Americans, even those on the left, should be taking Donald Trump’s fascist tendencies much more seriously. Recently, Trump has made comments about using the military against the “enemy from within”. Though his right wing allies insist he is talking about foreign drug traffickers, marauders, and lunatics, some members of the media have, logically, insisted on calling attention to the people Trump has singled out as worthy of the “enemy from within” label, namely Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. They have urged Americans to take Trump at his word, rather than to recklessly dismiss his threats of oppression as mere bluster. I think it is wise to take the things a presidential candidate says seriously–frankly, I would have thought this went without saying. I wonder at those who would vote for someone whose words they do not believe. 

Ultimately, I feel it is naive to stop at merely countenancing the words that spew from Trump’s mouth. As accountable adults, we must also consider what is not being said. After all, criminals do not typically forecast the full extent of their plans. We must consider American history and other comments that Trump has made about Americans who disagree with him in order to be honest about where his movement might be heading, as horrifying as that may be. 

America is no stranger to fascism. And I don’t just mean that we are familiar with fascism because of our staunch opposition to it. While brave Americans have shown their resistance to such forces–most notably in World War II, where American soldiers fought against the dictator Trump apparently can’t help but mirror–American foreign policy has often led the fight for fascist oppression. In Latin America, for example, the US helped topple multiple democratically-elected leaders who disrupted our nation’s business interests. In these cases, America showed it would ardently support dictators and oligarchies that brutally oppressed and murdered civilians who did not agree with their agendas. Henry Kissinger gleefully shook the hand of Augusto Pinochet while tens of thousands of Chileans disappeared. US administrations armed and trained Guatemalan death squads who kidnapped and murdered civilians for their left-leaning political ideologies. 

Many Americans live peacefully ignorant of the knowledge of these and other such atrocities that our government has had a hand in. Foreign policy is not our strong suit. Some would probably justify the ignorance of what has been done in the name of the United States by saying they were much more concerned with the things that were going on at home, as if there were no connection between foreign and domestic policy. 

But things have changed. Donald J. Trump has promised to bring American-brand fascism to our homeland, and that is a more threatening proposal than most of us seem to realize. As his very words make clear, this means more than cracking down on criminals. But it may also mean more than danger to Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Trump has gone out of his way on multiple occasions to bestialize people who hold political opinions he does not support. Unlike traffickers, who are identified by their actions, “radical left lunatics” would need to be identified subjectively. As cliché as it is to evoke his name, we are now dealing with the notion of Orwellian thought crimes. Who would be the judge of such transgressions? With its ruling on Presidential power, the Supreme Court has signaled its willingness to step aside. The Republicans stood by at their National Convention as Kimberly Guilfoyle revised history to demonize communism instead of fascism, so they probably won’t help. And polls show that (thanks in part to the skew of that Seussian contraption known as the electoral college) the land of the free, which chose as its first amendment the right to have and express one’s opinion, may no longer be home to enough of the brave to keep fully-fledged fascism from taking over. 

Post-Election Update: We need to stand together to hold accountable both this incoming government, as well as the current government for its remaining time in power. We must do so from a place of love. We must evince humanity and peace. There are pressing issues that must be confronted. These administrations must be convinced that it is best to take care of our environment and promote equality. We must be charitable and frugal to contribute to these causes, and to draw support for them from those who govern us. We must hold to this line tightly. We must keep from attacking each other, while maintaining the fortitude to criticize insufficient ideation thoroughly. Where we see weakness, we must offer strength rather than pain and misery. We must not be content to wall ourselves in and incubate internal, temporary success. We have to address the root causes of global issues. It is a better investment to help others with their problems than to endlessly attempt to shield ourselves from their excess. This must be done in a way that promotes peace and democracy. We must not put the frivolous interests of a relatively few prosperous individuals before those of the multitudes. While it is only part of this world and its history, America is the most powerful nation that has ever existed. We must wield that power with skill and grace to help the planet out of its various crises. If we do not do this, we will fail any mission that could be considered just, and ultimately succumb to the same crises. Where does your scripture or moral compass read that we can be excused for failing to face humanitarian problems–to instead attempt to make them remote–given that we have been endowed with the intelligence to recognize them? As individuals we cannot solve the world’s greatest problems, but as a species, we must. There can be no prosperity where souls are forsaken.