Biden, Trump, and “Semi-Fascism”

Biden, Trump, and “Semi-Fascism”

On this week’s episode of The Time of Monsters, a discussion with The New Republic’s Matt Ford about Joe Biden’s criticism of the former president and MAGA Republicans.

Jeet Heer
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Joe Biden has become increasingly frank and forthright in in his criticism of Donald Trump. In late August, Biden Biden spoke to Democratic Party donors, denouncing what he called an “extreme MAGA philosophy.”

“It’s not just Trump,” Biden said. “It’s the entire philosophy that underpins the—I’m going to say something: It’s like semi-fascism.” Subsequently, Biden delivered an important and substantial speech in Philadelphia where he avoided the word “fascism” but detailed the way MAGA Republicans were a threat to American democracy.

Biden’s remarks and his speech have elicited a considerable pushback from the mainstream media, with the president being accused of being inflammatory and partisan.

The New Republic staff writer Matt Ford has written an strong defense of Biden’s deployment of the term “semi-fascism.” I talked with Matt about his article and about the ways in which fascism does (and doesn’t) describe Trumpism.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Jeet Heer Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


Ad Policy
x