Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Why Trump is not a Fascist

Forbes confirms that Fauci is the highest paid federal govt employee. He made more than Trump's salary would have been. (Trump waived his salary.)

In NY Times interviews, Fauci reveals (1) Trump is, by nature, an optimist, and wanted to be more upbeat about the coronavirus; (2) when presented with dire predictions, Trump demanded facts and data to support them; (3) Trump got input from other sources, besides Fauci; and (4) Trump always let Fauci say what he wanted to say.

The paper reports all this as if it were some giant revelation about how unusual Trump was, and how different serving under Pres. Biden will be.

The paper pumped Fauci for examples of being threatened or intimidated, and the only example was that one time Trump's chief of staff called him and said something about his words being twisted inaccurately to imply a criticism of Trump. At no time did Fauci consider quitting or think that he could not do his job.

I am not getting it. Isn't this what a President should do? Be skeptical about dire warnings? Get input from other sources?

Apparently not. The Left wants to be able to have some climate change expert march into the White House, recite some mumbo jumbo about having to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline to save the polar bears, and have the President do it without asking any tough questions. Biden is their guy.

A leftist Trump-hating history professor writes:

Why Trump isn’t a fascist ...

The temptation to draw parallels between Trump and the fascist leaders of the 20th century is understandable. How better to express the fear, loathing and contempt that Trump arouses in liberals than by comparing him to the ultimate political evil? ...

For all of Trump’s hostility towards countries he perceives as enemies of the US, notably Iran, there is no indication that he sought a war with any foreign power, still less that he has been consumed by a desire for foreign conquest and the creation of an American empire. He is an isolationist, busy withdrawing US troops from foreign adventures, from Syria to Afghanistan. “America first” is not about launching foreign wars but disengaging from them.

Trump’s encouragement of violence against his opponents at home has been unsystematic. ...

But 6 January was not an attempted coup. Nor is one likely to occur on 20 January. For all of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, the attack on Congress was not a pre-planned attempt to seize the reins of government. ...

Both Hitler and Mussolini ensured a near-total “coordination” of social institutions and voluntary associations, as everything from football clubs to male voice choirs was absorbed into the structures of the fascist state. This social policy was maintained by huge bureaucratic regimes, providing jobs for thousands of their followers hungry for income and status after years of hardship and privation.

Today's coordination of social institutions for various social policies is almost entirely on the Left. Trump does not even believe in the concept.

The NY Times reports:

In the race to the bottom for the title of worst American president, the same few sorry names appear at the end of almost every list, jockeying for last place. There’s Andrew Johnson, whose abysmal behavior during Reconstruction led to the first presidential impeachment. There’s Warren G. Harding, responsible for the Teapot Dome scandal. There’s hapless, hated Franklin Pierce; doomed, dead-after-32-days William Henry Harrison; and inevitably, James Buchanan, often considered worst of all because of how badly he bungled the lead-up to the Civil War.

But as historians consider the legacy of Donald J. Trump, it appears that even the woefully inadequate Buchanan has some serious competition for the spot at the bottom.

It goes on to say that the consensus is that Trump is among the worst 2 or 3 or the 45 US Presidents.

The funny thing is that none of the criticisms are based on anything that they say made the nation worse off. They are primarily complaints about his personality.

He must have been a great President if all those smart professors cannot even name anything harmful he did.

I remember reading a similar article at the end of the Ronald Reagan presidency. One of the worst ever, they said. Except that one pundit wrote a convincing essay saying that Reagan should be credited, more than any single other man, with winning the Cold War.

When confronted with the essay, some historians said things like: "Uh, er, I didn't think of that. I didn't realize that he did so many things that were so crucial to winning the Cold War. Winning the Cold War was possibly the most important accomplishment of the XX century. If I take his role into account, then we should upgrade his ranking."

They were professional historians and they were oblivious to the fact that the Cold War was won under Reagan's watch.

I look forward to a comparison of Trump's and Biden's accomplishments. Biden will be one of the worst Presidents. It has already been bad, and it has only been a week.

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