Federico Finchelstein: Trump is a Fascist

Ken Harbaugh:

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Federico Finchelstein:

Historically, in famous cases such as Germany or Italy, what fascists did is they gain power through legal means, and then once in power, they destroy democracy from within. Fascists use all our freedoms in order to gain power and eventually destroy those freedoms.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

My guest today is Professor Federico Finchelstein, an expert on fascism and populism. His new book, The Wannabe Fascists, takes a look at the new global movement of fascists and populists, headed by Trump, Bolsonaro, and Modi, and explains how they've adapted the anti-democracy playbook to modern times.

Federico, welcome to Burn the Boats.

Federico Finchelstein:

Thank you.

Ken Harbaugh:

For a long time, you have resisted applying the F word, fascism, to Trump and Trumpism. What changed that for you?

Federico Finchelstein:

Well, I mean, they changed. In my work, I have for decades analyze fascism populists, and a key distinction between them, and a key distinction that I made in my book from 2017, From Fascism to Populism in History, was that fascists were not only more extreme in many ways from racism, to violence, and propaganda. But also, they destroy democracy when they had the opportunity.

And basically populists, although they shared many things with the fascists, (and we can talk about all the things a little bit later) they actually acted within democracy.

Or to put it differently, populists, after ’45, after the defeat of the fascist powers, they present the sort of fascism in a Democratic key, which is to say, not really fascism.

I mean, there are things that define fascism, and one of them is that it's against democracy. And populists actually made a point about how the legitimacy was related to winning elections.

Now, when you have populists that in addition to many things that also, fascists are such as violence, racism, and so on, but now, these populists reject electoral results, then what you have is something that sounds less like populism and more like fascism. I mean, in this new book, I call them wannabe fascists.

Ken Harbaugh:

Right. Is this Trump's main political innovation? And there has to be a more pejorative term than that, but I'll call it a political innovation. This idea that that populace in the past used democracy to gain power and then destroyed it.

It seems like Trump's innovation is undermining confidence in democracy first and then gaining power. He has never won the popular vote, he can't. His only route to power is to undermine people's faith in elections. And that's a different kind of populism.

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes, I mean, as I said, it is a populism that in a way is kind of reversing itself to something that is closer to fascism.

Now, when you compare the first Trump presidential campaign and the results that he had with the second one, although it's true that he never won the popular vote, he played sort of by the rules. I mean, of course you might say, because he won, sure.

But still a big element in his let's say justification for acting the way he did was that he had won elections. And he let's say he played by the rules that the electoral results mattered to him, but at some point they don't. And that is a big distinction in general between fascists and populists.

So, Trump, in a way, started as a radical populist, meaning a populist that is really at the border or the boundary between populism and something way more radical and authoritarian.

And in a way I wouldn't say ended, but the current situation where Trump is, or the current place that he occupies is something closer to fascism.

Now, in the new book, I made a distinction because in a way, this book is part of a trilogy in which, first, I analyzed how populism was different to fascism, precisely because among other things although it was authoritarian, it also, respected some democratic rules.

Then I analyzed how and why fascists lie. I mean, this is another book that I wrote. And finally, this one in which here I'm interested in analyzing what makes Trump and people like him so close to fascism.

And this is a question that I have been asked again and again. As scholars, we also live outside the academy most of our time, and many times different people from different walks of life ask me, “Is Trump fascist? I mean, and what is fascism?”

And the typical scholar's answer will be, “Well, those are difficult questions. I mean, we don't have enough time to discuss.”

But I thought that that is precisely the problem. There is no time. There is a possibility that democracy can be destroyed. Democracy is in danger. And as scholars, we need to give these long explanations, but also, short explanations trying to explain all these distinctions.

So, this book is about that. I mean, asking in a kind of very synthetic manner, what is fascism and why Trump is so close to it.

Now, I mean, if we ask this question, what is fascism? Fascism, of course, is extremely authoritarian, extremely racist, and extremely dictatorial among other things.

But then of course, you have other regimes in history and in the present that are also those things. So, what makes fascism different to others?

And I basically came up with, let's say what I call the four pillars of fascism, things that independently of each other will not make a fascist a fascist, but then when they are together, we are talking about the F word, or we are talking about something which is very close to it.

