Those who enjoy reveling in their own moral superiority and the intellectual inferiority of the yokels will find much to enjoy in these two videos. If you must, brew up a nice cup of hot chocolate, or grab a frosty beer, or, better yet, pour a big glass on Jack Daniels, settle in by the fireplace, and have a fine old wallow.
That, however, was not why I wrote this post. I wrote this post to advance our understanding of what’s going on in these people’s heads. That understanding is an essential foundation if we want talk with our evangelical brethren and sistern—and if we want, in general, to begin to address the current regrettable state of our nation. Because it’s really hard to fix something that you don’t understand.
I will have some takes of my own on these matters. They will appear in a later post.
Authoritarianism and the White Evangelical Church
Pat Kahnke—not previously within my radar screen—retired as pastor of an evangelical church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2016. He has spent the remaining years explaining in books and podcases why people who love Jesus should not love Donald Trump.
Patriarchy, Misogyny, a Dab of Racism, and the White Evangelical Church
Russell Moore was the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Concerned over his ethics and his support for religious liberty, Moore’s compatriots in the SBC forced him to resign from the Commission and to exit the church in June, 2021.
As you probably know, David French is a lawyer, a New York Times columnist, and an actual Christian.
This follows up on the immediately preceding post. Some comments below.
1. What one key thing explains the rise of Trump? It’s a great question. I’ve been asking it for a decade, and so, very probably, have you.
In my opinion, this onion has a whole lot of layers, but if you’re looking to identify the essence of the matter, I think MacWilliams—he’s a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts—has as good an insight as any: (a) Always and everywhere, there are a goodly number of people with authoritarian tendencies. (b) Trump found a way to trigger these folks’ natural inclination toward authoritarianism. (c) The triggering process was greatly facilitated by the rise of the internet and of social media.
2. Some more layers to the onion, you said? Yes, I did say that. Here are some of them:
Point: with the rise of social media, a whole lot of our fellow citizens have detected a permission structure to joyfully embrace their inner asshole. One of these ways, but only one, is saying hello to the Nazi side of their personality.
Point: although I don’t believe either Goldberg or MacWilliams mentions racism by name, I think a large part of Trump’s attractiveness is the fact that he is both a stone cold racist and a wealthy celebrity. It gratifies his unwashed followers that a person of such wealth and celebrity will openly share their racism.
Point: I strongly suspect that, when a definitive history of our era is available, we’ll find it wasn’t just underlying racism, it wasn’t just the malign ability of one man to appear charismatic, and it wasn’t just the rise of social media as such. I think we’re going to find there was a whole lot of conscious, clever, compensated manipulation of social media by intelligent people in the pay of some of our economic overlords.
3. Always look on the bright side of life. Trump is not Machiavelli. His fundamental problem is that he believes a lot of his own bullshit—not all of it, but a whole lot of it, and a lot of it that is relevant to pursuing his fascist agenda. In consequence, he is forever misunderstanding key facts about the politico-economic environment. He lacks, moreover, the ability to gather, evaluate, and apply important information. He regularly fails to predict how key actors will respond to his lies, his bluster, his threats, and his bullshit. And when people do not respond as he might wish, his severely limited skill set handicaps him in reacting to an unfavorable situation. He cannot, for example, construct a rational argument or distinguish between a plausible lie and an implausible lie.
4. A lot of people think that things have changed in the past month. Are they right? Yes, I certainly think so. Michelle Goldberg identifies some key factors, and I agree with her.
Trump dimly perceives (a) that L’Affaire Epstein is a serious challenge to his continued popularity among the one third of the country who are his core supporters, and (b) that his standing with his own people is further threatened by the economic chaos caused by his policies on tariffs and immigration.
In response, Trump is trying both to appease and to distract the worst of his own supporters with military aggression, domestic and foreign. Because if the worst of the worst desert him, who will he have left?
5. What is the best advice for decent progressives? When your adversary is screwing himself, hold his beer, and let him get on with it.
We must oppose fascist aggression. And we must be mindful that Trump’s gross incompetence is helping him to dig his own political grave.
For the last decade there’s been a debate, among people who don’t like Donald Trump, about whether he’s a fascist.
