Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon? Trump himself is a narcissist and will say and do anything to stay in power and protect his brand. That’s obvious. But the party he’s chosen to attach himself to won’t go along with everything. They’ve got no souls or spines, so they stick with him because of his large base— but the core element of their agenda is neoliberal, through and through. Not fascism.
Trump was happy to let them (mostly) carry out this agenda, and his rhetoric (mostly) reflects this as well — code words like liberty, freedom, small government, security, law and order, etc. Meanwhile every policy decision helped the wealthiest people and the corporate sector, the most obvious being his one legislative “achievement”: the tax cuts of 2017. He also stacked the regulating agencies with insiders from the industries being regulated — Scott Pruitt heading the EPA the most glaring example, in my view.
So while his rhetoric has become even more extreme, and the Heritage Foundation’s “
Project 2025” policy plans is scary indeed, I don’t think the powers that be really want a civil war or suspending the constitution; they don’t want fascism. Rather, they want a well run system, preferably with even more wealth transferred to them. They very much need the state to subsidize them and bail them out when their profiteering crashes the economy.
I’m not too worried about fascism. A second Trump term will be catastrophic enough, perhaps even worse than fascism.