Unfortunately, I think the major party nominees, at least for federal office, are going to keep getting more morally grotesque, and the major party platforms are going to keep getting more and more abhorrent from a Catholic perspective barring divine intervention.
I highly doubt I will ever again be able to vote in good conscience for a major nominee for President or US Senator for the rest of my lifetime. Most people seem to be voting “against” the major party nominees they fear the most, and that is a very poor way to run the country.
Sonski/Onak 2024 for me all the way for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, baby! Power to the Pelicans!
I couldn't agree more with this post. In fact, I wrote an entire web novel articulating exactly the points you make, having a teenage boy in a futuristic divided America get drafted by an alt-right militia then imprisoned in a woke re-education camp.
I'd be very interested to hear if you think I got the notes right.
I checked out your profile and found your background super interesting! I wondered if you'd be open to writing a review of my story given your unique perspective. It would mean a lot to have your take highlighted, especially as I work to reach new readers who I think would benefit from a message against political demonization. So far I've gotten several extremely angry reviews by those who are mad that I decided not to rewrite the Handmaid's Tale...
Knowing that this is the sort of thing you would have grown up hearing helps build an understanding of you.
What fascists have to say about themselves, or indeed whatever their personal convictions might be, is of fairly minimal significance to evaluating who or what fascism is. Imagine citing Hannah Arendt and then using Trump's lack of personal animus in an argument for his not being fascist. I realize Banality of Evil is a separate essay, but... no really. From Origin of Totalitarianism, it's pretty clear that totalitarian movements use scapegoats to centralize power, such that a petty narcissist can make the perfect fascist.
It's quite an astonishing feat of rhetoric to characterize those protecting scapegoats of historic (and present) Nazis as the *real* totalitarians, and the people who want to remove the individual liberties of those scapegoats as their victims. But this victim reversal seems to be the standard move of those who support or minimize the harm of fascism.
Highly recommend The Origins of Totalitarianism. Evaluating Trumpism's historical continuity with Nazism survives that text quite well. As for Mussolini, Trump never slept with a copy of his speeches beside his bed. It's Hitler's speeches that Trump kept close, according to divorce proceedings and later his own statements, and he quotes or paraphrases them regularly.
You do understand that "protects certain identity groups from harm" and "totalitarian" are not mutually exclusive character traits, right? Especially considering that you offered no kind of counterpoint to Dr. Heaney's contention regarding whether Democrats are willing to allow any kind of dissent to their ideology.
"Imagine citing Hannah Arendt and then using Trump's lack of personal animus in an argument for his not being fascist."
On the other hand, imagine rebutting a man who's taught Arendt in classrooms for thirty years with an "imagine doing X" statement! This construction isn't an argument, and, indeed, explicitly calls attention to its own lack of argument.
I think this comment blurs the boundaries between fascism and totalitarianism together in a way that OP's text specifically rejects. There is a lot about the American population that seems receptive to a totalitarian, and I (at least) will go a step further and agree that, because the Platonic tyrant and the Arendt's totalitarian leader have a lot of the same traits, the fact that Trump is a tyrant makes it very easy to picture him in the leading role in her book.
However, OP's first point is that, whatever Trumpism is, whether it's totalitarian or not, it isn't *fascism*. Arendt herself, at least in Part III of The Origins of Totalitarianism, carefully maintains just these distinctions between fascism, nazism, communism, and totalitarianism in the broader sense. She seems to recognize the importance of speaking precisely about these different systems.
Now, if your position is that Trump is not merely a tyrant but an actual totalitarian, I don't think that's a crazy argument to make. The Platonic tyrant is enough like Arendt's totalitarian "functionary leader" that you can probably make that case using Arendt. But you do run into difficult passages like this one (on page 325 of my edition), which makes *precisely* the same distinction between tyranny and totalitarianism that OP makes:
> Lack of or ignoring of a party program is by itself not necessarily a sign of totalitarianism. The first to consider programs and platforms as needless scraps of paper and embarrassing promises, inconsistent with the style and impetus of a movement, was Mussolini with his Fascist philosophy of activism and inspiration through the historical moment itself. 39 Mere lust for power combined with contempt for "talkative" articulation of what they intend to do with it is characteristic of all mob leaders, but does not come up to the standards of totalitarianism. The true goal of Fascism was only to seize power and establish the Fascist "elite" as uncontested ruler over the country. Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within. In this sense it eliminates the distance between the rulers and the ruled and achieves a condition in which power and the will to power, as we understand them, play no role, or at best, a secondary role.
When I read this passage, I mentally classify Trump as the "mob leader" rather than the "totalitarian," since Trump and his coterie have only ever (at least to my recall) used, or attempted to use, or longed to use, "external means" of coercion, rather than the universal coerced involvement Arendt writes about in this passage and throughout Part III. Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you are right, but I am not convinced at present.