The argument that he isn’t often hinges on two things. First, when Trump first came to power, he lacked a street-fighting force like Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts, even if he was able to muster a violent rabble on Jan. 6. “Trump didn’t proceed to unleash an army of paramilitary supporters in an American Kristallnacht or take dramatic action to remake the American state in his image,” wrote the leftists Daniel Bessner and Ben Burgis in “Did It Happen Here?,” a 2024 anthology examining the fascism question.
Second, Trump didn’t pursue campaigns of imperial expansion, which some scholars view as intrinsic to fascism. “For all of Trump’s hostility towards countries he perceives as enemies of the U.S., notably Iran, there is no indication that he sought a war with any foreign power, still less that he has been consumed by a desire for foreign conquest and the creation of an American empire,” wrote Richard J. Evans in his 2021 essay “Why Trump Isn’t a Fascist.”
It’s striking how much the arguments that Trump is nota fascist have suffered in just the first few days of this year, in which we’ve plunged to new depths of national madness.
Now that America has plucked the dictator Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela and announced that it would help itself to the country’s oil, other nations are adjusting to a reality in which we’re more predator than ally. European countries are contemplating stepping up their military presence in Greenland to protect it from the United States. An Economist headline proclaims, “Canada’s Armed Forces Are Planning for Threats From America.”
In the Midwest, Trump’s paramilitary forces killed a citizen in Minneapolis and now appear to be using her death to threaten other activists, barking at one observer, “You did not learn from what just happened?” Videos from the city show gun-toting men in masks and camouflage descending on people to demand proof of citizenship, pelting crowded streets with tear gas and sometimes attacking those who film them. Meanwhile, a new ICE recruiting ad declares, “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” which just happens to be part of the refrain of a white nationalist anthem.
Both ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis and Trump’s threatened seizure of Greenland are part of the same story: An increasingly unpopular regime is rapidly radicalizing and testing how far it can go down the road toward autocracy. If anyone had predicted back in 2024 precisely what Trump’s return to the White House was going to look like, I suspect they’d have been accused of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. But the shrillest of Resistance libs have always understood Trump better than those who make a show of their dispassion. As the heterodox writer Leighton Woodhouse put it on X, “The hysterical pussy hats were right.”
Of course they were. From the moment he descended his golden escalator, Trump’s message, the emotional core of his movement, has been textbook fascism. In his 2004 book “The Anatomy of Fascism,” the eminent historian Robert O. Paxton described the “mobilizing passions” that form fascism’s foundation. Among them are a “sense of overwhelming crisis” that renders traditional solutions obsolete; a belief that one’s own group has been victimized, justifying almost any action in redress; “dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict and alien influences”; and the need for a strong male leader with instincts more powerful than mere “abstract and universal reason.”
The premonitions of our current regime in Paxton’s work don’t stop there. Fascism, in his telling, is marked by its contradictory attitude toward modernity: a hatred of atomized urban life combined with a fetish for technology. Fascist movements “exploited the protests of the victims of rapid industrialization and globalization,” he wrote, though in power, they doubled down on industrial concentration. And, of course, fascists “need a demonized enemy against which to mobilize followers.”
If Trump didn’t always act on his most fascistic predilections in his first term, it was because he was restrained by the establishment types around him. Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, said that Trump repeatedly broached the idea of bombing Mexico. In 2019, Trump canceled a meeting with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark after she refused to entertain the idea of selling him Greenland. His taste for violence against his political enemies has never been secret, and was made clearest on Jan. 6, the event that led a once-doubtful Paxton to conclude that the word “fascist” applied to Trump.
None of this means that America is destined to become a fully fascist country. For now, we are trapped in the space between the liberal democracy most Americans grew up in and the dark, belligerent authoritarian state that our government seeks to impose. The important thing isn’t really the name we give to this political development, but our ability to see what’s happening clearly and make sense of its likely trajectory.
On the last page of “The Anatomy of Fascism,” Paxton offers a warning. “We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular ‘march’ on some capital to take root,” he writes. “Seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national ‘enemies’ is enough.”
When I was three years old, I had to learn by experience what are the consequences of sticking the table knife into the electric socket. Apparently, large numbers of our fellow citizens need to learn from experience that it is unwise to pick as your airline pilot someone suffering from severe mental illness, who lacks common sense, and who is quickly becoming senile and demented. Such a pilot is likely to fly the plane into the ground. It’s a shame the passenegers didn’t know that before the picked him.