So, basically, I mean, fascism is always … I mean, let's put it like in a now in a very short way. I mean, we can talk about this a little bit later, but fascism is always dictatorial, always racist, always lies in an extreme way, this kind of extreme or William Garber’s like propaganda, and also fascism is about violence. It's about violence and the militarization of politics.

So, when you have extreme lies and propaganda, extreme violence and the militarization of politics, when you have extreme racism and demonization, and finally, when you have dictatorship, probably you are talking about fascism.

Ken Harbaugh:

Probably you're talking about fascism. This isn't for you, a purely intellectual exercise. You referenced your other books, you are of the academy.

But you were also, born in Argentina, right before the junta took over. You spent many of your formative years there. Surely that influenced your — or that's the lens through which you view the emergence of American fascism.

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes. And actually, I will argue that that kind of global south position or peripheral position helps because in this country, and also, this happens in Europe, I mean, there is this idea that we are so different to the rest of the world because we are so good.

And we are neither different and perhaps also, not as good as we think we are. I mean, and by this I mean in terms of racism, dictatorship, authoritarian threats and so forth.

So, even if there were important distinctions in the past, which were not as important as people that talk about American exceptionalism, think, I mean, those distinctions are less and less so in the present when Trump and Orban and Bolsonaro talk to each other, copy from each other, and they represent like a kind of global attack on constitutional democracies.

So, basically, my own experience from the global south, from Latin America, actually helped me. I mean, also now, and for many years, I have been an American citizen.

And all these identities and perspectives, I think help us understand why these things are not only national, but also, transnational. In equal sense, all of us, and we can learn from each other.

So, the point is like in order to understand Trump, yes, you need to understand American history, but also, Italian history, India history, or Brazilian history, because these things happen here and there.

Ken Harbaugh:

Right. I would love for you to explain in just a little more detail the argument that fascism can't happen in America. You just suggested as it's because of this superiority complex we have, but there's the other side of it too, which suggests that fascists in America aren't smart enough.

You've written about that critique as well. And neither are really true, but it's that second one that I can't yet wrap my head around.

Because when I look at the supposed fascist intellectuals in this country, and I think of Steve Bannon and Steve Miller, they don't really come across as the fascist intellectuals that underwrote the fascist project in Europe in the mid-20th century.

Are they really of the same caliber as the intellectuals that propelled fascism in its other eras?

Federico Finchelstein:

Well, I mean, let me put it this way, and let me put it very bluntly, they are intellectually, as trashy as most Nazi intellectuals were.

Because I mean, they were of course in fascism outliers, people that were important intellectuals that decided somehow to betray, I guess, reason and knowledge and went fully irrational.

And among those we can count, like from philosophers as like Heidegger to legal thinkers like Carl Schmitt and others, including famous writers, but these people were not key players in the fascist movement.

And actually, someone like Hitler who thinks that they were not interesting enough, I mean, that he was the intellectual.

Now, when you read, and as part of my show description, I guess, I have to read all these people, including Hitler. I mean, they don't come across as deep intellectual thinkers. I mean, and I would say that in that sense, they play in the same team.

So, the others were not as important for the fascists as they have been, perhaps for the rest of the war. I mean, the famous thinkers that went, let's say to use a Star Wars metaphor, to the dark side.

So, I mean, those are not like the key players. I mean, in the movement or the key players influencing somebody like Hitler or Mussolini.

So, you don't need these famous thinkers. And actually, sometimes it's the opposite, like they are too complex to be fully successful within the book. So, I don't see much of a difference, I mean, in that sense.

Ken Harbaugh:

Distill the counter argument then for us before we pick it apart, that fascism can't happen in America. There's a couple pieces of it. What do the optimists say?

Federico Finchelstein:

Well, the optimists, they engage, I mean, I think with what I would say ahistorical views. I mean, that I either they are extremely negative about America, or I mean that they say this is different because we are not like a smart enough.

Which is of course, a really, in my opinion, like irrational argument you have, because of course, as in every country, there are really deep and rich intellectual traditions in the US both left and right, but also, center.

I mean, and it's somehow arrogant to say that in my opinion. Yeah, we are not smart enough, it's like extremely arrogant argument because also, of course it doesn't include the person saying that stuff, right?

Ken Harbaugh:

Right.

Federico Finchelstein:

So, that's one. The other one is like the equally mythical and optimistic view, which is that we are so great that these bad things will never happen to us.

