Is Trump A Fascist?

 I agree that this is the wrong question. Trump himself may or may not ascribe to a conscious theory of fascism. There can be zero doubt that people like Stephen Miller are true fascists. Miller and his fellow travelers have a complete theory if power and racial hierarchies. Trump is just an authoritarian goon, a tin-pot dictator. He loves power for power's sake. Democratic accountability is his true enemy. Trump may not be crossed!

There are other ways to be authoritarian, and Trump embodies them. However, the "move fast, break things" ethos of Project 2025/The Dunning-Kruger DOGE Kids/Liberation Day seems to be slowly grinding down. The threat by Trump to remove Jerome Powell would be absolutely disastrous if he achieved it. It is, of course, illegal. The strength the of Federal Reserve is its independence. 

As Krugman notes, the strength of America has been its rule of law - as opposed to the whims of absolute monarchy. Monarchism or absolutism is bad precisely because no one person is THAT smart and Trump himself is notably stupid. Could a true genius do some good as an absolute dictator? Maybe for a while, maybe even a few years. In the end, though, any individual is fallible. 

The Narcissist in Chief will never understand that.

UPDATE: This post was written when I was scattered. Josh Marshall says it better:

We can talk endlessly about whether we’re still in a democracy or whether Trump wants to be or is acting like a dictator. We can debate words ‘fascism’ that were unknown before a century ago. But what we are seeing right now is the definition of tyranny, a half-archaic concept the founders of the American Republic were very familiar with. Trump’s rule is both lawless and arbitrary. He has taken the bundle of powers the constitution provides him to govern and defend the constitution and turned them to an entirely different and corrupt purpose: using them as weapons to attack the people and institutions he deems his enemies.

This kind of creature is precisely what the core architects of the constitutional order said document could never be used to create. The President is no King; he is subject to the law. And yet here we are. And it is the fraudulent doctrine of unitary executive authority which is walking before him like a statutory bushwhacker, clearing a path for him through every law and restraint. As I wrote above, this doctrine is based on theories and philosophical principles totally unknown to the architects of the constitution. It’s legitimacy can only rest on an argument about function. It fails the test totally. The constitution was sold to the American people, designed to prevent such a creature from emerging from its words and structures. But this doctrine turns out to be that creature’s greatest ally.