What Do these MAGA Fascists Want Anyway?

Today’s politics are a puzzlement to me. We say “fascism,” and that works well enough to understand our immediate challenges. But when you turn its aspects against the background of history, our politics become much less intelligible. Why attack the size of the bureaucracy and starve it of resources in a government shutdown when fascism historically has taken a different turn.

As opposed to the Project 2025 public-sector gutting or Steve Bannon’s deconstruction of the administrative state, Hitler—after purges—increased public employment. He enforced orthodoxy but built overlapping, competing bureaucracies. Mussolini did likewise in Italy. Classic fascism depends on a strong state apparatus to impose its will. Trump does not, except through ICE. His agenda is not party-building but progressive-destruction.

What is Trump doing?

Take the Department of Education, for example. Why would a classic fascist government dismantle an agency that could crack local control over education to install a national curriculum? Overall, the United States has a large, sophisticated bureaucracy that a Hitler would have purged in part, but otherwise grow substantially. So why is a fascist Trump and Project 2025 all about downsizing government when fascists usually grow government to build support using public jobs and oppress through new state enforcers.

From the bizarre cacophony of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, Opus Dei fetishists and Q-Anon hangers-on that compose MAGA red hats writ large, there emerges one unifying notion in Trump’s actions. I do not believe the power and money behind Trump’s 2nd ascendancy cares for any of these ideologies the left frets about. Nor do they want to rule through a fascistic party structure—it would be too much work. The real goal is to return to an era in the United States where property and capital were despotic kings back in the 1890s.

Revenge of the Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was great for the gilded—rich folks had it made, but for most, it was Hunger Games. The rich did not need to worry about running Brown Shirts in the streets because the system simply protected the privileged and their property, as our U.S. Constitution was designed to do. Immigrants were crammed in tenements only to work and die in sweatshops, and the privileged still got checks to cash. People could have elections, but what did it matter when only white men were voting and the entire system was rigged anyway, even if big-city machines with immigrants voted? Think the Supreme Court is captive now? Well, outside a few decades in the 20th century, it has always been captive to propertied interests. There were few restraints on capitalism then, no regulation of financial markets, and certainly no protections for workers on the job. Build your monopoly as big as you could and no one could stop you. Fix the commodities market among your friends and screw the farmers. Every way to make money was on the table. The only limits were what courts would enforce in contracts between companies. Otherwise, have at it.

Now, this Gilded Age (1870-1900) was brought to an end by the Progressive Era (1890-1920). The excesses of gilded privilege drove something of a rebellion. A notion took hold that has always been a part of the United States, but was buried by privilege—the Pursuit of Happiness. This notion that we, as a people with our government, can make a better world for everyone came to the fore.

Here is a partial list of Progressive Era reforms:

• Direct election of U.S. senators (17th Amendment, 1913).¹ ²
• Direct primaries replaced party conventions in many states.¹ ²
• Initiative, referendum, and recall spread in the states (Oregon, California).¹ ²
• Australian/secret ballot adopted widely in the 1890s–1910s.²
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and Meat Inspection Act (1906) ensured consumer safety.¹ ²
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC, 1914) created to police unfair business practices.¹
• Federal Reserve Act (1913) centralized banking and stabilized currency.¹
• Women’s-suffrage movement culminated in the 19th Amendment (1920).¹ ²

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published¹ OpenStax – U.S. History, Ch. 21² Digital History – The Progressive Era ³ Library of Congress – Cities During the Progressive Era

The gilded were appalled by the demise of their Social Darwinist world with all this progressivism and began to scheme for its return. My conjecture here is that Trump is simply a chapter in an ongoing effort of privilege to roll back our change in worldview that stretches back over a century. So, let us say from the formation of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in 1895—whose president David Parry said in 1903 that labor unions would result in “despotism, tyranny, and slavery”—there was an organized opposition to the pursuit of happiness for all. Perhaps there are other organizations or other ways to frame this notion, and groups have come and gone over time, but there is clearly a substantial, powerful interest in our country to return to the 19th century that is well beyond Trump’s fondness for this bygone era’s tariffs and smaller government.

Making Sense

Now, policies like gutting the civil service make more sense. How can government regulate when it cannot see what is going on? How could it protect workers, police markets, or defend consumers? How could it tax fairly if no one can audit receipts? Just tear out everything in government that gets in the way of making money or could be privatized for profit. Then drive up deficits with tax breaks to starve government.

Along the way, keep everyone nonwhite out of the system. Drive the undocumented so far underground they are always cheap and silent labor. Push voters of color far into the electoral margin so even after clearing Election Day ID hurdles, their voices are restricted through redistricting. Push women out of commerce and concentrate control of property in white men. Make liberal arts colleges unattainable for most to keep critical thinking away from the working and middle classes. Just re-create a world where a few privileged white men own it all and make it hard to challenge them.

