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The president’s excoriation of the political opposition was only minimally qualified.
“Fascists. They are fascists,” he said during a speech. “Some of them, not all of them, but some of them, but they’re getting closer and closer.”
A strong assertion, certainly, but one that barely rippled the surface of the water. Because the president offering that hyperbolic assessment was Donald Trump, two years ago this month. It was one of several times that he would deride Democrats as fascists, even excluding his July 4, 2020, retweet describing a “fascist Democratic Party that wants us to … hate America.”
Trump’s use of the term was largely a function of his I’m-rubber-you’re-glue approach to criticism. Remember when Hillary Clinton called him a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin during a 2016 debate? His response was: “No puppet. You’re the puppet.” So after months of criticism that his approach to the presidency was fascistic, he began…
This article was written by Philip Bump and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com