And neither of these arguments are engaged with the actual history of America and the actual history of the world in which all these things are combined. And we are not, let's say immune in every country. We are not immune to these illegal trends.

There is a kind of illegal trend going on throughout the world. I mean, and including, let's say the country where I was born, Argentina, was one of the last to have this kind of politicians.

But we have a president, which I have called a mini Trump, which starting also, to unpack a kind of a democratic consensus in which some things should not be said, some intolerance should not be rewarded, and so on and so on. Which of course, sounds like Trump and many others.

So, everywhere like this situation is expanding suddenly.

Ken Harbaugh:

Is Trump the reason that this fascist trend has gone global? And this has been said time and again, nobody has the answer, but I'm going to pose the question anyway. Is he a symptom?

Are there undercurrents of populist movements and forces, rejection of democratic ideals, rejection of modernity that have made this a global phenomenon? Or is Trump's ability to innovate politically, instinctively driving it?

Federico Finchelstein:

I think that's a great question because the answer is that he's at the same time both. Like he's a symptom, I mean, of a kind of worldwide trend as opposed to what he thinks. That he's so unique and that, by the way, he's also, one of the people that make all these kind of unique arguments. I am like so exceptional as one.

And historians generally, people that actually do historical work, like we are very suspicious of these arguments, like because of course it's way more complex than that.

But Trump, at one point he said, if we have to call this era where we live, if we have to give it a name, Trump suggested that it should be called the Age of Trump. That's a quote. I mean, and that typical narcissism, of course, is more prop than reality.

I mean, he's a symptom of a kind of widespread group of politicians that question what used to be a sort of democratic consensus about certain procedures and rules which make a democracy.

Now, the other part of the question is also true. That it's not a small matter that having rich power in the most powerful country in the world, he has been an big enabler and promoter for this model, because people think if this can happen in the US, (yes, it happen here) it can happen also in other places.

So, I mean those two reasons, which are of course, different symptom, let's say, and creator or promoter are not mutually exclusive or was as one might think.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, that first reason isn't really an explanation, and I'm trying to understand the undercurrent, not Trump as the provocateur, but the undercurrent that has given rise to Trump and Bolsonaro and the others.

And it begs the question, has democracy run its course? Does it have a shelf life? We don't know really how long democracies can last because we've lasted longer than any other democracy in history.

What is happening that these fascist authoritarian movements are all popping up at the same time with broad popular support?

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes, I mean, another key question, which historically, of course we have to think in terms of different waves. And this happened before in a different way. Democracy as limited as it was in the 1920s and ‘30s was also attacked, and in some cases, it was defeated. In some cases, resisted these attacks.

And in a way, we live in certain countries at least, like in the 20th century for decades sometimes democracies which were perhaps in the way of becoming more inclusive or more workable. And one wonders to what extent that was parenthesis and democracies has been always under attack.

Democracy, of course, being a project. I mean, a project of making things more inclusive, both from illegally, electorally, and also, socially and politically. So, democracy is a project and that kind of inclusive idea of democracy, this is what is under attack.

Ken Harbaugh:

So, Federico, one of the defining characteristics of fascism is its exclusivity as opposed to democracy, which is about including people, broadening or expanding the tent. How does fascism then evolve in a democratic society where you need to have that broad appeal initially in order to gain power?

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes. I mean, and this is super interesting because fascism thrives in democracy and then of course, attempts to destroy it from within.

And I mean, historically when fascists wanted to gain power in the context of authoritarian governments, and this happened in Hungary or in Brazil, I mean, there were authoritarian governments, even dictatorial personalities in power.

And fascists wanted to be fascists and wanted to replace them. They would crash, they were repressed. And ironically, sometimes they were frustrated and even they claimed that they have a right to express their opinions in their newspapers and so on. And they were saying so.

But then within democracy, fascists use all our freedoms in order to gain power and eventually destroy those freedoms. So, it's interesting, they thrive in a context of democracy, then they want to destroy it.

Authoritarians have way less patience with them, and they don't try, they cannot be successful.

Now, historically, in famous cases such as Germany or Italy, what fascists did is they gain power through legal means, and then once in power, they destroy democracy from within. So, that is something to have in mind when we think about fascism.

