Peter Dreier is a professor of politics at Occidental College in California.

In this article, he analyzes Trump’s inaugural speech and points out the language and ideas of fascism.

An excerpt:

“From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” Trump said. By branding his message “America First,” Trump was echoing and invoking a motto of the isolationist, anti-Semitic crusade in the 1930s that wanted the United States to appease Hitler.

“Indeed, Trump’s entire speech was a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland crazy quilt of words that meant the exactly opposite of what was expressed. It was an angry rant, reflecting the personality traits of an insecure bully: narcissistic, thin-skinned, revengeful, and impulsive, lacking empathy or humility.

“Fascists claim to speak for “the people,” while pursuing policies that overwhelmingly benefit a handful of the favored – families, cronies, corporations, and loyalists.

“Today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, “ Trump said today, “but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.” Later, he proclaimed: “January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

“Like other fascists, Trump claimed to speak for the “forgotten men and women,” whose voice has been ignored, whose job has been exported, whose neighborhood is unsafe, whose living standard has declined.

“Fascists always attack current politicians while claiming the mantle of “the people.”

“We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action,” Trump said today, using the same words he used several days earlier to defame Cong. John Lewis, a civil rights icon who, unlike Trump, put his body on the line countless times to make America a more humane and inclusive society.

“Fascists seek to unite the country behind a smokescreen of patriotism while scapegoating the weak and powerless.

“We are one nation, and their pain is our pain,” Trump said. “We share one heart, one home and one glorious destiny.”

“But his speech was a series of deflections away from the core problem facing the United States: the growing power of a tiny wealthy elite – sometimes called the “1%” but in reality the .001% — over our economy and politics.

“Trump has populated his Cabinet and top advisors with some of America’s wealthiest and greediest people, corporate robber barons, militarist zealots, Wall Street titans, right-wing conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites, and racists, some of them (like Trump) born wealth but who have demonstrated no inclination for public service or even noblesse oblige.

“To deflect attention away from the super-rich, Trump – like fascists throughout history – points his fingers at and scapegoats others. In today’s speech, he avoided explicit reference to Mexican immigrants, Muslims, China, Hollywood, the media, unions, and Jews – groups he castigated throughout the campaign. But his address included many dog whistles that his core supporters understand.

“We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own,” was Trump’s dog whistle to America’s white supremacist “alt right” movement, who want to deport undocumented immigrants while eliminating the social safety net from those who live here and contribute to our society.

“Trump personifies the worst aspects of corrupt crony capitalism. He inherited his father’s real estate empire, made possible by federal government housing subsidies. He has curried favor with Democratic and Republican politicians at the local, state and national level by contributing millions of dollars in campaign donations. He has abused the nation’s bankruptcy and tax laws to avoid his responsibility to his lenders, employees, business partners, and the country as a whole.

“In his address, Trump pledged that “We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.” But Trump has used undocumented immigrants to construct his glitzy apartment buildings and hotels. Most of the ties, suits, shirts, and other clothing items sold as part of the Donald J. Trump Collection are made in overseas sweatshops. Even the “Make America Great” caps worn by Trump supporters at the inauguration event, were made in China!

“Like fascists everywhere, Trump’s speech included a list of troubles he intends to fix, without pointing out that they were caused by the policies, people, and principles he embraces.”

Peter Greene admits that Trump called him out.

Peter is rolling in dough because he is a teacher. He has a maid and a butler and a Lexus and a BMW.  His school is flush with cash. When he is in school, he is careful never to teach anything to anyone, certainly not to the beautiful ones. If he makes a mistake and accidentally teaches something, he could be in trouble with the union. Oh, no!

It’s the most fundamental oath we take when we join the vast union-run government school conspiracy– whatever you do, make sure that you deprive students of all knowledge (especially the young and beautiful ones– it’s generally allowed to slip a few bits of knowledge to the older and ugly ones).

