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________________ This week the campaign of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump released a brief video designed to drive forward the idea that authoritarian governance is what our nation needs, with Trump in the role of demagogic savior. While the Trump campaign removed the post and claimed that the Reich reference was an error by a “staffer,” it has generated debate due to the video’s repeated presentation of text about the “creation of a unified Reich.” Whatever the origin of that phrase, his far-right extremist followers will understand that the inclusion of the word Reich is not casual. Taken in context of Trump’s high opinion of Adolf Hitler, his association with Nazis such as Nick Fuentes, and his praise for autocrats in general, this film made in the style of a Fascist-era documentary sends the message that, far from being a dictator only “on Day One,” Trump would create an authoritarian order that would earn him a place in history alongside the tyrants past and present he so admires. “Images tell their own stories,” I write in the CNN op-ed I published on the video. “[A]nd the images in this black and white video, along with the fonts of its text and overall style are highly reminiscent of the Fascist propaganda I have studied for many years.” My last book before Strongmen, Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema, included analyses of many Fascist newsreels and documentary shorts as well as feature films. I have continued to write about the Fascist imaginary, as in this Lucid essay I published two weeks ago. So, here is a close read of a few key images of this video that is so revealing of Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. “The initial image of Trump juxtaposed with a crowd of his followers, channels 1930s images that propped up the leader cults of Hitler and Mussolini,” I write in that CNN essay. What’s next for America, the film tells us immediately, is Trump dominating the American people, who are depicted as cheering their leader. Instead of a Fascist salute, Trump has his own famous hand gesture.
To the left of the crowd is the first presentation of the language of “the creation of a unified Reich.” While it is intentionally hard to see clearly, we can compare the font to that chosen for the facade of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, which was built in Rome in the late 1930s and early 1940s to honor Fascist imperialism. This font is often seen on classical interwar buildings, and graphically this whole frame associates Trump with 1930s dictators.
The next group of images makes the disturbing argument that arresting Black people and interning and deporting 15 million undocumented immigrants is the way Trump will restore “law and order” This is a video that channels the past aesthetically to immortalize Trump’s achievements, while letting Americans know what their future holds. And so we see an announcement of “Border is Closed. 15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported.”
This may be juxtaposed with “Law & Order Restored”: an image of police arresting a young man of indeterminate race who tellingly wears a hoodie like the one young Treyvon Martin had on when he was shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. ICE and other police are seen collaborating. We are put on notice that anyone of color will be considered a suspect in the TrumpReich.
I was reminded of Mussolini’s 1927 promise that he would soon be defending Italians by implementing mass roundups and detentions of political dissidents, Slavs, and many other enemies of the state. “We remove these individuals from circulation just like a doctor does with an infected person,” Il Duce stated chillingly. Removing people from circulation is what Trump is promising to do as well, and he is floating the possibility of establishing huge detention camps for targeted populations. Trump’s persuasive power has also come from his skill at leaving a space of plausible deniability. The skilled propagandist lets the audience fill in his message with the meaning that feels right to them. The ambiguous image that ends the video illustrates this point. A child holding an American flag is carried on the shoulders of her father, her destination a building that could or could not be a home. In the foreground is a kind of pole upon which she will place the flag, but the pole is strangely shaped and its crooked appendages could evoke a swastika if that is what one was inclined to see. The effect is of an onward charge. The spirit of January 6 lives on. Everything is possible, even another insurrection. The devotees of Hitler who were present at the Capitol on that day would understand the symbolism featured in this image. One Trump loyalist, a Nazi sympathizer, used a flag pole as a weapon against Capitol Police officers, and another wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt.
And in the lawless world of authoritarianism, making everything possible for the leader and his enablers is the dream. It’s why Trump argues he must have immunity, even if he assassinates his political opponents, and why he is saying publicly he supports immunity for police officers too. If Trump and his enablers have their way, what’s next for America is a police state. The message of this video is that mass repression is Trump’s ticket to gaining a place in history. 15 million people deported is Hitlerian in scale. |
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