Ken Harbaugh:

With this us versus them framing that is characteristic of fascist movements and of the fascist movement in the US, it is often projected as a way of defending democracy. It is very cognitively dissident.

But when you hear the wannabe fascists (to borrow the title of your book) talk about the extreme measures they'll need to take, they often couch that language in the language of defending democracy, when really, they're undermining democracy to achieve those ends.

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes. And in fact, like this is not new. This is what Hitler or Mussolini, as well as many others. And now, what is interesting there is like what is the ideological justification for that?

I mean, now, when we talk about ideology, we don't have to think about again, like deep thinkers or deep books. I mean, Trump or Hitler are not, or were not deep thinkers. I mean, people like this, fascists or wannabe fascists, they're not into explaining their arguments with solid results.

And in fact, like they tend to lie, lie after lie. And many of these lies, as you said, involve the issue of projection, like this kind of projection or projective way in which whatever they say about us actually applies to them.

And when they talk about for example, attacks against democracy, what they mean is basically sometimes even judicial investigations because of the crimes they have committed.

We have seen this, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf when he was in prison. And when I say wrote, he dictated like his kind of rumblings to another person when he was in prison for having attempted a coup d’etat and failed in doing so.

So, basically, but going back when I say the ideology or ideological text, what people like Trump or Hitler or others have in mind is an idea of legitimate government, which doesn't correspond to what we understand as a kind of democratic legitimacy or justification for why somebody is the president or the ruler.

Because for the rest of us, or let's say for people that believe in democracy, a person is ruling a nation or the president of a nation or the prime minister of a nation, when that person had obtained via legal electoral means a majority of the votes. Or in the case of the US, a majority of the electors, whatever the rules are.

And then we understand then that the people have decided. Then like to use a kind of more academic expression for that, that is to say that the person is the ruler or the person has power because there is popular majority behind that leadership. And that popular majority is corroborated by votes or certified by votes. So, something like that.

Now, that is because democracy, and when we talk about democracy, we talk about popular sovereignty. Democracy replaces a previous system which were with a different form of sovereignty because the sovereign is the king, and the king is king not because of the people, but because you know of God or because of tradition.

Now, when there are revolutions, for example, here in America, or in Haiti, or in France, those revolutions claim that the legitimacy of the person ruling the nation is related to the fact that the people are supporting that person or that group of persons.

Now, the way in which eventually we devise a forum to kind of corroborate or certify that there is popular support is via elections.

Now, fascists and also, populists tend to think that they are legitimacy or let's say the reasons behind why they should be ruling the nation are not only related to votes, but also, to the fact that they represent the people before and beyond the votes.

That is to say that they embody the people or they personify the people. Or as many populists and Trump himself said, “The silent majority are speaking through me. I represent those that they don't speak. They are the majority, I am the majority, they are me.”

So, it's about this, me, me, me, which of course is not really democratic, and it reminds us of a king. Now, the difference between a king and Hitler or Trump is that this kind of authoritarian leaders, they believe also, that they are the people.

So, the people which was not important to the legitimacy or the reasons behind why a king should be the ruler, are now, incorporated into idea of a leader that is not necessarily legitimate because of votes.

So, I mean, this is the kind of difference between (and again, to use these sort of academic terms) divine sovereignty and popular sovereignty.

So, what you have is a kind of person that claims to be democratic because the people are behind him, but those people are not behind him via votes. They are behind him because they confirm the idea that that person is the leader forever. That that person is the people.

And when you criticize that person, you are what? An enemy of the people. Whereas somebody in Argentina will say, Peron, for example, a popular leader said, “If you are not with me, you are the anti people.”

Now, one of the questions that often talk about in my classes, in my seminars, is like I present the counter the hypothesis, impossible hypothesis of what would happen if we asked that question to Hitler. If we asked that question to Hitler.

If you put me in a time machine, I go to talk with Hitler. If he doesn't kill me because I'm Jewish, and he allows me to ask the question, I will ask Hitler that question.

I say, “You say you are the leader of the German people, but you are a dictator that nobody voted for at this point. But at this point, you don't have the votes to claim that you are the voice of the people or that you embody the people.”

And if he doesn't kill me, he will answer, “Well, Federico, you are asking the typical idiotic question of a person that believes in democracy. Because if you think that there is a rational way, mathematical way even in which it can be demonstrated that I am the leader of the people, you don't understand why I am the leader of the people.”