But I had done it. I had failed to deprive Susie of all knowledge, and now my union bosses will probably call me in for severe criticism, maybe even docking some of my conspirator’s pay. Of course it’s distressing– we just put a down payment on another home in the Hamptons (this one has a nicer view). I suppose we can sell off some of the jewelry.

Am I upset? Of course– I violated my most sacred teacher oath and accidentally taught someone, and we teachers take our oaths to interfere with education just as seriously as doctors take their oath to deny health care.

But now that we live in Trumpistan, under a leader who fully understands what we’re up to–well, we fought off the people who tried to prove we are denying students all knowledge by catching us with their tricky and insightful tests. But how will we deal with someone who has such keen insight into how the whole government school scam works as just a front for funneling tax dollars to make union teachers a special rich wing of the Democratic party? Now that Trump and DeVos have found us out and want a piece of the action, can even extra sacrifices to the Dark Lord help?

Collapse? No, no, I’m okay. I look shaky? Maybe I should sit down, but I’m not sick– I’m just flush with cash.

Liz Spayd, the public editor of the New York Times, published a shocking report on the newspaper’s tortured decision not to report on the federal government’s investigation of communications between the Trump camp and the Russian government.

The title of her article: “Trump, Russia, and the News Story That Wasn’t.”

The federal investigators did not want the story to get out because they did not want it to interfere with their investigation.

The Times’ editors debated whether they could report the investigation without disclosing any of the details.

They ultimately decided not to print the story about the investigation at all.

Spayd implies that she did not agree with the decision. She says that in the clash between the government and the newspaper, the government won.

All the “what ifs” keep coming up. If the Times had published the story that Trump was under investigation by the FBI, he very likely would not be president today.

What would you have done?

For those of us old enough to remember the origins of the term “America First,” it reminds us of Charles Lindbergh (the political part of him), Nazism, anti-Semitism, and a determination to let Hitler seize all of Europe.

Trump made “America First” a theme of his inaugural speech. It seems to be the definition of his foreign policy and his economic policy too.

David Sanger, veteran reporter for the New York Times, delves into the radical change that lies ahead, with the implication that Trump intends to abandon our European allies.

President Trump could have used his inaugural address to define one of the touchstone phrases of his campaign in the most inclusive way, arguing, as did many of his predecessors, that as the world’s greatest superpower rises, its partners will also prosper.

Instead, he chose a dark, hard-line alternative, one that appeared to herald the end of a 70-year American experiment to shape a world that would be eager to follow its lead. In Mr. Trump’s vision, America’s new strategy is to win every transaction and confrontation. Gone are the days, he said, when America extended its defensive umbrella without compensation, or spent billions to try to lift the fortune of foreign nations, with no easy-to-measure strategic benefits for the United States.

“From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first,” he said, in a line that resonated around the world as soon as he uttered it from the steps of the Capitol. “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”

The United States, he said, will no longer subsidize “the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.”

While all American presidents pledge to defend America’s interests first — that is the core of the presidential oath — presidents of both parties since the end of World War II have wrapped that effort in an expansion of the liberal democratic order. Until today, American policy has been a complete rejection of the America First rallying cry that the famed flier Charles Lindbergh championed when, in the late 1930s, he became one of the most prominent voices to keep the United States out of Europe’s wars, even if it meant abandoning the country’s closest allies.

Mr. Trump has rejected comparisons with the earlier movement, with its taint of Nazism and anti-Semitism.
After World War II, the United States buried the Lindbergh vision of America First. The United Nations was born in San Francisco and raised on the East River of Manhattan, an ambitious, if still unfulfilled, experiment in shaping a liberal order. Lifting the vanquished nations of World War II into democratic allies was the idea behind the Marshall Plan, the creation of the World Bank and institutions to spread American aid, technology and expertise around the world. And NATO was created to instill a commitment to common defense, though Mr. Trump has accurately observed that nearly seven decades later, many of its member nations do not pull their weight.

