What JD Vance and Stephen Miller don't understand about the word 'fascist'
By: MSNBC (MSNBC. com)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
You have the right to call President Donald Trump a fascist. It doesn't matter if it's literally true, even though there's plenty of evidence to suggest that it is. Trump's own former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, said shortly before the 2024 election, "He certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure." It's an opinion and a political label that, even used pejoratively, is still protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But Vice President JD Vance — who reportedly in 2016 fretted about Trump's potential to become "America's Hitler" and before the 2024 election unabashedly spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants — has been on a tear since the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, openly calling for cancellations in the form of firing people for speaking negatively of the late rhetorical pugilist's legacy. Vance exhorted Democrats, "If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi."
MAGA claims of "incitement" are a variant on the "fire in a crowded theater" canard.
Kirk, who often spoke about how deeply influenced he was by the late right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh (who for decades referred to feminists as "feminazis"), was no shrinking violet when it came to labeling his own political opponents. For example, in 2021 Kirk posted to the site then known as Twitter, "Joe Biden is the fascist dictator the left tried desperately to make you think Donald Trump was," and during a 2023 podcast episode he said Biden was a "corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America."
Trump's virulently anti-immigration (the legal kind, too) deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has also recently characterized heated political rhetoric from the left — like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, comparing immigration raids to "slave patrols" — as "pure incitement." Miller also played the "incitement" card back in May when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz likened Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to "Trump's modern day Gestapo," which Miller described as "vile anti-American language [that] can only be construed as inciting insurrection and violence."
A cursory search on X shows dozens of examples of Miller referring to Democrats as "fascists" over the years, but as I've previously written, it's a fool's errand trying to shame MAGA bigwigs by holding up a mirror to their flagrant hypocrisy. They don't care, and they relish shameless trolling — like wielding awesome power to police the same words they use all the time.
Retired Army general: Our enemies are 'probably laughing' after Trump's speech to military leaders04:27
Nor do Vance, Miller and their allies care that it's accurate to call Trump a "fascist" based on any number of examples: his attempted self-coup after he lost the 2020 election; his masked, unaccountable secret police prowling American communities manhandling and sometimes disappearing people off the street; his dismantling of previously independent government institutions and stacking them with loyalists; his illegal use of the military to perform law enforcement actions on domestic soil; his relentless hostility to free speech and a free press; and so much more (that you can pore over in this helpful roundup from civil libertarian journalist Radley Balko). Trump provided still more evidence Tuesday, when he told a room of U.S. generals and admirals that they should use American cities as "training grounds for our military" to fight an "invasion from within."
But again, even if the label weren't accurate, calling someone a "fascist" isn't an incitement to violence.
What's important is to recognize that MAGA claims of "incitement" are a particular variant on the "fire in a crowded theater" canard. This is the mistaken legal understanding that certain expressions of speech endanger public safety — like crying "fire" in a theater where there is no fire and needlessly causing a stampede. (So prevalent is this mistaken belief that even the august New York Times editorial board repeated it in an editorial last week.)
A government that says you can't call it authoritarian is most certainly authoritarian.
But the Supreme Court case that originated the "fire in a crowded theater" hypothetical is instructive for this political moment. In 1917, a socialist activist named Charles Schenck distributed materials that protested the draft conscripting young Americans to fight in World War I. Among other things, he was charged with "conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act" — which sometimes carries a death sentence. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1919, finding that Schenck's expression presented a "clear and present danger," with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes likening it to "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."
It was a bad decision, and thankfully, it was effectively overturned 50 years later, in 1969, when the court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that direct incitement to violence was the bar at which provocative speech was no longer protected by the First Amendment. That's why we're free to pass out anti-war leaflets today. And it's why we're allowed to agitate against the government — even in a time of crisis, like the ones Trump has manufactured right now to justify seizing wartime emergency powers.
Today, as the president attempts to criminalize "anti-fascism" and police it as "terrorism" — using nebulous identifiers such as "anti-capitalism" and "anti-Christianity" — it's as good a time as any to remember that free speech is the enemy of the authoritarian. And a government that says you can't call it authoritarian is most certainly authoritarian.
Robust free speech protections are some of the best things about America — the things that make us truly "exceptional," if you will, compared with much of the world.
Don't be cowed by MAGA's speech-policing threats. Just as it has the right to say horrible things, you have the right to call the president a fascist. God bless America.
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I have always thought that Trump would go as far fascist as he is allowed to. He has no moral aversion to being a fascist, and would clearly enjoy it, and he will keep pushing and pushing in that direction until he is stopped.
