As those of you who read my blog know, I really thought Harris was going to win big.  Since last night, I’ve been thinking about why I and many other Democrats were so wrong.  The best answer I can give comes from the work of a wonderful historian, Robert O. Paxton.

     Paxton, who is now 92, was a professor of mine decades ago at Columbia.  His first book argued that Vichy France was not a nation of resisters to Nazi fascism, but rather contained many enablers and collaborators.  Since then, he has written primarily about fascism itself.  Paxton argues that to understand fascism, you need to look not at its leaders, but its followers.  What made Germany and Italy go fascist in the inter-war years, while France and Britain did not?  He concludes that the most important factor in bringing fascism into being is having a majority of the voting population believe that the current system is not only not working for them, but is actively rigged against them.

     I think this is what happened here.  A majority of white, non-college educated Americans swung the vote to Trump.  In addition, young people, most of them male, staggering under debt and unable to live on their own earnings, voted disproportionately for Trump.  So did Hispanic men, who come from a culture that has embraced patriarchy, to the point of providing the word “machismo.”  I thought abortion would win the election for women.  Instead, a number of states voted in favor of abortion rights, but against the female candidate.  I know that misogyny, which I hoped had decreased since Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, was a definitely a factor, but I find that too depressing to think about today. 

     What now?  Obviously, the Democratic party has to re-group and re-invent itself.  Meanwhile, I remember Benjamin Franklin’s warning in the 18th century: “A republic” –- by which he meant a government that was not a monarchy –- “if you can keep it.”  We must work now to keep it.  And to keep on keeping on.

Just after Trump was elected president in 2016, I emailed my German Women’s History Study Group and said he was a fascist.  They reacted as historians, asserting that it couldn’t be fascism because there was no such political party here, that the context was different, etc.  Today, most of them agree with me.  What has changed?

     Fascism, defined as “a populist political philosophy…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition” has, under Trump, come to characterize the MAGA movement.  Republicans who don’t toe the line have been expelled from the party.  Trump and others continually speak of “the enemy within,” meaning journalists, Democrats, and generally everyone who doesn’t agree with them.  Trump’s continuing attempts to insist that he won the 2020 election, in the face of facts and the decisions of over 60 courts, show both his contempt for the U.S. Constitution and his fascistic authoritarianism.

     Recently, Marine General John Kelly, who served as Trump’s White House Chief of Staff from 2017-19, declared that he now believed that “Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, who would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the rule of law.”  After years of silence, he decided to speak out because he thought Trump’s recent talk about “the enemy within” was truly dangerous.  Near the end of his presidency, Trump stated “I need the kind of generals Hitler had,” according to two people in the White House.

     So we can now consider him a fascist and a would-be Hitler.  What about the Alzheimer’s?  It’s “a brain disorder that destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out daily tasks.”  In recent years, Trump has mixed up Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, confused Milwaukee with Madison, Wisconsin, and bad-mouthed Detroit to a Detroit audience.  Recently, his confusion has intensified.   He stopped speaking and instead danced silently for 40 minutes at a Pennsylvania rally.  His staff has prevented him from participating in interviews and debates, almost certainly to shield him from criticism.  A few days ago, at a rally, he riffed for 15 minutes about the golfer Arnold Palmer, ending by referring to the size of his penis.  After that, he called Kamala Harris “a shit vice president” and attacked mail-in voting as the rally’s tv screens urged his supporters to cast absentee ballots early by mail.

     Admiring and wanting to be like Hitler is bad, but being a Hitler with Alzheimer’s is even worse.  Please spend these last few days before the election working to support Harris and other Democratic candidates!