Because I'm the leader of the people, a fascist would say, via a faith. To put it differently this is a cult. And if you think that this leader is leader beyond whether there are actual votes or not, you are then moving into this kind of fascist frame of reference.

Ken Harbaugh:

The way that manifests in America with Trump and Trumpism is that … and we talked to Ruth Ben-Ghiat about this, who has just wonderful language around projection and leaders claiming the father of the nation status. And Trump is doing that.

But what is especially alarming about it is that he conceives of the nation as his followers, and it is so exclusive in that regard and so anti-democratic.

When Trump speaks to the country, in his mind, he is not speaking to the whole country, he's speaking to his cult members, and everyone else is an enemy of the people. He's actually used that framing.

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes, which is, I mean, Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s work is extremely important to understand our times. And again, adopting a global framework, she also, demonstrates why this is more unique or it goes beyond the US. And why also the US is important within this larger she calls this group of strong men. So, really important work.

The point is that this works in the way of a religion, as a matter of belief, because at the end of the day, the idea that a person can be the voice of an entire people is either a metaphor, or if the metaphor is believed as a reality, then we are talking about a political religion.

Because it can never be a reality that a person embodies the people. And this is a typical kind of a monarchy argument. I mean, when the kings were kings, like if they were even drawings of the people within the king, the king is the personification of the people. The idea of embodiment.

In my own work, I talk about how the Christian concept of the trinity has been incorporated by these fascists and populists into their own model.

Because what is the trinity? It's a mystery that cannot be explained rationally and can only be explained by faith, because it is the idea that a person can be also, two other things. And this is of course, legitimate because it's part of a religion.

If you ask rationally questions to a religion, if you ask for empirical demonstration to a religion, you don't understand what religions are, are a question of faith.

Now, the question is what happens when you adopt the same protocol, the same kind of religious model to things which are not per se, religious, which is politics and society.

And what happens is this kind of authoritarianism, which the man's faith instead of reason and demonstration. Because the idea that a person can be in addition to being a person, meaning Trump is Donald J. Trump. But the idea that Trump can also, be the people, which is all of us, but also the nation, which is a concept.

Another concept is this kind of trinity that they create as if Trump was a sort of Christ. And actually they claim many times that Trump is close to Christ and so on. Now, this is not exclusive of Trumpism. This happened in populism and before populism, in fascism as well.

I mean, one of the most important motives of both the Nazis and the Italian fascists were like one leader, one people, one nation. I mean, in Italian is [foreign language 00:29:59]. One man, one people, one nation.

I mean, and this is a kind of religious understanding of things which are not per se, religious. So, it's a kind of a distortion of what religion is. In religion, you need faith. You cannot ask for empirical demonstration. But then again, in politics, do you need faith or do you need like reality?

So, my point is like this is why many people still believe that when in fact, Trump lost elections, many people believe he won them. It doesn't matter what reality says. It's a question of faith.

Ken Harbaugh:

When it comes to cultivating that zealous devotion to a single individual who embodies the nation, one of the things that separates the American fascist project from historical examples or contemporary examples overseas, is the fact that Trump himself is more of an object as opposed to an agent of this deification.

When I compare him to Kim Jong Un, that dynastic project cultivated it from the top. But in the US, we have an entire evangelical movement that has foisted this upon Trump.

It's worked backwards, and in some cases, he seems very uncomfortable with it, which flies in the face of the typical strong man approach, which is cultivating this idolatry.

And Trump suddenly finds himself as a Cyrus figure, or as you said, in some cases, a Christ figure, which is insane and something that I don't think comes naturally to him.

Federico Finchelstein:

That is an interesting question because of course, these issues are both promoted from the top, but also, they are successful because to a large extent, they are promoted by the race.

Ken Harbaugh:

Exactly. Yeah, that's my point.

Federico Finchelstein:

And that's his challenge. That's one challenge. But he seems to be thriving as well. Like he's an extremely narcissistic personality, and he kind of eventually ends up believing in his own myth.

And sometimes this project fail because of that. That he believes eventually that he's invincible, that it might be then true that he didn't lose election because he cannot lose an election and so on and so forth.

But these are like issues which relate to if this sacralization of politics that these kind of politicians and movements represent.

