Some listeners from back in 2015 and 2016 may remember that I made the following statement about Trump: “I think he’s a fascist.” I did it because to me, being brought up in what was called the “old left” --- all four of my parents were communists --- FASCIST is an extreme epithet for right-wing individuals and policies.
[My brother and I collaborated on a book We Are Your Sons which was published initially in 1975 but came out with a second edition (University of Illinois Press) in 1986. My brother published his own memoir, An Execution in the Family (Robert Meeropol) and my daughter made a documentary about our family, Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story (available on HBO). There is an outstanding article written about my father, Abel Meeropol, which was published in the journal American Music (Nancy Kovaleff Baker, Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allan): political commentator and social conscience – Spring, 2002)]
I detest Trump as an individual and have detested his policies. While he was President, I began to wonder whether we were witnessing a transition away from America’s democratic republic. Some of the changes he instituted were well within the realm of policy changes consistent with our form of government. Much as I detested his rolling back of important regulations, there was nothing unusual about that. Both Ronald Reagan and both Bushes had done the same. It was things like the Muslim ban --- clearly overstepping his legal authority as President --- and the enforced separation of children from their parents at the border that really brought me up short. Those were like what FDR did during WW II with the internment of the Japanese-Americans or the routine acquittal by all-white juries of whites who had murdered black people – such as in the case of Emmett Till back in the 1950s.
I also fear the promised policy changes that will be introduced during a second Trump presidency. I have read enough accounts of Trump’s first term to realize that there were a number of serious politicians that blocked some of his worst ideas. So one of the plans for a Trump second term is to make sure only LOYAL SYCHOPHANTS to Trump will be appointed to positions in his administration --- even though (let us remember) they take an oath to the CONSTITUTION not to a person.
[I have begun the process of studying Project 2025 which is a 900 odd page blueprint of the kinds of changes that would be introduced in a second Trump term --- moving our country well on the way to an undemocratic, authoritarian state. The website is at https://www.project2025.org. I have placed an order to buy a hard copy but been informed that they have run out. But the entire set of proposals can be read for free on line. There have also been some pretty good journalistic summaries of some of the worst parts of it --- but I believe it will certainly be worth it to me to read the entire thing --- just to be fair.]
My fear that a second Trump term might actually transform the American political system into a much authoritarian and much less democratic version of what it became in the middle of the 1960s has led me to decide to make myself available to civic and University groups as both a historian and someone who lived recent American history. Since 1973, I have spent over 50 years in research and activism around the case of my parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. I haven’t just studied that issue, I have lived it. Also, because my field has been Economic History (I like to call myself an historian with an economics degree) and because I have had opportunities to teach interdisciplinary courses at the college level for over 50 year, I have significant professional expertise teaching recent American history. This combination of study and experience has led me to believe that I have something to offer audiences --- especially in the lead up to next November’s Presidential election. I am attaching a prospectus on my talks to this commentary.
To increase my knowledge base, I have been reading extensively both about the Trump presidency and about American political history. I also attended a panel at the American Historical Association meetings in January which explored the question of the danger of fascism in America today. I learned a lot from that panel and from conversations and communication with members of the panel.
For the four minute radio commentary, I presented a short (and I hope ) simple summary version of what I think is going on in the United States.
But before I discuss dangers to what politicians often refer to as “our democracy,” let me start by identifying what I mean by “democracy.” I consider a democratic society, one in which majority rule flourishes in making political decisions. I consider a “liberal” democratic society, one in which individual liberties are protected from the power of the state so long as individual actions do not infringe on the individual liberties of others. Thus, I consider our Bill of Rights --- the first ten amendments to the Constitution --- to be extremely important. I consider the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments as well as the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote extremely important.
By these standards, the US is far from democratic. In fact, often right-wingers assert that “[w]e are not a democracy, we are a republic.” And yes, the republic created by the Constitution was quite undemocratic. Slavery existed. Women did not have the right to vote. Men without sufficient property were also not given the right to vote.
