Paul Street is one of the best social critics in the United States. His newest book, This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America is a fresh, critical, insightful and much needed analysis of the legacy of the Trump presidency and how Trumpism has morphed into an updated form of fascism. Street puts to rest the endless arguments claiming Trump is not a fascist and does so by drawing upon the resources of history, political theory, sociology, and the best type of investigative analysis. His writing is clear and lyrical throughout the book. His analysis of fascism in its post-Trump form and the Trump base is the best I have read. Street is a straight shooter and displays a courageousness and brilliance in the book that should be a model for every public intellectual in America, and a resource for every member of the public when it comes to holding truth to power. His interweaving of critique and hope collapses the false binary of either despair or denial occupying much of the debate about fascist politics. The book is an absolute necessary treasure for anyone concerned about the threats now facing the ideal and promise of American democracy. Give this book to all your friends and hope that every teacher in America assigns it to their students.
Henry A. Giroux,McMaster University
As the lefts foremost political historian today, Paul Street has been ringing the alarm bell against the rising threat of American fascism for years. His work is sorely needed in a time of mass denialism, when tens of millions of Americans have convinced themselves that fascism can never happen here, despite rising rightwing extremism and the threat it poses to the republic. Its no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important works on fascism written in modern times. It provides a comprehensive guide for understanding fascism as a concept, and its rise in modern America as related to the politics of the Trumpian right and its enablers across the ideological spectrum. This book is a must read for anyone concerned with the future of American politics and democracy.
Anthony DiMaggio,Author of Rising Fascism in America
This Happened Here
This book examines the Trump phenomenon and presidency as fascist. Fascism here connotes not generically bad politics or a consolidated political-economic regime (Mussolinis Italy or Hitlers Germany) but a set of political, movement, and ideological traits understood within the context of the neoliberal-capitalist era. While Trumps election defeat is a respite, the nation is far from out of the neofascist woods. Defeating the menace will require political and societal restructuring far beyond what is imagined by Democrats. This argument is developed across seven chapters that recount Trumps assault on the 2020 election, specifically define the meaning of fascism as it is used in this book, demonstrate the neofascist nature of the Trump presidency, engage intellectual class Trumpism-fascism-denial, analyze the Trump base, root Trumpism in a longstanding and indeed founding American white nationalism, examine why Trump rose to power when he did, and suggest paths for fascism-proofing the USA.
Paul Street is an independent progressive policy researcher, award-winning journalist, historian, and speaker. He is the author of nine books, most recently Hollow Resistance: Obama, Trump, and the Politics of Appeasement. Street writes regularly for Counterpunch.
This Happened Here
Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America
Paul Street
Cover image: Shutterstock
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2022 Taylor & Francis
The right of Paul Street to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Street, Paul Louis, author.
Title: This happened here : Amerikaners, neoliberals, and the Trumping of America / Paul Street.
Other titles: Amerikaners, neoliberals, and the Trumping of America
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021033905 (print) | LCCN 2021033906 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032150611 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032150598 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003242338 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Trump, Donald, 1946--Influence. | United States--Politics and government--2017-2021. | Presidents--United States--Election--2020. | Fascism--United States--History--21st century. | Authoritarianism--United States.
Classification: LCC E912 .S77 2022 (print) | LCC E912 (ebook) | DDC 973.933--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033905
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033906
ISBN: 978-1-032-15061-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-15059-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-24233-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003242338
Typeset in Garamond
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Dedicated to my friends and comrades in Refuse Fascism and to everyone who saw the Trump administration for what it really was and had the courage to say so and fight it in the streets.
Contents
- Introduction: The Hell It Can't
- One Night of Dancing, 77 Days of Fear and Death
- The Fascist Wolf Defined and Foretold
- A Fascist in the White House, 201721
- The Anatomy of Fascism Denial
- Amerikaners and Trumpenvolk
- America Was Never Great: On The Soul of This Nation
- De-Trumping America
- Afterword: A Sleepwalking Interregnum?
Introduction: The Hell It Can't
DOI: 10.4324/9781003242338-101
I think, the Russian dissident expatriate and anti-authoritarian writer and activist Masha Gessen told the Irish Times in June of 2020, that the word fascist is perfectly accurate when applied to Donald Trump. I also think its incendiary and pulls you down into an argument that Im not always up for having. I thought at the time and still think that the description of Trump and the movement behind him as fascist was and is elementarily accurate, that it was and remains intellectually irresponsible to avoid the argument about it, however incendiary one (somewhat absurdly in my opinion) thinks it may be. I am very much up for having the argument, provided that the 45th US president (who could still possibly become the 47th US president) is understood within the broader social, historical, and politico-ideological context that brought him and the fascist menace he represents into being. Avoiding the full implications of the argument is cowardly and self-defeating in my view.
Like most left political writers and expert commentators in late 2015 and the first ten months of 2016, I considered the election of the fascistic presidential candidate Trump to be largely outside the realm of possibility. The lions share of the polling data and media commentary seemed reliably on the side of a resounding Hillary Clinton triumph over the dangerous but thankfully ridiculous Trump, who did not himself expect to win.