As opposed to, in my opinion, what is more democratic about politics. We should be reasons which are, or let's say arguments that are grounded in reality rather than in expectations, in projective thinking, and quite frankly, propaganda.

Ken Harbaugh:

I want to go over the four pillars. Propaganda is one of them, and then there's one in particular that I really want to examine. But can you lay out the four key pillars of fascism, and how we are checking them all off in this country, or coming close to checking them all off?

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes, because fascism is many other things, but I came up with these four pillars because you don't have fascism without them. And also, interestingly enough, these four pillars are not that typical populism either. So, Trump starts as a populist.

Now, let me tell you briefly the history of this. That is that fascism represented these four pillars to the full extent. I mean, and again, to remind your listeners, these four pillars are violence and militarization of politics. So, number one, violence and militarization of politics.

Number two, lies and propaganda. Number three, racism, xenophobia, demonization of the other. And number four, dictatorship.

So, you can have all these individually without fascism, but there is no fascism without these four. On the other hand, you can have populism without these four, and that was the earlier point of populism.

So, after 1945, there were people that had been dictators or even fascists like Juan Peron in Argentina, or Getulio Vargas in Brazil.

So, this first started in Latin America for our variety of reasons in which people that have been part of what they believe was the third way, the third kind of position between socialism and liberalism. Now, they were part of our … before ‘45, you got a tripolar war. But then after ‘45, the war became a bipolar war.

And these people were resentful about that. They still thought that there was a way to rule the nation beyond liberalism or socialism or beyond the US model at the time, or the Soviet model at the time.

And they also, understood that in order to be successful in politics after, let's say the defeat of the fascist and the kind of the … the fascist brand was quite toxic at the time.

It's not that fascism didn't exist after 1945, but it was not successful because people could really see, talking again about evidence, how awful fascism had been to their nations.

I mean, Germany destroyed, Italy destroyed, incredible amounts of people killed, and economies in disarray and so on and so forth.

So, people like Peron or Vargas, they realized that in order to be successful, they had to transform the authoritarian model to become a new third way. And now, it was done within democracy.

So, if fascists destroy youth democracy to destroy from within, in order to create dictatorship from about or from the top, populists like Peron or Varga did the opposite. They were dictators.

In the case of Peron, he was the strong man in a dictatorship that ruled Argentina, between 1943 and 1946. And he destroyed dictatorship from within to create a democracy from the top. He called for elections, he won elections.

So, the opposite of what the fascist did, the fascist destroyed democracy from within to create a dictatorship. The populists who had been fascists destroyed dictatorships or dictatorial models in order to create democracies.

Now, those democracies were authoritarian. They were not liberal, they were not constitutional, but they included this kind of weird mix between authoritarianism and democracy.

So, in that sense, fascism became fascism in a democratic key, I call it. But if you took all fascism in a Democratic key, you are not talking about fascism, because fascism is always anti-democratic.

Now, that was the history of populism in the 20th century. And with the start of the 21st century, a new model of populism emerges, and Trump is perhaps the icon of that model.

It's a new model of populism that not only uses democracy to gain power and to make democracy more authoritarian, to upgrade democracy, to curtail democracy without destroying it, but rather it seems to be wanting to (and that's why I call them wannabe fascists) cross the boundary between what is a democracy and what is not.

That is to say what becomes, or the way in which democracy becomes a dictatorship. Now, they do that because … and this is what I explained in the book, and the book has four chapters. Each for one of these four pillars of fascism.

And in each chapter, I analyze the fascists, the classic populist, and the new populist, which I call wannabe fascist. And this new wannabe fascists, what they want to do is they seem to be returning to the four pillars of fascism.

So, Peron after ‘45 said, we cannot be openly racist because this is toxic. This is not good for our brand. We will not win elections like that. So, what a German social democrat once called antisemitism, the socialism of the imbecites, meaning, we promise we will give stuff to the people, but we only give them hatred. We don't give them anything, just hatred.

And that's why this person who was of course very critical of this world said, it's fake socialism. They don't give anything. They just give hatred.

Now, if we remember how Trump launched his campaign from this golden escalator in Trump Tower in Manhattan, in which he denounced Mexicans as rapists. I mean, he started his campaign with what had been a no-no for classic populist, which is to say, to make racism and xenophobia the center of a campaign, hatred central to this new type of politics.

