On March 23, 1933, Adolf Hitler argued that what “the left” had done was so outrageous that Germany should abandon democracy and make him dictator. The elected officials did.
He was supported by the Catholic Party, all conservative parties, and the majority of Protestants. The only parties to oppose him were the Democratic Socialists and the Communists.
Since everyone other than socialists and communists supported Hitler, why is it a talking point among pro-Trump groups that Hitler was a socialist, and therefore a leftist? Because they want to rationalize engaging in exactly the same kind of coup that Hitler managed—we have to abandon democratic practices because “the left” is so bad—while pretending they aren’t doing exactly what Hitler did.
A lot of people reason by identity rather than politics. That is, they engage in the fantasy that good people, and only good people, will enact good policies. So, when trying to decide how to vote, just look for someone for someone who understands you, who is like you. That’s called “identification.” There’s a kind of narcissism in it—or maybe political solipsism is a better word. You just look out for yourself, and vote for someone who will look out for you, and….what, exactly, is supposed to happen? There can’t be a one-to-one relationship of identities (young, old, middle-aged, no kids, lots of kids, a disabled kid) between voters and political figures because there aren’t that many people in Congress (and voting on this basis always hurts the smaller groups). In addition, what are called social groups (not social in the sense of being about socializing, but group memberships that are important for a sense of self, such as having a child who gets accommodations in schools, having a a dog, or being evangelical Christian) don’t necessarily lead to policy affiliation. Not everyone with a dog wants off-leash dog parks, after all.
Good political figures should be able to look out for lots of different kinds of people; that’s what democracy requires. Diversity is a fact.
But a politics of identification assumes that identity is stable and monocausally determines policy affiliation. With unintentional irony, self-described “right wing” media figures throw themselves around about “the left” engaging in “identity politics,” yet that’s what they offer to their audience: the assumption that their identity (being “conservative”) necessarily leads to one political agenda (that is never clearly stated in the affirmative). It’s generally what’s called a “negative identity”—people are “conservative” just because they aren’t “liberal” (and vice versa).
What people call “right-wing” politics should be called reactionary toxic populist nationalism. It isn’t conservative. Conservativism is a political ideology that, although I disagree with it, even I will say is generally internally coherent and principled. Pro-Trump politics isn’t internally coherent or principled—it’s irrational factionalism. Using a private server is terrible, unless it’s a Trump family member. Pornography is terrible, unless it’s a Trump family member. A problematic charity is terrible, unless it’s Trump’s. There are no principles that are applied consistently across groups.
Supporting Trump comes from two sources. First, there’s charismatic leadership. He’s decisive and confident and (they think) successful. People drawn to Trump for this reason believe that politics isn’t complicated, that the right solution is obvious, and that politicians make things unnecessarily complicated because they’re doofuses. They believe that “regular people” (like them) are screwed over by our current political system, and that Trump understands them, and is looking out for them. They know he isn’t a doofus because he says things are simple, he’s confident he can solve them, and they saw him be decisive on a (scripted) TV show. He feels transparent to them.
They believe that because everything he says, and even the way he stands, shows that he is clearly a successful guy who gets them and who knows what needs to be done. And he’ll cut through the bullshit and get it done.
And they only pay attention to information that says that what they believe about Trump is true. They reject any criticism of Trump on the grounds that it is criticism. They believe what they believe is true because it’s what they believe, and anything that says what they believe is false must be false because it contradicts what they believe.
These are people, in my experience, who make the same mistake over and over, and who get scammed. A lot. They’re people who are often good and kind, and who believe that Scripture means what it seems to mean to them, and that people are who they say they are. That’s why they get scammed. They believe that the world is not complicated, but that bad people make it seem complicated, and so they like people who are decisive and confident. Con artists are always decisive and confident (so are a lot of badly informed people).
I have to digress and say that, since I’ve spent a lot of my life arguing with all sorts of people, this way of thinking about the world (it’s all really simple, and people just try to make it complicated, and we can solve this problem that no one else has solved by being thoroughly commitment to this simple solution that, for inexplicable reasons, no one else has ever adopted) is all over the political spectrum. It isn’t just Trump supporters (here, for instance, is a nice discussion of how it’s playing out right now among democratic socialists).
Second, many people support Trump in a purely reactionary way—he is NOT “libruls” (whom they believe to be the cause of all problems in the world. He will (and does) crush them, and, since they think libruls cause all the problems, crushing them will solve all the problems. It’s still toxic populism, in that it’s saying that there are some Americans who aren’t really American, whose views shouldn’t be represented (or even discussed), and who should be excluded from power.
Those two kinds of support—here is a strong, decisive person with excellent judgment who will cut through all the bullshit, and here is someone who will purge our government and culture of liberals and their influence—are the two kinds of support for Hitler.
Am I saying that Trump is Hitler? No.
Am I saying that the people who are supporting Trump would have supported Hitler? That is exactly what I’m saying.