Dear Progressive Reader,

Election day is just ten days away, and surprisingly there are still a number of voters who are “undecided.” Although The Washington Post, which is owned by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, has declined to endorse in this year’s election, they did provide a very helpful comparison of the two leading candidates on their opinion page. The Progressive, as a nonprofit organization, is not allowed to endorse political candidates, but we have certainly covered, and will continue to cover, all of the critical issues in this momentous election.

This past week, Kamala Harris began using one of the f-words to describe Donald Trump, and on Thursday she told Anderson Cooper in a CNN “town hall” that Trump is a fascist. For many in the United States, the term remains hard to define. As Kevin Passmore writes in his excellent 2002 book, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, “[H]ow can we make sense of an ideology that appeals to skinheads and intellectuals; denounces the bourgeoisie while forming alliances with conservatives; adopts a macho style yet attracts many women; calls for a return to tradition and is fascinated by technology; idealizes people and is contemptuous of mass society; and preaches violence in the name of order?”

In The Progressive, we have repeatedly analyzed and cautioned against the authoritarian and fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, but in recent weeks Trump himself has bolstered and amplified these fears. Two weeks ago, Trump told Fox News that he would like to use the military against what he termed the enemy within. “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military,” Trump said. He has also suggested that U.S. Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, Democrats of California, were among those he might choose to target. Then this week, The Atlantic broke a story about Trump’s admiration for Nazi generals in the 1930s and 1940s. NPR followed up with an interview with Mark Esper, who was Secretary of Defense at the time when Trump wanted to use the army against peaceful protesters in the summer of 2020. “Can’t you just shoot them. Just shoot them in the legs or something,” Esper quotes in his 2022 book A Sacred Oath. On Friday morning, Esper told Morning Edition host A. Martinez, “My concern has always been in a second term that Trump and those around him learned the lesson that you have to get the right people in, people who will be loyal to you and what you want to do in your policies, people who aren't necessarily loyal to the Constitution, but to the President . . . . I'm concerned, and I've put my caution out there to others as a warning.”

On Sunday, October 27, Trump has scheduled a rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City to make what his campaign terms his “closing argument.” The location, combined with Trump’s recent rhetoric, is fueling comparisons with another historic rally, held in February 1939 at Madison Square Garden by the German American Bund, a fascist organization. As The Daily Beast points out this week, “As reporters compare the two MSG events of 1939 and 2024, they will be struck by the similarities. A giant picture of George Washington towered over the crowd in 1939 as the Bund sought to make themselves—just as MAGA does—seem like the most American of Americans.” An Academy-Award-nominated short documentary film called A Night at the Garden, made exclusively from footage of the 1939 pro-fascist event makes this very clear. As the legendary people’s historian (and longtime writer for The Progressive) Howard Zinn famously said, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

This week on our website, Joe George reviews the new film The Deciders; the Reverend Joel A. Bowman Sr. looks at how the GOP exploits Black Republicans; Andrew Grey examines the appeal of Trump for evangelical voters; Mike Ervin takes note of the fact that neither party seems to be working to gain the support of voters with disabilities; and Sarah Lahm digs into the history of how “popular sovereignty has been used to suppress the will of the people.” Also, Anita Kellogg pens an op-ed on the dangers of Trump’s tariff plans; Gabriel Paxton relates his experience of being taught to hate by Christian nationalists; and Richard Moore opines on the environmental threats of reforming the permitting process. In other stories, Thadra Sheridan looks at the reasons immigrants are coming from Mexico; Alberto Medina observes the rising popularity of the movement for Puerto Rican independence; and Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies report on the growing war in the Middle East and how U.S. weapons continue to fuel the widening conflict.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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