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Notes -
At the beginning of Trump's first term, I was on board with the view that Trump wouldn't be That Bad. I anticipated he'd be something akin to an American Berlusconi: vulgar, corrupt, lawless, and an overall national embarrassment, but not in a way that was systemically threatening. My views turned steadily more negative as it became clear that the TDSers were basically right, albeit overly pessimistic about the strength of political guardrails.
I don't think Trump is a fascist (because fascism is something very specific), but I think he is a personalist and reactionary authoritarian who has surrounded himself with advisors who are, while also not properly fascist, share the same fixation on a directionally fashy illiberal nationalist renewal. Trump is too venal and brainrotted to conceive of anything as ambitious as fascism, but that doesn't stop him from cheerfully taking on the mantle of mad king while wrecking the country. (There's also the matter of conservatives more broadly openly flirting with authoritarian ethnonationalism)
And given the... provocative nature of how the second Trump admin is governing, I don't expect there to be any less energy in the next swing of the pendulum.
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