The Markers of Authoritarianism
I think the New York Times did a good job laying out twelve markers of authoritarianism. (See the immediately preceding post.) That said, I also think some context is badly needed.
What Trump Doesn’t Know
Trump doesn’t know how to do second-order thinking. He cannot accurately grasp the consequences of his actions, or the consequences of the actions of others.
Trump doesn’t know how to think long term. Witness, for example, his thoughts on the filibuster.
Trump doesn’t know how to use any tools to achieve his goals, apart from bribery and threats, including threats of violence.
It is a constant surprise to Trump that, while some people will succumb to bribery and some will succumb to threats, others will not. In fact, for many, the threats will, from Trump’s perspective, be entirely counterproductive.
As a sociopath lacking all empathy, Trump is unable to appeal to others’ empathy, because he does not know that most people are empathetic, at least to some degree.
Trump doesn’t know how to construct a plausible argument. Thus, on the rare occasions when his positions have some merit, he cannot make a logical argument.
In fact, Trump is unaware that some arguments are backed by facts and logic, and some are just bullshit. To him, legal disputes are just a matter of which side screams the loudest. Because he is unaware that some legal positions are well founded and others are not, and because he cannot accurately predict the consequences of his actions, and because he is incapable of second order thinking, he has ordered the prosecution of Letitia James and James Comey even though the prosecutions will fail, and he and his legal team will be revealed as the idiots they are.
By contrast, a rational proto-fascist would have known that ordinary prosecutions of his enemies would fail, and he would do better to encourage violent action against them, outside the formal legal structure.
But Trump is the President
So, he can do a lot of mischief and cause a lot of chaos.
Trump’s Popularity is Headed South
From The Economist this morning:
Inflation and Criminal Immigrants
Trump’s slender margin of victory in 2024 was based on inflation and fears of criminal immigrants.
A rational proto-fascist would have kept his promise to try to lower inflation. A rational wannabe dictator would have realized that policies that tend to promote inflation will in fact increase inflation. Someone capable of second order thinking would have realized that higher inflation would decrease his popularity and make it harder for him to achieve his authoritarian dreams. Someone not blinded by grandiosity would recognize his loss of popularity when he sees it.
A rational nascent Nazi would recognize that if he has made inroads into the Latino community by promising to round up criminal immigrants, then he should round up criminal immigrants, not terrorize the whole Latino population.
And What About the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court is slow walking Trump’s emergency application to invade Illinois. On Wednesday of this week, they’ll hear oral argument on Trump’s tariff power grab. Other issues will follow in due course.
They game of Trump v. Justice is under way, but there are more innings to play. In the last game of the World Series, the Blue Jays were ahead at the end of eighth inning, but the Dodgers won the contest. Let’s let this game play out.
Yeah, But What if Trump Just Defies the Courts?
Well, as someone once said, aye, there’s the rub.
Let’s say Trump doesn’t want to obey a Supreme Court order and directs [insert name of police unit, National Guard, Army battalion, etc. etc.] to act in contravention of the Court’s decision, will the people making up that official body obey Trump or will they obey the Supreme Court or will law and order just break down?
I put it to you that it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that the … police, National Guard, Army, etc. … will just jerk their knees and do exactly what Trump tells them to do.
But Because I Can Do Second Order Thinking, I Post the Next Question
If the official organs of state power refuse to obey illegal orders, will Trump just call out the Proud Boys and the other hooligans?
Before I quote from Frum’s piece, I begin with some key points.
First, Frum is a mighty shrewd fellow.
Second, Frum grasps a vital truth: to understand what’s going on around us, you have absolutely got to focus on what motivates people. That’s people in general. That’s individual people, with all their eccentricities and foibles. And that’s categories of people. And, in our day and age, the category of criminals and opportunists who surround Trump.
If the Trump hangers on think that Trump is prevailing, well, that’s one calculation. But if they begin to fear he’s losing, well, that’s another calculation entirely.
So, with those thoughts in mind, take it away, David!
President Donald Trump is worried that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving too slowly to prosecute his political adversaries on fake charges. Trump has good reason to be concerned. He is carrying out his project to consolidate authoritarian power against the trend of declining public support for his administration and himself. He is like a man trying to race upward on a downward-moving escalator. If he loses the race, he will be pulled ever deeper below—and the escalator keeps moving faster against him.
