Fascism-lite in America (or The Social Ideal of Donald Trump)
| Author | Ewan McGaughey |
| Position | School of Law, King's College, London. Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge |
| Pages | 291-315 |
What explains the election of the 45th President of the United States? Many
commentators have said that Trump is a fascist. This builds on grave concerns, since
, that democracy is being corrupted. This article suggests the long
term cause, and the shape of ideology is more complex. In 1971, an extraordinary
memorandum of Lewis Powell for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged that
‘[b]usiness interests’ should ‘press vigorously in all political arenas for support’.
Richard Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court, and a few years later, despite
powerful dissent, a majority in held that candidates may spend
unlimited funds on their own political campaigns, a decision of which Donald Trump,
and others, have taken full advantage. compounded the problems,
but was the ‘Trump for President’ case. This provided a platform
from which Trump could propel himself into extensive media coverage. The 2016
election was inseparable from the social ideal pursued by a majority of the Supreme
Court since 1976. No modern judiciary had engaged in a more sustained assault
on democracy and human rights. Properly understood, ‘fascism’ is a contrasting,
hybrid political ideology. It mixes liberalism’s dislike of state intervention, social
conservatism’s embrace of welfare provision for insiders (not ‘outsiders’), and
of control, Trump is closely linked to neo-conservative politics. It is too hostile to
insider welfare to be called ‘fascist’. Its political ideology is weaker. If we had to
give it a name, the social ideal of Donald Trump is ‘fascism-lite’.
Democracy, Fascism, Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United, Campaign Expenditures
© 2018 Ewan McGaughey, published by Sciendo.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
7 Br. J. Am. Leg. Studies (2018)
292
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