Photographer unknown, Klan Rally, c. 1921-2. Library of Congress.

Autocrat, Fascist, Dictator, Capo, or King?

It’s a year since Trump’s election, and the liberal commentariat says it doesn’t matter what you call him, so long as you call him out. I disagree. The beginning of every cure is diagnosis. A cold is treated differently than bacterial pneumonia: One you fight with Tylenol (if you can still buy it), the other with penicillin. A mafia capo can be brought down by the IRS; a fascist requires mobilization. So, we need to get this right.

The list of terms above could be extended: authoritarian, totalitarian, despot, tyrant, Caesar, caudillo, führerand duce have all been proposed. But only two of them – authoritarian and fascist — are legitimate contenders. The rest are either too specific to fit the current White House occupant, or too broad to be of much help.

Führer and duce are so linked to Hitler and Mussolini that their deployment is misleading. Trump may embrace the führerprinzip, the idea that he is the supreme leader and embodiment of the nation, but at least 65% of Americans don’t; nor do most of the press, intellectual classes, and civil society. He has deployed ICE and Border Control agents like storm troopers, but their targets have been limited (so far) to undocumented workers and foreign-born dissidents not U.S. citizens. That’s nothing to applaud, but the SS had no such limits. Trump is openly racist and anti-Semitic, but racial segregation and imposition of Nuremberg-type laws are not currently in the cards. He has brought about a Gleichschaltung (consolidation of power) by among other things, eviscerating the non-partisan government bureaucracy, but he has done so by executive fiat, not beatings, torture and murder, the preferred methods of Hitler and Mussolini.

Other political comparisons too can be quickly discarded. Caudillo, Caesar, autocrat and dictator are essentially the same thing – powerful figures who rule through political domination, military might and charisma. The Spanish term caudillo, first applied to 19th C. strongmen such as Mexican General Santa Anna, is associated now with 20th C. dictators like Francisco Franco in Spain (who embraced the term), Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. But unlike them, Trump does not have a military background (to say the least), and his relationship with the U.S. armed forces is shaky at best. He has fired many high-ranking officers (especially women and Black men), and in early October assembled hundreds of others and subjected them to an embarrassing, self-aggrandizing harangue. If U.S. history was like that of Argentina, Peru, and Spain – counties where the military has greater political autonomy — a coup would be likely.

The words despot and tyrant are today nearly synonymous, though they started out as distinct. In ancient Greek, a despot (despotismós) was any powerful man who ruled over household slaves, servants and women. Later, in Byzantium, the word signified noble status and unquestioned authority, which is how Karl Marx’s notorious term “Oriental Despotism” arose. He meant it to describe nations with dictatorial rule and an undeveloped class structure. Such states – including India and China – were stagnant; they could never advance toward popular emancipation and socialism. (Edward Said chastised Marx for his “orientalism.”) Later, both Marx and Engels changed their view and agreed that Asian nations could develop their own emancipatory trajectory independent of European models. Despots could be overthrown by peasants — as proved to be true.

The word tyrant (túrannos) is also Greek in origin. For more than two millennia, it has been used to describe a variety of absolute rulers, from the Athenian Peisistratos to the British King George III, whom Thomas Jefferson described as “tyrannical” in the Declaration of Independence. (Thus, the October 18 “No Kings Day.”) That the same term has been used in such different places and times, however, suggests it is of limited use in the present case. The most we can say is that since all tyrants thwart democracy, Trump is tyrannical. But that doesn’t get us any closer to classifying him or identifying the best way to counter his duplicity, cruelty, and greed. History offers little guidance: Ancient Corinthian tyrants were banished to........

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