Autocracies are headed by one man but require the cooperation of many others. Some collaborators may sincerely share the autocrat’s goals, but opportunists provide a crucial margin of support. In the United States, such people now have to make a difficult calculation: Do the present benefits of submitting to Trump’s will outweigh the future hazards?
As Bondi makes her daily decisions about whether to abuse her powers to please Trump, she has to begin with one big political assessment: Will Trump ultimately retain the power to reward and punish her? It’s not just about keeping her present job. On the one hand, people in Trump’s favor can make a lot of money from their proximity to power. On the other, Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, served 19 months in prison for his crimes during Watergate. If Trump’s hold on power loosens, Bondi could share Mitchell’s fate.
Trump’s hold on power is indeed loosening. His standing with the voting public is quickly deteriorating. Grocery prices jumped in August 2025 at the fastest speed since the peak of the post-pandemic inflation in 2022. Job growth has stalled to practically zero.
Almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of higher tariffs, Trump’s signature economic move. His administration’s attack on vaccines for young children is even more unpopular. This year has brought the highest number of measles cases since the Clinton administration introduced free universal vaccination for young children in 1993. Parents may be rightly shocked and angry.
Shortly after MSNBC reported that Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, had accepted $50,000 in cash from FBI agents posing as businessmen last year, allegedly in exchange for a promise to help secure government contracts, the pro-Trump podcaster Megyn Kelly posted, “We DO NOT CARE.” This kind of acquiescence to corruption has been one of Trump’s most important resources. But the American people become a lot less tolerant of corruption in their leaders when they feel themselves under economic pressure. As of early August, nearly two-thirds of Americans regarded Trump as corrupt, 45 percent as “very corrupt.” More than 60 percent think the Trump administration is covering up the Jeffrey Epstein case. Almost 60 percent regard Bondi personally responsible for the cover-up.
The MAGA project in many ways resembles one of former businessman Donald Trump’s dangerously leveraged real-estate deals. A comparatively small number of fanatics are heart-and-soul committed. Through them, Trump controls the Republican apparatus and the right-wing media world, which allows him to do things like gerrymander states where he is in trouble (50 percent of Texans now disapprove of Trump, while only 43 percent approve) or wield the enforcement powers of the Federal Communications Commission to silence on-air critics. But overleveraged structures are susceptible to external shocks and internal mistakes.
Trump in his first term mostly avoided screwing up the economy. His trade wars with China triggered a nearly 20 percent stock-market slump in the fall and early winter of 2018. Trump retreated, and no recession followed the slump until the COVID shock of 2020. But in his second term, Trump has jettisoned his former economic caution. The stock market is doing fine in 2025 on hopes of interest-rate cuts. The real economy is worsening. The percentage of Americans who think the country is on the “wrong track” rose sharply over the summer. Even self-identified Republicans are now more negative than positive.
The souring is especially bitter among younger people. More than 60 percent of Republicans younger than 45 say things are on the wrong track, a 30-point deterioration over the three summer months.
Trump has a shrewd instinct for survival. He must sense that if he does not act now to prevent free and fair elections in 2026, he will lose much of his power—and all of his impunity. That’s why he is squeezing Bondi. But for her, the thought process must be very different. Trump is hoping to offload culpability for his misconduct onto her. She’s the one most directly at risk if she gives orders later shown to be unethical or illegal.
The survival of American rights and liberties may now turn less on the question of whether Pam Bondi is a person of integrity—which we already know the dismal answer to—than whether she is willing to risk her career and maybe even her personal freedom for a president on his way to repudiation unless he can fully pervert the U.S. legal system and the 2026 elections.
In this video, Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale and author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, makes it sound as if the authoritarians are bound to win.
Stanley’s pessimism contrasts with David Brooks, who contends that Trump isn’t organized enough to be a Mussolini. That, according to Brooks, is the good news. The bad news is that he’s an anarchist.
But I digress. I take Professor Stanley’s point about the fascist oligarchs. But our side has its own billionaires. Contrary to what your instinct might be, IMHO, our side needs to work with them—and to discourage any of them planning to leave the country.
Facing MAGA 