‘Semi-fascist’? Comparing Trump with his political foes

FPI / September 1, 2022

"What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism." Joe Biden managed to squeeze out these comments between the usual bouts of incoherence during his speech at a recent fundraiser in Maryland.

Add in RINOs like Rep. Liz Cheney and most of the rest of the NeverTrumpers who believe Donald J. Trump remains an existential threat to democracy.

What exactly has Trump done to quantify those charges, historian and columnist Victor Davis Hanson asked in an Aug. 28 op-ed for American Greatness:

"Did Trump weaponize the FBI? That is, did the FBI go after journalists, former Obama officials, or Democratic Party activists who variously were attacking Don Jr. or Ivanka on the pretenses of retrieving one of their lost laptops or diaries?

"Did Trump use Republican National Committee firewalls to transfer money to private lobbyists and law firms to find dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then turn it all over to the FBI to launch a Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Clinton, centered around a Trump-hired ex-spy who became a paid FBI informant?

"Are there texts of Trump-era FBI agents talking about how to 'stop' Hillary Clinton’s or Biden’s election bid?

"Did Trump’s FBI, in the predawn hours, burst into the homes of New York Times reporters — in James O’Keefe-style — and march them outside in their underwear, all for the possible 'crime' of receiving a stolen draft of the Supreme Court early draft of the Dobbs decision? Which is the greater 'crime' — trafficking in clearly stolen confidential Supreme Court papers or looking at the abandoned, lost, and lurid diary of a wayward presidential daughter?

"Did Trump order an FBI raid on the Obama home, on rumors that there were thousands of documents under dispute with the National Archives in his possession, especially given the Obama record of fiercely fighting any Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to release his documents?

"Was John Podesta put in leg irons by the FBI? Was Robbie Mook’s house stormed to learn of what he knew about Hillary Clinton’s missing emails?

"Was Jake Sullivan’s phone grabbed by the FBI at an airport to determine his role in the Russian collusion hoax?

"Or, with a look ahead to his own reelection, did Trump in 2018 order a raid on the Biden home, in search of 'lost' Biden vice presidential documents, supposedly improperly removed after Biden’s tenure that might have shed light on the Biden family’s extracurricular foreign lobbying?

"Did Trump illegally and with a mere signature nullify over $300 billion of contracted student loans — to firm up his college-student and college-graduate base nine weeks before the midterm elections?

"Did Trump blatantly use the national security apparatus of the government to enhance his own reelection bid in 2020? That is, did he do anything analogous to Obama’s gambit with Vladimir Putin in 2011?

"Did Donald Trump weaponize the feared IRS, the logical place to find fascistic tendencies of any president bent on using government to punish his enemies? Did he push through a plan to add 87,000 new IRS investigative agents at a time of national discord?"

While Trump was rumored to be under investigation by the IRS for the past five years, Hanson noted that the following, despite the best efforts of Democrats and their media allies, made its way into the national conversation:

"Certainly, from the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the remarks of Hunter’s associates like Tony Bobulinksi, the Biden family raked in millions of foreign dollars. Evidence so far suggests Joe Biden was a recipient (as the 'Big Guy') of 10 percent of these quid pro quo payments. At times, Bobulinksi may have sent a strapped and broke Hunter thousands of dollars in cash gifts. Were any of these stealthy transactions taxed? Does the recently heavily Biden-endowed IRS care?"

If Trump "wished to abuse his power over the IRS," Hanson added, "he would have followed the Obama model of weaponizing it during a reelection year to go after his ideological enemies."

Hanson continued:

"The strange thing about Trump was that he did not use extraordinary powers to investigate anyone unlawfully. He boasted, he railed, he screamed, he whined, he became at times crude and obnoxious. But he did not use the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, or the IRS to go after the Obamas, the Clintons, or the Bidens.

"Instead, he became the most investigated, probed, smeared, and autopsied president in modern history."

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