In his first week in office, President Donald Trump and his administration published 40 executive actions, 26 of which were published on the first day alone. The orders claim to improve government efficiency, end discrimination, boost the economy and place the United States at the forefront of global politics.
However, a closer read of these executive orders reveals an agenda startlingly similar to actions taken by fascist leaders, like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, in the early stages of the transformation of their regimes.
Historically, parties working to acquire more power in their state have used laws or constitutionally guaranteed rights to circumvent the democratic process. Mussolini gave himself the title of “head of government” along with the power to bypass parliamentary approval to issue decrees. In Germany, the Enabling Law was enacted, which granted Hitler the authority to govern without approval from the legislature.
The Trump administration is actively abusing the unique power of executive actions to avoid legislative approval — even going as far as bragging about Trump signing “more executive orders on his first day in office than any other president in history.”
One of these orders reclassified federal appointees as civil servants so they may be fired at will, while another action emphasizes the importance of hiring government employees loyal to the Trump administration and its goals.
These documents essentially threaten life-long federal workers with termination if they challenge the Trump administration and strongly encourage governmental organizations to begin exclusively employing people who have aligned themselves with the Make America Great Again movement.
Ousting federal workers with ideologies that vary from the current administration is exactly what fascist leaders do to consolidate political power for their party. The Nazi Regime passed a similar civil service law that banned political opponents and Jewish people from government positions and lucrative careers in the state.
The Trump administration also published an action stating that gender identities that differ from the sex assigned at birth will not be recognized in the military, and the order heavily implies that those who refuse to comply will be excused from service. Transgender and nonbinary individuals are singled out further in an order that declares the U.S. government only recognizes two genders, male and female, and federal documentation will only reflect the sex one is assigned at birth.
Germany’s Denaturalization and Nuremberg Laws bear a stark resemblance to Trump’s executive order Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. These decrees deny citizenship to already marginalized groups, with the Nazis targeting those of Jewish heritage and Trump aiming to deny the long-standing rule of birthright citizenship to first-generation immigrants.
Excluding people because of their inherent qualities — such as gender or ethnicity — highlights divides that bolster support for the dominant group in society, which happens to be overwhelmingly white, heterosexual and cisgender conservatives who deify Trump.
His administration also established the 1776 Commission, which is dedicated to ensuring American children receive what the document refers to as a “patriotic education.” This, paired with the promise of eliminating DEI, implies the exclusion of atrocities committed against Black and Indigenous people from curriculums across the country due to the possibility that these truths could inspire thoughts that the U.S. is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.”
In an attempt to promote patriotic education, the commission will create the 1776 Presidential Award for the student who is most knowledgeable about the founding of the U.S. Rewarding children for demonstrating superpatriotism is the same indoctrination technique that was utilized in the Nazi regime.
The Hitler Youth organization was founded to encourage nationalist ideology and support of the chancellor from a young age. Both Mussolini and Hitler held the belief that society should organize itself around a “strong national identity,” a philosophy that the Trump administration seems to be trying to entrench in U.S. society as well.
Although the constitutionality of many of these orders is being challenged and some might take time to come to fruition, it is clear the goals of this administration are trending toward fascism.
However, there is often a disconnect for U.S. residents on this subject: it can feel almost impossible to accept the fascist nature of a government that has claimed to fight against those principles for so long. But people in the U.S. must overcome this cognitive dissonance to preserve our democracy. There is nothing more patriotic than protesting a government that does not serve its citizens.