I would say that's true of most people.
Democrats are calling them fascists in the hopes of getting them killed. It’s not illegal, but it’s also true. The democrat running for AG in Virginia wants republicans’ kids to die and justifies it by calling them “little fascists”
Proof? Because that is one heck of a claim.
Not only did he text a colleague about wanting to kill a Republican, he followed it up with a phone call when she expressed disgust to further argue the point.
Jones called someone up and defended death wishing innocent kids. Definitely the same as claiming drug dealers should be executed.
But this whole debate shows how phony the outrage over Trump is. No matter what a Democrat does (and hoping a mother gets to hold their dying child in her arms to teach her father a lesson is as low it gets) Democrats will be okay with it. Unless of course, polling gets real bad and they think they can pull a candidate switch.
I notice you ignored the wish to execute Milley, or for journalists to be shot, imprisoned, and raped. Skipped right over them. I can't imagine why.
That's a lie. Democrats called him out.
Trump once said that Liz Cheney should face the business end of a rifle, and then papered it over by saying he meant she should be a soldier for Ukraine.
Jay Jones apologized, which I'm sure Sean will not voluntarily mention. However, I am also sure that he will both accept without question Trump's backpedaling regarding Cheney, while declaring Jones' apology to be insincere.
The nationalreview is far from a valid source and is widely known for just making shit up.
Here's a couple articles about it....
Winsome Sears Releases New Ad After Jay Jones Texts Exposed, and HOT DAMN the Gloves Are OFF (Watch) – Twitchy
We See You: MONSTERS at VA Teacher's Union Quietly Try to DELETE Their Post Endorsing Jay Jones BUT ... – Twitchy
Lol. Keep believing this is made up.
Lindsay Graham called him a "race-baiting, zenophobic bigot" and "ISIL man of the year."
Democrats, eh? Were Vance, Graham, and Kelly trying to get Trump killed, too? Or nah?
Lol. That's the best you can do? Trying to compare a few statements to ten years of a coordinated party wide campaign calling him a fascist, Nazi etc.. I could spend all day documenting those types of claims from democrats.
But fine. Now that you've dismissed the most glaring example of stochastic terrorism in American history, I'm glad that we never have to hear the left complaining about it again.
Idiots call Joe Biden fascist.
Realists say it about Trump.
From his own party. Where is your condemnation of Vance, Kelly, Graham? Why the double standard, Sean?
Did God annoint Donald Trump to save America from the left?
I ask that because I never see you pushing back on that specific notion. You claim "the left" wants Republicans to be shot in the head (although you gave one instance of it) but you dont have a word to say about "Christians" calling liberals "satanic" , which they have been doing for many years.
See my @3 about double standards.
Also, Jones' own party called him to account for his comments. When will Trump's party do the same, without risking being figuratively stabbed in the back by their own party, like Liz Cheney?
The idea that God selected a scumbag like Trump to save America is at best delusional and at worst insane.
Its hard to find hope right now.
Did they? I haven't seen the Democratic candidate for governor calling for him to withdraw.
They did. Your opinion of how adequate that response is was not consulted. Did you or the GOP call Trump to account for his calls for violence? I gave you a handy list @2.1.2
If so, do you hold him to the same standard, and should we now expect you to call for his resignation?
lets not get carried away Sandy. /s
There is a peculiar double standard regarding free speech and personal accountability to which many conservatives seem to be adhering.
They can call their opposition "demonic", accuse them of treason, accuse them of "grooming children", and call for violence against them as a group for the murder of one person (yes, I have seen such calls on social media). That's all hunky dory and free speech and "we're just telling the truth!" Any violence resulting, and right wing political violence still far overshadows left wing political violence, and it's not THEIR fault. They were just speaking their minds. It's the fault of the people committing the violence, which wasn't really violence, anyway. It was just tourism that got out of hand.
But when the shoe is on the other foot, and Trump is called fascist, those doing so are "inciting violence" or
This, of course, does not apply to those on their side who also call Trump fascist, because reasons. But suddenly, personal accountability is also out the window. The people committing the violence, which of course is real, this time, and no longer tourism that got out of control, are not the only ones responsible. The people engaging in free speech are also responsible. Because it's free speech with which they disagree.
Right. Ok. But the shit Trump said from November 2020 to January 6, 2021, which led directly to thousands of people attacking the Capitol…that wasn’t incitement, right?
We’re living under the Gaslight Reich.
Well, that's...different. Somehow or other.
That it applies to them.
It doesn’t get much more clear-cut than this.