Now, in the case of violence, another pillar, and the militarization of politics, people like Peron will say, “This is not good. Like we will not get votes by being violent, or also we will not get votes by playing to be like toy soldiers, dressing in costumes as if we were part of a militia or an army, which we are not.”

And now, in the present, this seems to be, again, part of the picture. We have people dressing costumes, playing toy soldiers.

We have an idea of politics where violence is not excluded from the equation. And we have an idea of politics where repression and even militarization seems to be part of the picture. And that is of course, what the fascist did, not the classic populists.

Now, we run into certain element. I mean, the order doesn't matter. There are four elements, lies and propaganda, militarization and violence, dictatorship, and demonization.

Now, we run into propaganda, and populists of course distorted the truth and lie, probably like most politicians. But the difference between fascism and other politicians or other isms, is that not only they lie, but also, in quantitative terms, in terms of quantity, they lie more. Every sentence, almost a lie. But also, they believe in their lies and wars.

And this is something that was suggested by Hannah Arendt famous thinker of these matters. And she said, “Not only they lie, but they want to transform the world. They believe in their lives, they lie, but also, they want to transform the world in order for the world to become similar to their lies.”

Now, how is this possible? And let me now choose perhaps one of the most gruesome or horrible examples of this matter, of this type of lying, which is Nazis lied and they said Jews are dirty and they spread disease. This is of course a lie. A people at large cannot be dirty or spread disease.

And what did they do with this lie? They put their victims, Jewish citizens in ghettos and concentration camps with horrible sanitary conditions. And these people, yes, became dirty and of course, unhealthy and eventually spread disease in many cases.

And a Nazi will say, “You see, this is what I was talking about. And a non-Nazi, a rational person will say, “But you are creating this. You are making or create conditions for lies to be part of our war, for the light to become the truth. And that truth is not reality, but a kind of experiment with reality that you are doing for ideological and racist reasons.” So, this is extreme.

And yet during COVID times, we saw the spread of lies about disease that equally generated … or death. Death was the outcome of lies against vaccines, lies about … Bolsonaro, for example, said like that if people were vaccinated, they will turn into crocodiles. Trump said that one should swallow bleach and so on and so forth.

So, lies that eventually changed reality, at least for those victims or people that believed it. Now, this is not normal to say the least.

And now, the last element, which is of course, dictatorship. And when I wrote my previous books, and that's why, going back to one of your questions about whether we are changing, and in my case, I also changed my own position, is that before people like Trump or Bolsonaro, they presented three of these four elements, but dictatorship was kind of missing from the picture.

In that sense, they kind of behaved like other populist politicians, downgrading democracy without destroying.

Now, when they lost elections and they left behind a kind of key condition of populism, which is electoral results matter, that's a reality we recognize. And not only they ignore that reality, but also, they wanted to stay in power via coup d’etat.

I mean, how would you call a president that is, stays in power or actually against electoral results? And it will be hard not to call that person a dictator. Permanent power means dictatorship, or dictatorship means permanent power.

So, the points like then that's why of course in the case of Trump, he failed in his coup d’etat. But you see the attempt to stay in power, be a permanent power and dictatorship, which is more typical of fascist rather than of populists.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah, in the American context, it's that pillar militarization of politics that seems both the most exceptional and the most dangerous. I'm wondering if you see it the same way, given the unique circumstances here, the ubiquity of guns, the endemic violence throughout our society.

It's surprising to me in a way, I guess, that the militarization of politics hasn't happened sooner.

Federico Finchelstein:

Yes, I mean, that's a really good point. And it hasn't happened sooner because although you have like a lot of militarization and sadly, the ability to reach and to have weapons of war, which coming from a different place in the world, like it's kind of difficult to understand why would you like weapons of war in your home, like high caliber and so on?

But this was still rejected by a majority of American politicians. Although this existed, it was not incorporated into the mainstream. It was not enabled, it was not legitimated, it was not welcome to say the least.

Whereas in the case of Trump, you see the opposite. You see encouragement, enabling, and of course, a lot of love from Trump for these people playing Jewish soldiers. So, that is extremely dangerous because when it happened before, it was called fascism.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, we're going to have to leave it there. Federico, thank you so much for your time. We'll leave a link to the book in the show notes. Really appreciate you coming on.

Federico Finchelstein:

Thank you very much.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

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Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.