Donald Trump, the fascist president

María Elvira Buelna

On May 31, Donald Trump lunch an odd tweet: “The States United of America will be

designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization. June First the president called a press

conference in Rose Garden. It began at 18:43 and finished at 18:50. Then he leaved from

de White House and marched by Lafayette Square until St. John Church. In this place,

he took some photo op, some of them with a cortege, other one on the top of the stairs

and raising the Holy Bible with the right hand like an old inquisitor who send the heretic

men to the hell.

A half hour before that the president marches to the St. John’s Church, the police

dispersed the pacific craw using teat gases. This grotesque behavior for a president, even

for one of the three world, had Donald Trump. The last May 25, George Floyd was

murder by four police offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A seventeen years old girl

recorded a video. The images were the drop that spilled the water from the glass, the

people, tired for suffering police violence and the structural racism of the police leave to

the streets demanding justice.

The authorities' first response in Minneapolis was to fire the police officies, but they did

not file charges against them. This was the origin of the protests. They started in this city

peacefully, but the authorities sent the police to disperse these protests with pepper

spray. Anger spread and protests spread across the country, but not only were African-

Americans or Latinos expressing their discontent, they were multiracial and

multicultural demonstrations that recognized this violence because of the murders of

young people by the local police and the difficulties that exist for punish the guilty. This

is because there is a double race determined by the color of the skin: whites have all the
protection of the law, the others are at the expense of the goodwill of the judges or the

jury, particularly when arbitrary acts are committed by authority because there is a

whole system of cover-up of a union and racial nature.

But the most delicate point of the behavior of the American president is the nominative

terrorist that he used to define ANTIFA. The meaning of this word for the president is

ANTFASCISTAS, which he identified as the "radical left" in the communication he had

with the governors on Sunday. Philip Bump, a reporter for the Washington Post, say that

the president assured to the governors: “These are terrorists, these are terrorists. They're

looking to do bad things to our country. They’re antifa, and they’re radical left” (Bump,

2020).

The fact that the American president defines who are or not "terrorists" is worrying.

George W. Bush got the Patriotic Act passed on October 26, 2001 (USC, 2001). It

established that the American President has the power to designate as such whoever he

considers to be the enemies of the United States. Trump has long considered those who

criticize him traitors, traitors to the homeland because he is the representative of the

nation. It is the sacrosanct power embedded in the presidential figure. So it was easy for

him to end up calling his "enemies" terrorists. Likewise, with this comment it is evident

that he is a fascist, so that the antifascists are his opponents.

What is also evident is that the George W. Bush administration institutionalized the use

of violence against non-whites, first Muslims, and by extrapolation all "non-Americans".

By concentrating power in the executive, he laid the foundations for the establishment of

an intolerant, fascist-oriented government. Unfortunately for the Republicans who

promoted this institutional change, Obama came to the presidency, which made it
difficult do his project a reality. The president himself belonged to wrong the racial

group. It was a greater affront. This fact was almost unbearable for the so-called

conservatives.

For this reason, old-fashioned Republicans supported Trump. A charismatic man capable

of winning the votes that the Good Old Party (GOP) had difficulty obtaining. Trump

belongs to the white supremacist groups. These are their main support and they behave

like the SS hitters who managed to intimidate Hitler's opposition. The difference is that

Trump's support groups carry high-powered weapons designed to kill two dozen people

with a shot.

The United States Congress published the Military Commissions Act (Public Law 109–

366. S. 2600) on October 17, 2006. This law does not know the legal personality of the

"terrorists". This was pointed out very punctually by Hannah Arendt in her book

Totalitarianism: “The first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the

legal person in man. This is achieved, on the one hand, by placing certain categories of

people outside the protection of the law and at the same time forcing the non-totalitarian

world, through the denationalization instrument, to recognize illegality. This is achieved,

on the other hand, by placing the concentration camp outside the normal penal system

and selecting its internees outside the normal judicial procedure in which a foreseeable

crime corresponds to a foreseeable penalty” (Arendt, 1951, p. 543).

Trump established concentration camps for children that he separated from his parents

when they came to the United States seeking asylum, but since the Patriotic Act

immigrants are by definition illegal, therefore, they do not have legal personality. Thus

they are treated as criminals and excluded from the normal legal system. It was evident
that the next ones they continued to ignore as citizens with legal personality were

African Americans, whom white supremacists consider "criminal by nature." This is

why even Republicans try to ignore their civil rights. That is the meaning of "Make

America Great Again", that is, you have to go back to the 1950s when whites segregated

the non-white population.

However, American civil society has given a demonstration of civility, of being a

society capable of fighting for their right to equality as human beings, for the recognition

of African Americans as citizens with equal rights. This is very hopeful for those of us

who live near the United States because the consolidation of Trump means the advance

of fascism in the world. We can only thank the young people who fight for civil rights.

References

Baump, P. (2020, June 1). The self-anointed ‘wartime president’ finds a

new, more exciting war. The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/01/self-anointed-wartime-
president-finds-new-more-exciting-war

USC. (2001). “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing

Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”. USA Patriot
Act. 107-56 H.R.3162. Published on October 26th. 107º Congress (2001-2002).
Recovered from
(https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/03162).
USC. (2006). Military Commissions Act of 2006. Public Law 109–366. S.
2600. Published on October 17th. 109º Congress (2005-2006).
https://www.congress.gov/109/plaws/publ366/PLAW-109publ366.pdf.