Historian Federico Finchelstein: Trump's "abuse of the law fits an old autocratic pattern"

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Historian Federico Finchelstein: Trump's "abuse of the law fits an old autocratic pattern"
We are in the middle of Trump’s radicalization towards fascism

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published June 5, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) The Age of Trump wrapped itself in the flag of false patriotism while simultaneously destroying America’s sacred civic myths about its national greatness and the permanence of its democracy. This paradox has left many, white Americans in particular, dizzy as they are forced to confront the harmful consequences caused by their belief in a country that never existed.

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Federico Finchelstein is a leading expert on fascism, populism and dictatorship and professor of history at the New School for Social Research and Lang College in New York City. He is the author of seven books on fascism, populism, Dirty Wars, the Holocaust and Jewish history in Latin America and Europe. Finchelstein’s most recent book is “The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy.”

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How common or distinct is America’s experience with democratic backsliding and democracy collapse as compared to other countries?

This belief in exceptionalism is both American and part of a global history. All countries have a myth of their own uniqueness. America’s experience with the erosion of democratic beliefs and experiences is quite common at the level of everyday practice. Intolerance, racism and violence have always been part of modern global history, this country included. However, at the federal level, Trumpism represents a change from previous norms and administrations. It is way more disruptive. Extreme forms of populism that are oriented towards fascism are now at the helm of the most powerful country in the world. Trumpism is more anti-democratic than its predecessors, and it also exerts a big influence outside of the United States. Trumpism is toxic for democratic life here in the United States and around the world.

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The centrists, institutionalists and other establishment voices were very wrong about Donald Trump and his MAGA authoritarian populist movement’s rise to power. These errors began in 2015, continued in the years to follow, and were fully exposed when so many of these “respectable voices” continued to claim that there was no way Donald Trump could win in 2024. Per their logic, “the American people would never do such a thing!” Alas, here we are. What does that dynamic look like in other countries when the so-called respectable voices are so wrong? Are they discredited when the autocrat-authoritarian takes power, and with widespread popular support?

One of the key problems is how Trumpism is enabled by normalization. This represents the opposite of understanding the reality and facts of what is happening. Many scholars and pundits on the center as well as the right and the left denied the fascist dimensions of Trumpism. They kept trying to locate Trump as part of an older continuity and tradition of American presidents and other leaders. Trump is separate from that democratic tradition. These pundits, scholars and other public voices had a range of responses to being so wrong. Some of them recognized their mistake, but just want to move on and not have to explain their error and how they arrived at such incorrect conclusions. Others are telling the American people not to worry that much about Trump because it won’t get that bad, and that Trump is not the real problem or danger anyway. The real problem and danger is that liberal democracy itself is flawed. That, too, is not entirely correct. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/05/historian-federico-finchelstein-abuse-of-the-law-fits-an-old-autocratic-pattern/