.
With Trump, it’s different. He really is an aspiring fascist, and he really might lead us back into what Bertolt Brecht called “the dark time.” How dark it gets depends on how much the new president-elect can get away with – and, as matters currently stand, he will get away with a lot. Bigotry, xenophobia, incoherence, megalomania, and despair over America’s future dominated the Republican agenda in Election 2024- up and down the ballot. Trump wagered that defending democracy was less important than the economic difficulties, abortion less important than immigration, science less important than faith, and pluralism less important than thoughts of an eroding culture-and 71 million Americans seemed to agree.
Is Trump a fascist? He promised his followers that he would play the dictator– at least for “one day.” He has threatened retribution against his enemies, assured everyone that his unending legal troubles would come to an end, and even begged his followers to vote in this election–since it would be the last. As Election 2024 wore on, the ex-president’s attacks on Harris and his critics became increasingly vitriolic. He and his people thundered that the Vice-President was “evil,” “vicious,” “stupid,” “retarded,” “insane,” a prostitute, and the “Anti-Christ.” The usual campaign rhetoric made way for electoral terrorism, which reached its apex at the notorious rally of October 27, 2024 in Madison Square Garden (MSG). Mimicking the event orchestrated by American Nazis in 1939, Trump’s rally unleashed the ferocious hatred of his most fanatical followers, not just for Puerto Ricans and their “garbage island,” but for just about all minorities. The bigoted invective was non-discriminatory. As for the Democratic Party, the liberal press, intellectuals and urban elites, they were labeled “the enemy within.”
Of course, this was an inversion of reality. Just as Trump called the insurrection of January 6th a “day of love,” he termed the MSG rally a “love feast.” What to believe? The choice by Trump’s zealots was unambiguous. Similar credulity was evident among those who believe that his legal troubles were the result of a conspiracy organized by “the deep state.” Evidence of his role in the insurrection has been shown multiple times on media. Countless photos also exist of the boxes full of classified documents that Trump unlawfully took from the White House and left in a bathroom of Mar-a-Lago, his estate.
Everyone should watch the excellent documentary, “64 Days” directed by Nick Quested, which explores right-wing extremist groups, such as the “Proud Boys” and “Oath Keepers, from the inside. These fanatics fueled the insurrection, and they markedly resemble the paramilitary, quasi-revolutionary, bullying, crass, violence-prone, and lumpen-proletarian Brown Shirts (SA) of the 1920s. Interestingly, the rebels interviewed in “64 Days” seem almost indifferent to politics. Other than curse immigrants, in fact, they say nothing about issues– perhaps because they have nothing to say.
They think with their gut not their brain. To them, voting for a Democrat is tantamount to treason and the system is irretrievably “broken.” Inspired by their extremism, petitions to secede from the union now exist in 12 states; 23% of the American public support this idea, and some paramilitary fanatics even talk about launching a second civil war. Such intransigence helps explain why Trump’s polling numbers never wavered despite his two impeachments, many bankruptcies, endless sex scandals, conviction on 34 criminal counts, and a horrible debate performance of his own.
Surely, only a few of Trump’s followers have even browsed the 1,000-page report, “Project 2025,” which is the Republican “plan” for the “transition.” It is the product of collaboration by 400 conservative scholars with 140 of them being members of the president’s former administration. Endorsed by over 100 conservative organizations, and with the arch-reactionary Heritage Foundation in the lead, “Project 2025” aims at “institutionalizing Trumpism.” The ex-president has deftly distanced himself from the report, but he has certainly not disavowed its recommendations -after all, his people drew them up.
“America First!” informs the undertaking. The name references America’s fascist movement of the 1930s and, while used by one of Trump’s policy institutes, it conjures up the image of isolationism in favor of right-wing causes. This fits with Trump’s stated intention of disowning international agencies and treaties that don’t suit the national interest – as defined by him. Placing “America First” abroad logically extends to privileging (real!) Americans-white Christian Americans!– at home.
“Project 2025” calls for mass deportation of “illegal” immigrants and completion of the wall on America’s Southern border with Mexico. But capitalists are more concerned with drastic cuts in welfare spending, de-regulation of markets, tax cuts favoring them, and privatization of public lands. The contradiction is palpable: Populists have ideological concerns, tend to fear big business, and support the welfare state, whereas big business is dismissive of hyper-nationalism and skeptical about investing in the public good. Empowering the executive branch of government can lead to resolution of such conflicts of interest; indeed, this top-down approach is at the heart of “corporatism,” which Mussolini initially identified with fascism.
The question is: how to empower the president? “Project 2025” gives answers. It calls for legislation to “weaponize” agencies such as the FBI, NSA, and the Department of Justice; curtail the political independence of the military; control the judiciary; constrict voting and civil rights; replace thousands of non-partisan federal civil servants with Trump loyalists; put the Federal Reserve under the president’s direct control, abolish “liberal” agencies such as the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency– and that’s just the beginning.
