Opinion: Trump and Fascism

The following column appeared originally in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on October 14, 2025. It is reposted here with permission of the author.

Before the 2020 presidential election, I wrote a guest column in the Gazette warning if we did not defeat Donald Trump that November, “there’s a pronounced risk of fascism in our country.”  (“From Sanders to Biden,” Aug. 31, 2020.)  

Now, it’s no longer a risk — fascism is being steadily and alarmingly implemented.        

In 2020, I pointed to Trump applauding political violence or the threat of it, his tacit encouragement of armed demonstrations at the Michigan state capitol, his ominous assertion that “I have the support of the police … the military … I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad … ”  Trump disturbingly said in 2016:  “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters … ”

The shooting’s begun, now against Caribbean boats, on mere allegations of drug smuggling or “terrorist” gang affiliation, without any proffered evidence, without any trial, without any congressional authorization for war.  Such extrajudicial killings are unlikely to remain overseas.

Trump just informed our top military commanders they’d be engaged in a “war from within,” saying:  “We should use some of these dangerous [American] cities as training grounds for our military, … [I]t seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats … San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out, one by one … It’s a war from within.” 

After a federal judge blocked Trump’s planned use of National Guard in Portland, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, to “get around” court rulings blocking his efforts to deploy troops in our streets.

Trump’s also shaping ICE into a massive domestic army.  After building such a big hammer, every Democratic city looks like a nail. So, we’ve had federal agents rappelling from a Blackhawk helicopter onto a Chicago apartment complex, with 300 armed agents pulling residents, with zip-tied children, out into the street in the middle of the night.  

In 2020, I highlighted Trump’s dictatorial claim that: “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total,” and how in his first term he “attempted to discredit or replace independent voices that could restrain his authoritarian overreach … repeatedly invoke[d] ‘national emergencies’ to bypass Congress … [and] got rid of an attorney general who didn’t ‘protect’ him.” These transgressions have metastasized in Trump’s second term.

Then, the “president of law and order” reportedly told officials he’d pardon them if they had to violate laws to build his wall.  Now, on the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned over 1,500 people convicted or charged regarding January 6^th, when Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, injuring more than 140 police.  Later, a judge received this threatening, anonymous note:  “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS … WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”

The Trump administration is now maneuvering to hobble any Democratic electorate, to retain dominance over Congress.  This includes Trump aides reportedly pressuring Texas to redraw Congressional districts to try to add more Republican members to the House.  Trump has pushed Republican-controlled Missouri and Indiana to also redistrict.

Nine months in, we’ve already seen Democratic legislators or officials arrested, dragged off in handcuffs, or indicted, and now Trump’s proclaiming Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail.”   

The Trump administration’s used the levers of federal power to punish or pressure states and cities, universities, law firms, media companies, even late-night comedians.  Trump’s resort to wild fabrications, xenophobia, prejudice and fear to mobilize supporters has continued, helping distract from Trump’s economic failings, unpopular tariffs, billionaire tax cuts, and about-face on Epstein.

Trump’s notable first-term positive — disinterest in territorial conquest — he’s now jettisoned.  Now, closer to fascist type, he’s threatened force against, or annexation of, Greenland, Canada, and Panama, suggested re-taking Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and repeatedly bombed Venezuelan boats in what seems like prelude to land assault there.

The administration’s fascistic moves seem endless, from executive orders purporting to create a vague political crime of “domestic terrorism,” to attacking the independence of statutorily independent commissions, to imprisonment without criminal charges, to demanding prosecution of Trump’s “enemies.” 

Whatever legal and nonviolent resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover you can join, now is the time.  

Millions have a ready opportunity to protest Trump at nationwide “No Kings” demonstrations, Saturday, Oct. 18,  www.nokings.org . Ultimately, our numbers, solidarity, and the justice of our cause will get us through.

Rudy Perkins is a resident of Amherst.