‘Who you callin’ Fascist?’

OPINION:

For over two years now a peculiar combination of the media and the Democrats have been goading Donald Trump, always to painful effect — painful for both sides in this vituperative battle; but particularly painful to the media and the Democrats. Not much good has come of it.

The media and the Democrats vilify Trump as a Hitler, a fascist, a racist, also a misogynist, a homophobe and so forth. What is more, they do not approve of his hair. Interestingly, they do not disparage him as a Stalin, a Castro or a communist. Why do they not dip into their arsenal of dread phraseology to call him a Stalinist, a Castro, or a communist? Is it because they still see these comrades as the good guys? Do they perceive communists as liberals without the red tape? What Henry Wallace once called liberals in a hurry.

Do the media and the Democrats harbor some lingering respect for these historic friends of the working class? Are they somewhat smitten by the bilge of the left. Do they even understand the term fascist? What would Sen. Chuck Schumer or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi describe as Donald’s fascist traits? His songs? His martial music? What is his daily uniform? All I see is Donald’s sober business suit, always worn with a tie, a white shirt, and wingtip shoes. How does this uniform differ from that of Mr. Schumer?

What is all this talk of fascism? Fascism generally features politicians who favor one-party dictatorship above democracy. Fascism favors a glorified sense of nationalism and often of race over the individual. In governance it favors centralized government and is heavily militaristic. Actually when you compare fascism with communism it is pretty much the same thing, though the German and Italian fascists always were smarter dressers, and their guns usually worked better. The communists even caught up eventually with German racism. Both the Germans and the Russians were anti-Semites.

What is more, now that the latest edition of Democrat is coming out as a socialist I guess they have all the more reason to stay clear of calling Donald a communist or Stalin or Castro. These Democrats are at least Stalinists in the economic sense, and they can always adopt the one-party ism and militarism later.

Yet to return to my original point about the effect these coarse terms are having on the public discourse, particularly for the media and the Democrats. All the media and the Democrats achieve it seems to me is that they enrage Donald, who resorts to his Twitter account and fires off a volley that leaves the media and the Democrats the worse for wear. The fact is that Donald is better at it than they are and he usually amuses. The media and the Democrats never do. Hitler was not funny. Nor was communism. Donald’s “Fake News” has caught on, and everyone knows who authored the term along with “Crooked Hillary” and “Pocahontas” and “Crazy Bernie” and all the rest.

When the race really gets under way what will Donald make of poor old Joe Biden, the gaffable one (I shall take credit for that one). Joe was caught red handed, as they say, filching from a speech by Neil Kinnock of Britain’s Labour Party. Neil is not even an American. Already Donald has dispatched Beto O’Rourke with his notice of the former congressman’s “hand movements .is he crazy?”

Donald had only a few hours to come up with that one. Well done, Donald. Beto has yet to recover. There will be two dozen more Democratic candidates who bite the dust before Donald finishes off the final Democratic candidate. Will the candidate be the one from South Bend or is there another would-be John F. Kennedy out there? It is going to be vastly amusing.

As I say, it is destructive language from both sides, but from one side it is at least amusing. I noticed this when I first met Donald in 2013. He is very entertaining. I can well imagine long after Donald is out of office relaxing with friends and watching old tapes of Donald up against the Republican gang in 2016 and then Donald against Hillary, agelastic Hillary. She thought she could beat him, and after she lost she plotted with her friends in the intelligence community to run him out of office.

She, a life-long liberal, threw in with certain chieftains of the FBI and the CIA (and presumably others) to turn these institutions against the American people in an election. They were the kind of liberals who were always haranguing us against the police power of the state. But they were the first in American history to turn the intelligence community against us. Hillary has been a malign force in American politics from her early days. I am glad she turned her back on Goldwaterism.

These next months will be interesting.

• R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author most recently of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.