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Experts divided if Trump has gone too far

President Donald Trump’s first actions as president have caused much debate about the severity of his orders and whether or not he's gone past the point of no return.
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A demonstrator holds a sign with an image of President Donald J. Trump that reads "Fascist" during the holiday outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue on Dec. 8, 2024. Experts tell Humber Et Cetera they are divided on whether Trump has gone too far with his policies.

Since President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, much debate has gone on about the severity of his actions and whether or not one may call his ideology fascistic. To many, it feels as though Trump has moved America from two parties trying to achieve the same goals with different methods to a state divided by two separate visions of the future.

While many liberal, progressive-leaning pundits and social media influencers have been quick to draw their conclusions, a more concise measure can be found by learning from history as a tool to put our current political climate into context.

There is a general idiom that can be used when someone has gone too far and passed the point of no return: crossing the Rubicon. It comes from the time Julius Caesar moved his troops south over the Rubicon River, the point of no return for his civil war which ultimately made him dictator of Rome.

Julia Adeney Thomas, a historian of the Anthropocene and associate professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, has published books about the rise of fascism in the early 20th Century and decries the lack of wider education about history in contemporary society. She is extremely concerned about the actions that the Republican Party have taken.

“Trump has now crossed the Rubicon in a number of really important ways,” she said.

Thomas brought up initiatives that she called unconstitutional such as moving to end birthright citizenship and other acts which she calls simply illegal like the blocking of Medicaid.

“I think what's still not clear, even though Project 2025 is now being implemented quite clearly, is exactly what his coalition stands for in relationship to the world that it walks,” she said.

Over the first few weeks in office, multiple bipartisan and non-political organizations have already decried Trump's border control escalation and treatment of USAID.

The American Academy of Pediatrics president Susan J. Kressly issued a statement two days after his inauguration stating the AAP “opposes any policies that are detrimental to children’s health and well-being,” about the rolling back of Joe Biden administration policy limiting ICE agent's powers at or near hospitals or doctor’s offices, schools, playgrounds and places of worship. 

The American Foreign Service Association made a statement on Feb. 3 over the administration's decision to dismantle USAID, an agency meant to both provide humanitarian aid and enforce American cultural hegemony and control in foreign nations, calling "the lack of explanation for the reorganization and of communication with stakeholders, including Congress, USAID leadership, and career professionals" alarming.

The movement to shut down USAID was pushed by Elon Musk, a man who has not been elected to any official governmental position by Congress and recently hit two deliberate Roman salutes, also referred to as fascist salutes, at Trump's inauguration which was defended by the Anti-Defamation League as "an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute."

Thomas believes two distinct factions exist within Trump’s Republican wing, the technological oligarch and their supporters (think Elon Musk and Twitter/X cryptocurrency scammers) and a group that glorifies traditionalist American frontiersmen identity which was absorbed from the Tea Party movement.

“It seems to me there are two competing visions going on right now in the Trump world. I suspect that the first one will win,” she said. “But the second one is interesting to me, too, because I think it really speaks to a cry against our high-tech society. It makes people's lives not much fun.”

Thomas said the erratic climate of the past few decades has played into this political tension but it’d be hard to find a measure of how one climate affects the other.

“I am convinced that it has played into it, but I How would you prove that? How would you draw those lines?” She said. “It's weighing on us all, even those people who deny climate change. It's harder now. It's more expensive when also they have less time.” 

There’s a certain nostalgia that the traditionalist faction of Trump supports use that comes from a less climate change effected age.

“I think that regenerative time has disappeared outside. You used to have to scrape a lot of insects off your windshields in the summertime." Thomas said. "I don't do that anymore. But that also means there's not that oral stimulation when you're outside on a summer's evening when the chorus of insects and bullfrogs just fill your soul. Who hears that, anymore?” 

And despite these things pushing towards a division into two groups fighting for opposing goals, she still hopes people can connect and move towards healing.

“I think we have two groups. And yet, as an act of courage, which is also a moral act because courage is moral, we have to keep looking for the places where we can connect.” Thomas said. “We have to keep looking for this.

“I grew up in Appalachia, in Virginia. A lot of the people I grew up with,  were all Democrats back in the day because it was the most liberal part of the state because it was coal mines and it was coal miners’ unions," she said. "It was railroads and tobacco, too, so not exactly growth industries. A lot of those folks are now Trump people. And I need to try to stay friends with them.”

That being said, she holds no bar in saying America is past the point of no return and is moving towards a bleak future.

“There's a real transformation of what America means. It's no longer a liberal democracy. And what will I think ultimately catapult us into true disaster, unless we're already there, is when we get more violence.” Thomas said.

Rutgers University professor of Journalism and Media Studies Jack Bratich, who specializes in the intersection of popular culture and political culture, is the author of On Mircrofascism: Gender, War and Death which tackles the subject of growing fascist sentiment in the United States in the five years following the 2017 Charlottesville fascist rally.

In a text message, he said "fascism is an elusive and contested term" and nailing down an exact definition is difficult as "the literature on fascism is sprawling, complex, and multidisciplinary."

Bratich warns people to not focus solely on history as the only marker of what fascism is but to see it as it has evolved into a new form.

"When fascism arrives, it does not always announce itself with sleek uniforms, amassed crowds, and spectacular stage presentations. Nor does it appear only or primarily as a state fair," he wrote. "If we fixate on expected characteristics that match other eras, we miss out on perceiving the particularities of the current one."

Bratich said people have to be cautious in labelling Trump as having gone too far when writing to Humber Et Cetera in his email.

"Every day Trump seems to go too far, then he or others have to walk it back," he said. "Some things are taking hold, deportations, government employee firings, but it’s too early to assess what this regime will look like as a whole. Right now there are forces on the Right that are hoping to turn [Trump] into their vessel, Christian nationalists, populists, and techno oligarchs. This struggle is interesting to watch.

"So yes, we’ll need more time," Bratich said.