Dark shift in Trump’s tone is 'how fascists campaign': expert

Former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign speeches have been largely focused on highlighting differences between his MAGA movement and his political opponents, whom he accuses of destroying the country and harboring values antithetical to American ideals. One political expert recently told the New York Times that this is a key example of the ex-president's embrace of fascism as a political strategy.

In a lengthy Saturday article in the New York Times magazine, author Charles Homans explored how the 45th president of the United States' campaign rallies have lately taken on a much darker, more ominous tone. He noted that Trump has vowed to be an agent of "retribution," likening his opponents to "vermin" who will "do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream."

Argentinian-born Political historian Federico Finchelstein told the Times that Trump's 2024 bid for the White House reminded him of Juan Perón, who was president of Argentina in the 1940s and 1950s, and again in the 1970s. Perón was known for his insistence on unwavering loyalty, his severe restrictions on press freedom and his granting of asylum to Nazi war criminals Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann.

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Homans wrote that the Argentinian leader "admired the fascist regimes of interwar Europe" but knew that outright implementing fascism after World War II would be unpoular. Finchelstein said that Perón instead chose to conduct "authoritarian experiments in democracy." He further warned that Trump appeared to be following in Perón's footsteps, saying "this is how fascists campaign."

“Perón was a fascist who wanted to reformulate himself in democratic terms,” Finchelstein said, “whereas Trump seems to be doing the opposite.”

Homans spoke with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon for the article, who now hosts a podcast popular with the far right. He explained that what differentiates Trump's 2024 campaign from his 2016 and 2020 bids for the presidency is the explicit promise to exact vengeance on the people and institutions that Trump and the MAGA movement feel committed grave injustices against them.

"You’re not selling ‘Morning in America’ from Mar-a-Lago,” Bannon told the Times. "You need a different tempo. He needed to reiterate to his followers, ‘This is [expletive] revenge.’”

In the article, Homans noted that the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was seen as an important event in the story the former president is telling on the campaign stump. He falsely maintains to this day that he was the true winner of the 2020 election, that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party unfairly usurped power and that his victory in 2024 will right the wrongs of the past.

To illustrate this point, Homans noted that Trump's rallies often feature the "J6 prison choir" singing a song called "Justice for All," which is a revised version of the national anthem. The former president has referred to the roughly 1,300 January 6 defendants as "hostages" and pledges to pardon them should he win another term in the White House. In the article, Homans reminded readers that the singers of "Justice for All" were "currently serving prison sentences related to the Jan. 6 riot — a majority for assaulting police officers."

"As the prisoners reached the end of the anthem, they broke into a chant: 'U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!' The crowd joined in, unified in the new resistance."

Click here to read Homans' full report in the New York Times magazine (unlocked article).