The powers behind Trump’s second term worship at the altar of patriarchy, property rights, and perpetual wage-slavery. They want to remove anything promoting otherwise. Now, some may still call this fascism—the state is using its power to shape society to serve privilege instead of popular mandate. But I am beginning to believe there is no long-term goal to Trumpism except to steal as much as possible, restore Jim Crow and other oppressive controls, then tear government apart bureaucratically and legally so thoroughly that it will take a generation to recover.

Stifle Government’s Return

And who would believe public service is a stable career after Trump? Who will survive Trump in the civil service, and what kind of people would a new president inherit from those who thrived under Trump? The few new civil servants Trump does hire— where will their true hearts lie? The next administration will inherit a broken public service chock-full of PTSD and Quislings, bereft of institutional memory. So, even if we have a New Deal electoral swing in 2028, government will start nearly from scratch to build a modern, useful public service that could act for the people and against the privileged interests.

But the Trump era is simply the latest chapter in the century old-story of attacks on progressive change. There would be no Trump if not for Reagan. There would not be Reagan if Republicans did not pass the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 (a priority for a Republican Congress that only held power for two years) to throttle union growth vital to the Democratic coalition. Without the patient accumulation of state government control, gerrymandered Republican districts would not be. And, of course, without the hard-stolen Roberts Supreme Court, the advancing destruction of civil rights and government regulation would cease.

Trump will labor hard to delay the inevitable turning-out and will press to overturn marginal elections. Republicans will fight to keep their minority governments in states as long as possible. But the right is ultimately fighting through scorched earth, burning everything useful that could be used against it as it attempts to fall back into the 19th century.

But we must be clear. It is not Christian nationalists or white supremacists or merely thieves driving the attack on our pursuit of happiness. It is privilege. As Progressive Cleveland Mayor Tom Johnson said in 1911:

The greatest movement in the world to-day may be characterized as the struggle of the people against Privilege.

On the one side the People-slow to wake up, slow to recognize their own interests, slow to realize their power, slow to invoke it. On the other, Privilege-always awake and quick to act, owning many of the newspapers, controlling the election and appointment of judges, dictating to city councils, influencing legislatures and writing our national laws.

Why Matters

You may say that talk of “why” is irrelevant in the face of National Guard troops in our cities and ICE tearing mothers from children. Who cares why Trump does what he does, beyond his apparent fascist aspirations? I see that point, but I believe it is useful to understand an opponent’s goals rather than only responding to their actions. We also must autopsy today’s body politic to understand how we reached this point. If we do not know how we got here, we cannot find our way back home.

FYI—here is a more complete list of progressive era accomplishments.

Here is a list of Progressive Era reforms:

• Direct election of U.S. senators (17th Amendment, 1913).¹ ²
• Direct primaries replaced party conventions in many states.¹ ²
• Initiative, referendum, and recall spread in the states (Oregon, California).¹ ²
• Australian/secret ballot adopted widely in the 1890s–1910s.²
• Civil-service/merit reforms expanded across government.¹ ²
• Municipal reform: commission and city-manager systems replaced ward machines.¹ ²
• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) launched federal action against monopolies.¹ ²
• Hepburn Act (1906) empowered the ICC to regulate railroads.¹
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and Meat Inspection Act (1906) ensured consumer safety.¹ ²
• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) strengthened antitrust laws and exempted unions.¹
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC, 1914) created to police unfair business practices.¹
• Federal Reserve Act (1913) centralized banking and stabilized currency.¹
• State and local public-utility regulation/ownership expanded for water, gas, transit.²
• State child-labor restrictions (1900–1916), spurred by Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.¹ ²
• Workers’-compensation laws adopted in most states by 1920.²
• Eight-hour-day and overtime reforms, first for miners and railroad workers.¹ ²
• Early state minimum-wage laws for women/minors (MA, OR 1910s).²
• State labor departments and factory-inspection systems established.²
• Public-health boards and sanitary codes expanded in cities.²
• Maternal and infant-health programs (Sheppard–Towner Act, 1921).¹
• Tenement-house reform (e.g., New York 1901 law) mandated light, ventilation, sanitation.²
• City-planning commissions and zoning ordinances (NYC 1916 zoning law).²
• Expansion of public works: roads, sewers, sanitation, schools, libraries, parks.² ³
• U.S. Forest Service (1905) founded; national parks expanded.¹ ²
• Antiquities Act (1906) protected monuments and archaeological sites.¹
• Reclamation Act (1902) funded western irrigation and reclamation.¹
• Compulsory-education laws enforced nationwide by 1918.¹ ²
• Kindergarten and vocational-training programs expanded.¹ ²
• Professional licensing (law, medicine, teaching); public universities and extension services (Smith-Lever Act 1914).¹ ²
• Settlement-house movement (Hull House, Henry Street) pioneered urban social work.¹ ²
• Women’s-suffrage movement culminated in the 19th Amendment (1920).¹ ²
• Budget reform, centralized auditing, professional city-engineering and planning offices.¹ ² ³
• State regulatory commissions for railroads, insurance, banking.¹ ² ³
• Statistical bureaus and data collection for labor, health, and education.¹ ²