Mr. Trump’s defiant address made abundantly clear that his threat to pull out of those institutions, if they continue to take advantage of the United States’ willingness to subsidize them, could soon be translated into policy. All those decades of generosity, he said, punching the air for emphasis, had turned America into a loser.

“We’ve made other countries rich,” he said, “while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.” The American middle class has suffered the most, he said, finding its slice of the American dream “redistributed across the entire world.”

To those who helped build that global order, Mr. Trump’s vow was at best shortsighted. “Truman and Acheson, and everyone who followed, based our policy on a ‘world-first,’ not an ‘America-first,’ basis,” said Richard N. Haass, whose new book, “A World in Disarray,” argues that a more granular, short-term view of American interests will ultimately fail.

“A narrow America First posture will prompt other countries to pursue an equally narrow, independent foreign policy,” he said after Mr. Trump’s speech, “which will diminish U.S. influence and detract from global prosperity.”

For 70 years, the United States has had a bipartisan consensus that it is in our national interest to encourage cooperation among the nations of Europe. Europe, in fact, is our biggest trading partner.

Last night someone tweeted congratulations to Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, as she is now the leader of the free world. America has abandoned that role and embarked on a path of isolationism and protectionism.

There is a certain expectation that a new president’s inaugural speech will unite the nation and present a vision of a better future for all.

Ever surprising, Trump used his inaugural speech to continue the dark and divisive themes of his campaign. Things are terrible, and he alone cane save us.

George Will, the conservative columnist, called it the most dreadful inaugural speech ever.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/20/a-most-dreadful-inaugural-address/

In his speech, Trump took a swipe at America’s public schools, saying they deprive students of “all knowledge.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2017/live-updates/politics/live-coverage-of-trumps-inauguration/in-his-speech-trump-grouped-public-schools-with-gangs-drugs-and-rusted-out-factories/?utm_term=.3776fabc599f

The new White House website removed the page devoted to civil rights advances and the page about LGBT rights, but added a page advertising Melanie trump’s jewelry.

And this is the the new Twitter picture of our angry president:

A professor of history at the University of California at Davis reminded the world that the term “America First” was embraced by Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. in the 1930s.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/president-trumps-america-first-slogan-was-popularized-by-nazi-sympathizers/?utm_term=.5b99a808f43a

As E.J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post, this was a very ominous Inauguration Day in modern history.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-the-most-ominous-inauguration-day-in-modern-history/2017/01/18/5105f7ee-ddc0-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html?utm_term=.93275cb36d26

I didn’t know John Merrow was a poet. But he is.

Stopping by Washington on a Snowy Evening

 
Whose swamp this is, I think I know:

Hails from Kenya, name starts with ‘O.’

He’s been dumped. I’m President Trump

It’s time for that loser to go.
He came to Washington talking about ‘hope.’

Nobel Prize or not, that makes him a dope.

To that mope, I say ‘nope.’

Let’s go find us some chicks to grope.
That house he lives in, historic and old

Not my style. I like bold

And I like huge, and (trust me) I’m huge.

I’ll fill it with women, cover it in gold.
‘Cause this swamp’s mine, it’s for sale.

This is my moment. No way I’ll fail.

Billionaires welcome, no Mexicans please.

Just say ‘Heil Donald’ (but pronounce it ‘hail’).
I’ll fill this swamp, call it ‘Trump Lake.’

Say I’m doing it for America’s sake.

Let’s move. I have promises to break…

And lots and lots of money to make.

(Lots and lots of money to make!)

(Who wrote this poem, you think you know:

Old man with glasses, hair like snow.

You’re thinking Frost, but you are lost.

Author’s a guy with weak sense of humor, poor rhyming skills and absolutely no sense of meter)

HERE’S THE LINK: https://themerrowreport.com/2017/01/19/a-poem-for-the-inauguration/

John