APR 01, 2024 (robertreich.substack.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Friday, Trump posted a video featuring an image of President Biden hog-tied \u2014with hands and feet bound together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has previously posted doctored photos and videos depicting him physically attacking Biden, such as hitting Mr. Biden with golf balls<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s all part of Trump\u2019s 5-step fascist plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a previous post,<\/a> I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them, and I suggested that Trump and his lackeys shouldn\u2019t be seen as simply \u201cauthoritarian.\u201d They need to be understood as fascist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But how could Trump actually<\/em> turn America into a fascist state?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In five steps, which he\u2019s already signaled he plans to take. Here they are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hitler and Mussolini <\/strong>relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020. Even before he incited the attack on the U.S. Capitol, he said on national television: \u201cProud Boys, stand back and stand by<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Trump is vilifying his political opponents as \u201cvermin\u201d who needed to be \u201crooted out<\/a>.\u201d He shows an image of Biden hog-tied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requested a gag order<\/a>, providing some 300 pages of exhibits documenting the real-world consequences of Trump\u2019s attacks, Judge Juan Merchan <\/strong>found the filing persuasive. He said Trump\u2019s statements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cwere threatening, inflammatory, denigrating, and the targets of his statements ranged from local and federal officials, court and court staff, prosecutors and staff assigned to the cases, and private individuals including grand jurors performing their civic duty,\u201d citing Bragg\u2019s filing, [and had caused] \u201cthe assignment of increased security resources to investigate threats and protect the individuals and family members\u201d of those Trump targeted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n After the gag order was issued, Trump attacked Judge Merchan\u2019s daughter for running a political consulting firm that\u2019s worked with Democrats, saying it should disqualify Merchan from his case. On Friday night, Bragg asked the judge<\/a> to \u201cclarify or confirm\u201d that the order applies to family members and order Trump to \u201cimmediately desist from attacks on family members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also last week, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton spoke out in an interview with CNN\u2019s Kaitlan Collins<\/a> about Trump possibly instigating violence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe do these jobs because we\u2019re committed to the rule of law and we believe in the rule of law. And the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Republican election officials have testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump\u2019s demands to falsify the 2020 election results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who refused Trump\u2019s demand to \u201cfind\u201d the votes needed to flip the state into Trump\u2019s hands, said \u201cmy email, my cell phone was doxxed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rusty Bowers, the Arizona state speaker and a pro-Trump Republican who resisted pressure from Trump and Rudy Giuliani and refused to go along with an illegal scheme to replace Arizona\u2019s legal slate of electors, remains a target of pro-Trump partisans. As he said, \u201cThey have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state who helped manage the 2020 presidential election and recount in Georgia that found no widespread fraud<\/a>, has faced death threats. Sterling admonished<\/a> Trump:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. \u2026 This has to stop. Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone\u2019s going to get hurt. Someone\u2019s going to get shot. Someone\u2019s going to get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Step 2: Consolidate power.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After taking office, a would-be fascist turns every arm of government into a tool of his will. One of Hitler\u2019s first steps was to take over the civil service<\/a>, purging it of non-Nazis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order<\/a> that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants<\/a> and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he\u2019s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service if reelected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has urged making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States.<\/a> This has become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025<\/a>, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, \u201cdismantle the US government and replace it with Trump\u2019s vision<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 3: Demonize a group of people and establish a police state to round them up into detention camps.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hitler used the imaginary threat of \u201cthe poison of foreign races<\/a>\u201d \u2014 mostly Jews \u2014 to justify taking control of the military and police<\/a>, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants. Trump says they\u2019re \u201cpoisoning the blood of our country<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, Trump warned that the country would face a \u201cblood bath<\/a>\u201d if he lost the election (he then walked back the claim, saying he was referring to losing the auto industry). A few days later, he attacked Jewish Democrats in a radio interview, saying that Jews who vote for Democrats hate their religion and Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a rally on March 16, Trump baselessly claimed<\/a> that other countries were sending gang members and other undesirables to the United States: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you call them \u2018people,\u2019 in some cases. They\u2019re not people, in my opinion.\u201d He then referred to them as \u201canimals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids<\/a> and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps<\/a> while their fate is decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though crime is actually down across the nation<\/a>, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors: \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in \u2014 the next time, I\u2019m not waiting<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act<\/a> to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With promises to pardon January 6 criminals<\/a> and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 4: Jail the opposition.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As Putin and other of the world\u2019s dictators do, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents<\/a>: \u201cIf I happen to be president and I see somebody who\u2019s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, \u2018Go down and indict them.\u2019 They\u2019d be out of business.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas: \u201cAs we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman: \u201cthe radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country\u2026<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 5: Undermine the free press.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As Hitler well understood, a fascist dictator needs to control the flow of information<\/a>. Trump has been attacking the press for years, calling them \u201cthe enemy of the people.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes. On his \u201cTruth Social\u201d platform, he wrote: \u201cOur so-called \u2018government\u2019 should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity. Much more to come, watch!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low<\/a> that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information<\/a>. He tells them: \u201cI will never lie to you,\u201d although his lies are constant and continuous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has not hidden his plans. You\u2019ve heard him promise to \u201cbe a dictator for one day<\/a>.\u201d History shows there are no \u201cone-day\u201d dictatorships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must take Trump\u2019s 5-step fascist plan seriously and do everything in our power to stop it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing you can do right now is to share the following video, which my colleagues and I made recently about Trump\u2019s planned steps toward a fascist dictatorship:<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F940fd52b-2858-4fcf-8974-4ade14f9d063_3500x2612.jpeg\")
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