OP's second point is that the opposition fancies itself a protective force (as you say), but that doesn't make them *not* totalitarians. If they use totalitarian tools in pursuit of that protection, I've got bad news for the protective force. This has obvious historical parallels: as you say, every totalitarian wants to cast the other guy as the totalitarian. In the original communism-vs-nazism showdown, of course, they both were, and it was not a particularly impressive rhetorical feat to point that out. It's not implausible that we would see something similar happen today.
It does seem odd to characterize OP as "supporting or minimizing the harm of fascism" when OP calls Trump a "tyrant" who "fomented a coup d'etat," and who is "soon hated by almost everyone." The allusion to Plato's Republic is not flattering: Plato's tyranny is a doom loop for the citizens of the Republic, who fall further and further into misery and suffering and oppression, and Plato presents no solution. OP is not calling Trump a good guy!
It's always been clear that Donald Trump has no ideology other than himself. I'm not so sure that the post-Sexual Revolution Left, represented by Kamala Harris, are fascists, but I admit you make a good case.
This article leaves me curious to understand where Dr. Heaney falls on the liberal-antiliberal spectrum.
In his view, is the ideal philosophy of governance classical liberalism, or is it Catholic integralism? If the latter, could he defend integralism from the same critiques which he has leveled against progressivism in terms that a non-Catholic audience would accept?
My father is bad at the Internet and social media and comments, so I eventually realized he was never going to see this or answer it. So I asked him at dinner.
"Would you say you're a Catholic integralist...?"
"I don't think so. No. No."
"...or a classical liberal?"
"Oh, no, DEFINITELY not!"
I probably should have followed up from there, but there was a lot to talk about at dinner on Thursday after the election.
If you want his son's speculation, I think it would be close to the mark to say that his bedrock political belief is that human law should flow from the natural law, as understood by Aristotle, toward the common good, also as understood by Aristotle.
Great article, Dr. Heaney!
Unfortunately, I think the major party nominees, at least for federal office, are going to keep getting more morally grotesque, and the major party platforms are going to keep getting more and more abhorrent from a Catholic perspective barring divine intervention.
I highly doubt I will ever again be able to vote in good conscience for a major nominee for President or US Senator for the rest of my lifetime. Most people seem to be voting “against” the major party nominees they fear the most, and that is a very poor way to run the country.
Sonski/Onak 2024 for me all the way for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, baby! Power to the Pelicans!
I couldn't agree more with this post. In fact, I wrote an entire web novel articulating exactly the points you make, having a teenage boy in a futuristic divided America get drafted by an alt-right militia then imprisoned in a woke re-education camp.
I'd be very interested to hear if you think I got the notes right.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/94670/red-zone-son/chapter/1821283/chapter-1-you-can-stare-at-the-sky-when-youre
Very cool! I will have to give this a read too!
I checked out your profile and found your background super interesting! I wondered if you'd be open to writing a review of my story given your unique perspective. It would mean a lot to have your take highlighted, especially as I work to reach new readers who I think would benefit from a message against political demonization. So far I've gotten several extremely angry reviews by those who are mad that I decided not to rewrite the Handmaid's Tale...
Knowing that this is the sort of thing you would have grown up hearing helps build an understanding of you.
What fascists have to say about themselves, or indeed whatever their personal convictions might be, is of fairly minimal significance to evaluating who or what fascism is. Imagine citing Hannah Arendt and then using Trump's lack of personal animus in an argument for his not being fascist. I realize Banality of Evil is a separate essay, but... no really. From Origin of Totalitarianism, it's pretty clear that totalitarian movements use scapegoats to centralize power, such that a petty narcissist can make the perfect fascist.
It's quite an astonishing feat of rhetoric to characterize those protecting scapegoats of historic (and present) Nazis as the *real* totalitarians, and the people who want to remove the individual liberties of those scapegoats as their victims. But this victim reversal seems to be the standard move of those who support or minimize the harm of fascism.
Highly recommend The Origins of Totalitarianism. Evaluating Trumpism's historical continuity with Nazism survives that text quite well. As for Mussolini, Trump never slept with a copy of his speeches beside his bed. It's Hitler's speeches that Trump kept close, according to divorce proceedings and later his own statements, and he quotes or paraphrases them regularly.
You do understand that "protects certain identity groups from harm" and "totalitarian" are not mutually exclusive character traits, right? Especially considering that you offered no kind of counterpoint to Dr. Heaney's contention regarding whether Democrats are willing to allow any kind of dissent to their ideology.
