Trump’s base resembles past and present fascist movements, though, to be sure, it does not have a fascist program - at least not yet. If and when the two-party system in the US is replaced by a one-party dictatorship, democratic rights are abolished, the independent mass movements crushed and their activists jailed, that is when full-blown fascism will have arrived in the US.
We’re not there yet, and I’m hopeful that the political and demographic balance of forces in US society will ensure that the far right doesn’t prevail.
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Trump's followers
> Date: November 15, 2016 at 8:32:23 AM PST
> To: Pen-L Economics <pen-l at mail.csuchico.edu>, Socialist Project <SocialistProject at yahoogroups.ca>, LBO <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>
> Adam Shatz on the contradictory nature of the Trump movement - the same contradictions which underlay the rise of fascism:
>
> "Some see his victory as a misdirected working-class rebellion, staged by resentful middle-class whites who were effectively proletarianised by neoliberal policies promoted by both of America’s major political parties. Others see it as a racist, xenophobic uprising, led by a vanguard of white nationalists who have rallied around Trump as their figurehead. Both explanations have a kernel of truth…
>
> “According to the polls, Trump’s most devoted supporters aren’t the very poor but the lower middle class – the class traditionally most attracted by fascism. However much they have suffered since the recession, they aren’t ‘victimised’ as the very poor are, or as black people are in the most deprived parts of our cities, where the police behave like an occupying force.”
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/11/10/adam-shatz/the-nightmare-begins/?utm_source=LRB+online+email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20161115+online&utm_content=usca_nonsubs