The Road to Fascism in Trump’s America

Vinod Mubayi

A few decades ago, when the Soviet Union imploded leaving the US as the sole global hegemon, ideologues in the liberal, free-market constitutional democracy of the United States celebrated what they called “the end of history.” By this, they meant the bourgeois democratic order based on a free market operating under a system of laws guaranteed by a constitution was immutable, destined to be the future of humanity. A few days of the Second Coming of Donald Trump seem to have put paid to the notion of eternal bourgeois democracy quite decisively. Instead, Trump has acted in classic fascist fashion that completely subverts the normal procedures of bourgeois democracy.

Trump stated earlier that he would be a dictator on Day 1 and he was true to his word. In addition to pardoning 1,600 criminals from the January 6th, 2020 riots, Trump issued an unconstitutional immigration order denying birthright citizenship, a violation of the 14th amendment of the Constitution that guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Trump also restored the order from his first term that created a new classification for federal civil servants—Schedule F—that would end civil service protections and allow him to remove tens of thousands from the federal payroll.

By pardoning over 1600 people convicted of violent crimes, including grievously assaulting law enforcement officers on duty on Jan 6, 2020, many of whom had pled guilty and been sentenced to long prison terms, shortly after being inaugurated, Trump, a convicted felon himself, showed the whole world clearly the fragility of the legal order in a so-called nation of laws. Compounding this fragility is the fact that almost no elected member of Congress belonging to the political party that currently controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives expressed any disapproval of Trump’s pardons despite the fact that several of them were in acute danger of being assaulted on Jan 6 themselves when the violent mob instigated by Trump forced its way into the Capitol building. Their subservience to Trump evokes shades of the fealty pledged by Nazi Party political leaders to Adolf Hitler.

In a bizarre fashion, Trump was quoted by the New York Times (NYT) as saying that in his clemency order he tried to recast Jan 6 as a “day of love” and said the order would “end a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years” and begin “a process of national reconciliation. “However, NYT also quoted a federal judge who repudiated Trump’s twisted logic. In a written court order Judge Beryl A. Howell stated: “No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election, no ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity. “This court,” Judge Howell concluded, “cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.”

Not content with overturning established legal judgments, Trump went on to issue a slew of new presidential orders touching almost all aspects of life in the US where the federal government plays a role, ranging from science policy to environmental policy, immigration, health issues, energy policy, gender concerns, regulatory concerns, climate change, and foreign aid.

As expected, Trump ordered the US withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement. Trump and his cohorts do not believe in the established science of climate change caused largely by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. Trump also declared a national energy emergency in the US that allows his government to promote fossil fuel energy projects, such as coal and natural gas based power plants, liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, drilling on protected Federal lands and so on. Trump’s actions in the energy sector hew closely to the agenda of Project 2025, a kind of Republican Party manifesto directing federal government actions in a Trump's second term. The US is by far the largest historical cumulative carbon emitter; it is currently the No 2 annual emitter behind China which is No 1 (India is No 3 currently). The US is also the world’s largest oil and gas producer. Encouraging and promoting more fossil fuel production as Trump is doing with his “Drill, baby drill” rhetoric, should be regarded as nothing short of insane when global warming is emerging worldwide as a harbinger of devastating climate change and 2024was the hottest year in recorded world history.

Trump also signed an order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organisation (WHO), a United Nations agency responsible for global health. This was expected to show Trump and his cohorts’ contempt for international agencies and pander to “America First” sentiments.

The fascistic nature of Trump’s orders is fully demonstrated by his order to deport all undocumented immigrants possibly with the help of the US military, all 11 million of them, which as many observers have pointed out is a logistical impossibility over any foreseeable future time period certainly the four remaining years of Trump’s term. But, as Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes in his blog “As the official immigrant crackdown ramps up, we’re also going to see a lot of vigilantism… All of this will be ugly and scary. America may very quickly become a nation in which everyone —or at least every nonwhite—feels the need to carry proof of legal residence with them wherever they go, and even having the right papers may not protect you from detention or vigilante violence.” Krugman predicts that this crackdown is going to have very negative economic impacts. Almost half of the workforce in the US farm sector consists of undocumented aliens and their absence, either due to deportation or their fear of coming to work, will lead to an acute farm labor shortage and cause food prices to skyrocket. Also, undocumented aliens account for 25-30% of labor in the construction industry and their removal will also cause major problems.

Trump’s order cancelling birthright citizenship as granted in the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was temporarily blocked by a federal judge who termed it “blatantly unconstitutional.” This issue is certain to be appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court.

In another executive order Trump revoked the federal contractor nondiscrimination executive order, EO 11246, signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965 that protected employees of businesses seeking federal contracts from discrimination. Trump and his father were charged under this order with discrimination against blacks and Hispanics in their federal housing projects in the 1970s and it is very likely that Trump has felt a grievance against it ever since.

Another Trump order mandated removal of regulatory burdens on the fossil fuel and other energy and mining industries. It also revoked 12 climate-related executive orders signed by Biden and halted federal funds for building infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Unlike most presidential inaugural speeches that try to bring the country together after a partisan political campaign, Trump’s speech lacked any promises of national unity, or a toning down of divisive political rhetoric. Trump was brutally upfront with what he wanted to happen: dismantle the regulatory state and expand the imperial state. No doubt, the lowest class of American society, which now includes millions of undocumented immigrants, will pay the price of this vision in terms of their health and living standards and persecution by a fascist, police state.