"Imagine citing Hannah Arendt and then using Trump's lack of personal animus in an argument for his not being fascist."
On the other hand, imagine rebutting a man who's taught Arendt in classrooms for thirty years with an "imagine doing X" statement! This construction isn't an argument, and, indeed, explicitly calls attention to its own lack of argument.
I think this comment blurs the boundaries between fascism and totalitarianism together in a way that OP's text specifically rejects. There is a lot about the American population that seems receptive to a totalitarian, and I (at least) will go a step further and agree that, because the Platonic tyrant and the Arendt's totalitarian leader have a lot of the same traits, the fact that Trump is a tyrant makes it very easy to picture him in the leading role in her book.
However, OP's first point is that, whatever Trumpism is, whether it's totalitarian or not, it isn't *fascism*. Arendt herself, at least in Part III of The Origins of Totalitarianism, carefully maintains just these distinctions between fascism, nazism, communism, and totalitarianism in the broader sense. She seems to recognize the importance of speaking precisely about these different systems.
Now, if your position is that Trump is not merely a tyrant but an actual totalitarian, I don't think that's a crazy argument to make. The Platonic tyrant is enough like Arendt's totalitarian "functionary leader" that you can probably make that case using Arendt. But you do run into difficult passages like this one (on page 325 of my edition), which makes *precisely* the same distinction between tyranny and totalitarianism that OP makes:
> Lack of or ignoring of a party program is by itself not necessarily a sign of totalitarianism. The first to consider programs and platforms as needless scraps of paper and embarrassing promises, inconsistent with the style and impetus of a movement, was Mussolini with his Fascist philosophy of activism and inspiration through the historical moment itself. 39 Mere lust for power combined with contempt for "talkative" articulation of what they intend to do with it is characteristic of all mob leaders, but does not come up to the standards of totalitarianism. The true goal of Fascism was only to seize power and establish the Fascist "elite" as uncontested ruler over the country. Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within. In this sense it eliminates the distance between the rulers and the ruled and achieves a condition in which power and the will to power, as we understand them, play no role, or at best, a secondary role.
When I read this passage, I mentally classify Trump as the "mob leader" rather than the "totalitarian," since Trump and his coterie have only ever (at least to my recall) used, or attempted to use, or longed to use, "external means" of coercion, rather than the universal coerced involvement Arendt writes about in this passage and throughout Part III. Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you are right, but I am not convinced at present.
OP's second point is that the opposition fancies itself a protective force (as you say), but that doesn't make them *not* totalitarians. If they use totalitarian tools in pursuit of that protection, I've got bad news for the protective force. This has obvious historical parallels: as you say, every totalitarian wants to cast the other guy as the totalitarian. In the original communism-vs-nazism showdown, of course, they both were, and it was not a particularly impressive rhetorical feat to point that out. It's not implausible that we would see something similar happen today.
It does seem odd to characterize OP as "supporting or minimizing the harm of fascism" when OP calls Trump a "tyrant" who "fomented a coup d'etat," and who is "soon hated by almost everyone." The allusion to Plato's Republic is not flattering: Plato's tyranny is a doom loop for the citizens of the Republic, who fall further and further into misery and suffering and oppression, and Plato presents no solution. OP is not calling Trump a good guy!
(Sidebar: The reason I don't believe Trump read Hitler's speeches is because I still don't believe Trump reads *anything* <https://theweek.com/articles/915606/trumps-lethal-aversion-reading>, and have never seen *definitive* proof that he is, in fact, literate <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LFkN7QGp2c>. This does not, of course, mean that he is not dangerous.)
Thank you for this article, Dr. Heaney.
It's always been clear that Donald Trump has no ideology other than himself. I'm not so sure that the post-Sexual Revolution Left, represented by Kamala Harris, are fascists, but I admit you make a good case.
Trump seems more like an evil mobster and cult leader to me than a fascist.
This article leaves me curious to understand where Dr. Heaney falls on the liberal-antiliberal spectrum.
In his view, is the ideal philosophy of governance classical liberalism, or is it Catholic integralism? If the latter, could he defend integralism from the same critiques which he has leveled against progressivism in terms that a non-Catholic audience would accept?
My father is bad at the Internet and social media and comments, so I eventually realized he was never going to see this or answer it. So I asked him at dinner.
"Would you say you're a Catholic integralist...?"
"I don't think so. No. No."
"...or a classical liberal?"
"Oh, no, DEFINITELY not!"
I probably should have followed up from there, but there was a lot to talk about at dinner on Thursday after the election.
If you want his son's speculation, I think it would be close to the mark to say that his bedrock political belief is that human law should flow from the natural law, as understood by Aristotle, toward the common good, also as understood by Aristotle.