There is in the air of the times – more than ever after the victories of Donald Trump in the primaries of Iowa and New Hampshire – a fear which is spreading among the American intelligentsia which wants to be devoted to democracy. This fear, which has become almost hysterical in recent weeks, is based on the scenario of a potential dictatorial takeover of power by Trump after he moves back into the White House by methods that are in principle constitutional and democratic.
Advocated by a bipartisan coalition of liberals and conservatives, the thesis of an “irreversible descent towards dictatorship” has been amplified in particular by Robert Kagan, a neoconservative who often makes common cause with the Democratic Party for military intervention abroad called “liberal”.
Following Kagan’s op-ed published in the Washington Postreview The Week went even further with an illustration of Trump dressed in military uniform and gold epaulets, right fist raised, with the title “ Dictator in waiting? “. I don’t know if the outfit referred to a generalissimo from Latin America or a marshal from Eastern Europe, but the idea is clear: a Trumpian dictatorship would necessarily be fascist and therefore comparable to Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany.
That Kagan and his allies in President Biden’s Democratic apparatus are big supporters of a NATO scorned by Trump makes me suspect the real motivations behind this radical indictment of the Mar-a-Lago monster. However, it amuses me to imagine a coup d’état coming from the executive branch; the parallels with Hitler and Mussolini are delicious, especially if you have a romantic and historical mind.
As everyone should know, Hitler rose to power democratically during the Weimar Republic, led by elderly President Paul von Hindenburg. Almost senile, Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor in January 1933 while the Nazi Party was still in the minority in the Reichstag. Around Hindenburg were largely deluded and naive political leaders who believed that the warlike Austrian would not dare seize absolute power, or that he could be tamed or slowed down in his tracks.
Without pushing the analogy too far, we can easily evoke President Biden, at the end of his strength, attending Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, 2025. Almost as old as Hindenburg, Biden would display his faith in a Constitution (to which Trump again would take the oath) who has already survived four years under the yoke of his thug rival.
Once appointed head of government, however, Hitler quickly benefited from a timely and unprecedented event—the Reichstag fire—for which he cleverly blamed and subverted the Communist Party. Winning a small majority of coalitions in the parliamentary elections in March, he was voted to grant full powers. Would Trump be as lucky, clever and ambitious as Hitler?
Perhaps on purpose, the management of Carnegie Hall in New York is now asking almost the same question with “The Fall of the Weimar Republic.” Dancing on the Precipice,” a festival running through May that features interviews and music concerts from the pre-Hitler era with the theme of “the fragility of democracy.” According to the organizers, lessons can be learned from the “crushing economic distress”, “social inequality”, “unease”, “political polarization” and “extremism” which have “paved the way for the opportunist rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.” Beware, self-righteous cosmopolitans of New York, Boston and Philadelphia!
Frankly, Trump obviously has neither the intellectual capacity nor the concentration necessary to plan a putsch, not even like the one led by Hitler in Munich in 1924 and which failed miserably. Building a political party with all the details necessary for it to function is not his thing. The “insurrection” of January 6 was not a failed coup d’état, it was a successful riot, which fortunately did not deteriorate into great loss of life.
Trump provoked the violence, to be sure, but he did it out of the blue, as is his wont. Hitler committed high treason; Trump stuck to one incitement. Moreover, Hitler had a real ideological program in mind: the expansion of living space for the “Aryan race” (especially the Germans), the extermination of the Jews and the subjugation of the Slavic people. And Trump? There is in him an incoherent collection of impulses, nonsense and unhealthy associations. Certainly, he shares with Hitler a phobia of germs and alcohol, but that in itself does not make him a fanatic of biological purification.
Faced with the phobia of Trump among the shouting elite, I find it useful to consult Stefan Zweig, a great Viennese writer, a Jew to boot, who closely witnessed the rise of Hitler and Mussolini and recounted the consequent destruction of the old Europe that he loved so much. In The world of yesterday, Zweig describes the extraordinary precision of the Nazi movement — its parades, as well as its batons, perfectly coordinated in impeccable uniforms. “Inflation, unemployment […]the madness of foreign governments […] had aroused the German people: a gigantic desire for order was manifested in all circles of this people, for whom order has always been more valuable than freedom and law. »
Let us remember the display of twisted faces and bizarre costumes in the invaded Capitol. Trumpism embodies disorder. Whether we like it or not, it is part of our democracy.