On the international front, aka maintaining or enlarging the global US empire, Trump is literally harking back to the imperialist rhetoric of the 1890s by invoking Manifest Destiny and making claims to annex Greenland, the Panama Canal, parts of northern Mexico and even Canada to the United States. In addition, his many threats to impose tariffs on imports are political threats aimed at intimidating foreign countries to alter policies or behaviours that Trump dislikes. Thus, when Colombia objected to and banned US military planes carrying Colombians deported from the US as undocumented aliens, Trump was reported to have immediately threatened severe 25% tariffs on Colombian exports, sanctions on its banking and financial sectors and visa restrictions on Colombian government officials that forced Colombian President Petro to change course. (Colombian media had a very different version of this episode. They wrote that President Petro objected to Colombian deportees coming back to Colombia like prisoners on US military planes so he dispatched Colombian military planes to bring his countrymen in a dignified manner back to Colombia). This is the opening salvo of usual fascist or imperialist behavior that, in the past, was usually followed by military action if the target country resisted. Indeed, this is very much part of US history in the 19th and 20th centuries that Trump is attempting to reprise rhetorically at this moment; seizing Texas from Mexico, invading Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to oust the Spanish empire, invading Haiti (multiple times) and the Dominican Republic, installing US puppet regimes in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and promoting or organizing military coups to overthrow governments deemed unfriendly to US political or military interests like Chile in 1971. Trump’s bluster follows this pattern although it is unclear whether military action to seize territory or install puppets is feasible, much less sustainable, any more as the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan indicate.

When it comes to India, that touts itself as the world’s largest democracy, a poll by the Pew organization reported that the Indian public welcomed Trump’s victory by the largest margin compared to the people of all other major countries. While the coverage of this poll could be questioned, considering that Modi had frequently referred to Trump as his best friend, this result is understandable, although it is pertinent to ask whether this sentiment is reciprocated, either by Trump or his wider entourage. The Indian media breathlessly focused on whether Modi, who is styled by his followers as the vishwaguru (world’s guru) would be invited to Trump’s inaugural. The difference in power status was revealed when China’s Xi Jinping was formally invited although he declined to attend while Modi was not invited. Another Pew poll carried out in the US reveals that India has the third highest number, 725,000, of illegal immigrants in the US behind only Mexico and El Salvador, with the largest number of illegals thought to be coming from the Vishwaguru’s home state, Gujarat. Meanwhile, the godi(lapdog) media in India highlights the 18,000 illegal immigrants (a mere 2% of the total) that India will agree to take back from the US when Modi talked with Trump on the phone and focused on a possible visit by Modi to the US in February, while it ignores why middle-class Gujaratis with some assets, along with others from India, who can afford to pay many lakhs to smugglers are so desperate to migrate illegally to the US even at the cost of their lives. Is the Gujarat “model of development” not all that it is cracked up to be? It is also revealing that among the blizzard of executive orders Trump unleashed in the last week, there was no cancellation yet of the cases against Adani and his cohorts or against the (former?) RAW agents that were launched by the US Dept of Justice under the Biden Administration. While this may well happen after the vishwaguru meets with Trump and pleads for his pal Adani it would be wise not to bet on it with someone as transactional as Trump. The BRICS compact, of which India is a founding member, has come under severe criticism from Trump and he has already threatened tariffs on India, China and Brazil if they don’t allow unhindered, untaxed import of US goods.

How feasible Trump’s fascist visions for America are in practice is addressed in an article in the progressive magazine Jacobin by columnist BrankoMarcetic who emphasises the contradictory nature of Trump’s orders:

“One of Trump’s signature issues, massive across-the-board tariffs on imports from the United States’ two closest neighbours and China, is tipped to make everything from vegetables and beer to toys, cars, and a host of other consumer goods more expensive. At the same time, the centerpiece of his domestic agenda is another tax cut for the rich, which congressional Republicans plan to pay for by taking a hatchet to safety net programmes like Medicare and Medicaid. This self-contradictory effort has actually already begun”. Maybe the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Trump’s coming presidency is that he campaigned as the working man’s champion against the Washington swamp but has now handed the reins of government over to a group of creatures from that same swamp, namely the record thirteen billionaires named to his cabinet and the numerous others he gifted front-row seats to his inauguration to. His machine-gun spray of executive orders has so far overwhelmingly advanced the goals of the same corporate-driven Project 2025 he thought was so politically toxic he distanced himself from it during the campaign.

For one, cracks are already starting to show in Trump’s coalition, having appeared before he was even inaugurated. Late last year, a nasty split formed between the immigration-restrictionist, “America First” segment of his support, and the H-1B visa–supporting billionaire cohort, represented by people like Elon Musk. Trump is doing all this, and engaging in breathtaking new levels of graft, at the same time that a recent poll purporting to show public support for some of Trump’s views also found that large majorities of Americans across party lines believe the US political system is broken and exists to benefit the wealthy and elite. This poses a major possible vulnerability for Trump as he proceeds with what is shaping up to be a plutocratic agenda.”  

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Vol 57, No. 34, Feb 16 - 22, 2025