Plus fascistique…

A number of very well-credentialed conservatives have begun applying the f-word to Trump and his movement. I’ve been unwilling to call Trumpism more than crypto-fascist, but there are fewer and fewer boxes on the list still to be checked.

One of the remaining limitations is that, while the fascists were ideologically “anti-intellectual,” they were not non-intellectual. Their leaders and ideologues were busy writing books and manifestos to the greater glory of their “ism.” Trump is many ugly things, but he’s not a very developed ideologue. In a way, that might even make him more authentically fascist than the fascists, who merely talked about power for the sake of power and about the rejection of intellectualism. Trump’s ideas hardly qualify as ideas at all. The fascist ideologues could only dream of being as unreflective as he is.