The existence of the United States Senate severely limits the rights of the majority to make decisions. (Initially, the Senators were elected by State Legislatures not directly by the people!). The existence of the filibuster which governs many actions in the Senate has led to thwarting of the will of the majority countless times in the past 15 years (even since Mitch McConnell used the filibuster routinely --- requiring a 60-vote margin for most decisions in the Senate). The existence of the Electoral College has denied the majority of Americans the right to pick a President TWICE in the past 25 years. I could go on but you get the picture.
Nevertheless, it was possible for a majority of voters in important electoral vote states to cast their votes and have them counted in 2020. Despite tremendous pressure and the creation of slates of fake electors, election officials accurately certified the winner of their states’ electoral votes and Vice President Pence accurately counted, and Congress voted to certify, those votes in the wee hours between January 6 and January 7 of 2021.
So yes --- our democratic forms held in 2020.
Most listeners have heard of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Some are no doubt aware that the Civil Rights Act also applied the anti-discrimination features of that law to increase the rights of women. The Supreme Court chimed in with the ruling in Roe v. Wade that gave the right to reproductive control to women and their doctors and took it away from governments. These are well known milestones in the expansion of individual rights.
Less well known is the fact that an immigration act passed in 1965 reversed over 40 years of discrimination against prospective immigrants, making it much easier for potential immigrants to come here. The result of that act has been dramatic. Immigrants represented only 5 percent of the population in 1970 and over 14 percent in 2020.
The Civil Rights Acts and the Immigration Act were passed overwhelmingly by Congress. I would argue that it was only with the passage of those laws, that our country finally made good on the promise of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments to the Constitution. We were much more democratic as a nation in 1974 than we were in 1960!
And of course, those surges of progress produced a backlash. I have made numerous commentaries discussing the “Southern Strategy” of Richard Nixon in 1968 and how in fact the unreconstructed racists and the sexists who were outraged when women began to demand equal rights in the late 1960sd and early 1970s. From the very moment the laws were passed in the 1960s, there have been people working to reverse the impact of those laws.
I would say that the long struggle to reverse the progress made in the 1960s and 70s began to bear fruit during the Obama and Trump presidencies. The Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder started the process of eviscerating the Voting Rights Act – and emboldened many State Legislatures to create new restrictions on voting rights.
I see three groups who have been resisting progress coming together to create an unholy alliance – I call it the three-legged stool of authoritarianism. At first they were organizing to resist these positive trends but in the last eight years they have united to support Trump and Trumpism.
These three groups are – (1) the billionaire class, (2) the unreconstructed racists and sexists who wish that the civil rights movements of the 1960s and since had never occurred, and (3) the group that has come to be known as right-wing Christian nationalists.
The billionaire class has grown and increased their share of the country’s wealth dramatically ever since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. But they aren’t content with having billions and seeing them grow. They want to be praised for it and they cannot stand the thought that they will lose some of their privileges because of higher taxes and increased government regulation. There is no other explanation for the fact that despite doing very well during the Biden presidency, a significant number of billionaires have decided to support Triump because they know he will extend their tax cuts --- which are due to expire in 2025.
The unreconstructed racists resent what has come to be called “the browning of America.” – the idea that within a few decades whites will not be a majority of the population outrages them. This has been caused in part by the increased in immigration since 1970 and the fact that the complexion of American immigration has become more Latino than northern European. Worse, the idea that being a white man does not automatically make you top dog is frightening --- it produces in the worst of people a rage that can turn to murder.
Women are increasingly in danger from intimate partner violence. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics: “Of the estimated 4,970 female victims of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2021, data reported by law enforcement agencies indicate that 34% were killed by an intimate partner …. By comparison, about 6% of the 17,970 males murdered that year were victims of intimate partner homicide.” [see https://bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offender-relationship-2021#:~:text=Of%20the%20estimated%204%2C970%20female,victims%20of%20intimate%20partner%20homicide.]
The fact that our society had opened the door to full women’s reproductive rights and the acceptance of different family forms --- especially gay families -- united the minority of so-called Christians who want the United states to follow their version of morality into a reactionary political movement. Those Christian nationalists united with the racists and billionaires to create a toxic stew that is Trumpism.
These three groups are working hard to change America irrevocably whether Trump wins or loses. I hope to develop these ideas more fully before civic groups and college audiences this Fall and into next year.
Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.