Election 2024 was presented by the media as a dramatic choice between an authoritarian-extremist and a liberal-establishmentarian agenda. But the drama was clearly lacking for the 1.9 million who had voted for Biden in 2020, but did not vote for Harris. Probably the combined product of centrists thinking she was too “left” on cultural issues and campus protests, leftists thinking she was too supportive of Israel and the police, and plain apathy, this decrease cost Harris dearly in the 7 swing states, all of which were carried by Trump.
Trying to straddle identity and class politics, conflicting demands between conflicting special interests, the Democrats had nothing to counter “Project 2025. Nor was the choice ever really between two candidates. It was actually always a referendum on one candidate, and one candidate alone, Donald Trump. Everywhere, on every media outlet, it had been all Trump all the time. Media played a significant role in securing Trump’s victory. After donating $100 million to Trump’s campaign, Elon Musk turned “X” into the former-president’s megaphone. Rupert Murdoch’s FOX News, whose audience dwarfs that of its cable network rivals, relentlessly distorted information and engaged in an ongoing smear campaign of Harris. Coupled with the self-interested quest for ratings by MSNBC and other liberal outlets, not to mention right-wing extremist blogs and podcasts on the Internet, Trump was provided with (literally) billions of dollars in free publicity.
Democrats watched with horror as core elements of their base defected. Unconcerned with solidarity, focused on some single issue of particular interest, 45% of Latino voters, 20% of Black voters, 39% of Asian voters, and 53% of white women sold out the first Black woman candidate for president and voted for Trump. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not the “independent” voters who cost Harris the presidency, but significant parts of groups usually associated with the Left. Decrease in voter turnout for the Democratic Party combined with defections from its mass base constituency, and rock-solid support from roughly 40% of the electorate– and this alliance made the difference.
There is no upside to this defeat. Stirring calls to “keep up the fight,” and attempts to offer a message of hope, sound hollow and desperate. Sober reflection is required instead on how to make sense of what took place, clarify our mistakes, and provide a different approach based on different assumptions. To start, we underestimated the genuine charisma of this thoroughly corrupt, ignorant, bullying, self-interested hypocrite. The jokes, the satire, and the cynical contempt for Trump blinded us to the obvious: charisma is real, but it lies in the eyes of the beholder, and it is as amoral as power.
Trump made use of a persuasive redemption narrative to reinforce it: an outsider becomes a great president against all odds in 2016, provides the citizenry with peace and prosperity, but the “deep state” denies him a second term through a “stolen” election, he is then left at the mercy of its legal apparatus, only to rise once again in 2024 – like a phoenix from the ashes– to save the country from destruction. Without him, the savior, there was no hope, and Trump’s propagandists were relentless in their predictions of doom and gloom.
Harris’ campaign was incapable of countering them. An ideal of class solidarity would have been required, and programs targeting the collective interest of workers, rather than discreet appeals to this or that special interest. The Democratic Party did not provide them – perhaps because the elites and the professional-managerial strata, which are so important to the organization, did not want them. Otherwise, it would all seem elementary: If economic issues are of primary concern to workers, and workers constitute the majority in major identity formations, then the party should provide a unifying class agenda informed by an inter-racial class ideal.
Translating that ideal into practice would initially call for specifying the shared interests of working-class elements in every identity formation without privileging any, and then formulating a program. But that is impossible while still mistakenly identifying the working class with a fading white industrial proletariat. This narrow perspective turns class into just another identity-defined interest and leaves white industrial workers battling other sectors of their own class, and existing identity formations, for what is already a shrinking pool of resources.
As matters stand right now, identity formations have devolved into special interests often wracked by factional splits. Each of these special interests has its own lobby, working for its own clients, and ready to sell out coalition partners in a heartbeat. However, realistically, it is impossible to ignore them. Translating the class ideal into policy can only occur by working inside identity groups -all the while maintaining links with the Democratic Party. The are no guarantees that activists will draw the right implications: it is easy to point fingers at those who favored the “wrong” strategy after the event. Enough acted in good faith in their attempts to ward off the fascist threat. Aside from those who actually voted for Trump, if there is blame for this electoral catastrophe, then it falls on those who abstained from voting, because they didn’t care, or self-righteously rendered their vote meaningless by casting it for marginal third-party candidates. In the Vice-President’s concession speech, she implored people to participate in politics by working with some progressive organization or other – and she was right. . There are good reasons to be afraid of what will occur the day after Trump takes office. However, resignation will only turn them into self-fulfilling prophecies. There is much necessary work to do and, I think, everyone in their heart knows it.
*Stephen Eric Bronner is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Director of the International Council for Diplomacy and Dialogue.
“Is Trump Really a Fascist? Election 2024 and Beyond” in OpEdNews (November 15, 2024); Trans. for Una Citta #305 (November, 2024); Lettre International #147 (Winter 2024); in The Edition (India)