Whoever wrote this article does not know how Hitler and the Nazis took over the Weimar Republic. ICE is now murdering US citizens. The parallel to the brownshits is staggering. This apologist article is written because Trump supposedly supports Israel. He like other dictators is a narcissist and truly doesn’t care about Israel or Jews. We Jews who support democracy and ethical behavior can and should label this administration as fascists.
You seem to be the pot calling the kettle black. You made the statement "you don’t know how Hitler and the nazis took over." You are the one deflecting. If you question my statement then show me how I am wrong, I know that you probably know you can't.
Isaac Asimov warned us — are we finally proving him right?
"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent."
The celebrated scientist and writer spent his life warning about a future where ignorance isn’t just tolerated — it’s celebrated. Where questioning authority is branded un-American. Where reason and critical thinking are dismissed as threats.
That future isn’t science fiction. It’s uncomfortably close.
Asimov believed that a society cannot remain free if it turns against its thinkers. Patriotism, he argued, should never mean blind loyalty. It should mean striving for better — through knowledge, curiosity, and truth.
But when intelligence becomes suspicious… when facts are politicized… when experts are vilified…
We’re no longer protecting freedom. We’re protecting ignorance.
ICE is murdering US citizens like the Nazis or useful idiots impeding on federal arrests of illegals are being killed? 🤔I live by the US-Mexico border in El Paso and as a Mexican American I can assure you that ICE is NOT murdering US citizens but arresting illegals. ICE is not perfect but it is far from being the Gestapo. Read Raul Hilberg’s “The Destruction of the European Jews” for detailed accounts of how they operated. This article is spot on and should be shared worldwide. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
John Galt III you seem to be the troll. However, since you like name calling and denigrating me, I will plant a tree in your name in Israel. Israelis and Jews around the world thank you for the tree planted in your name.
Call it fascism, call it authoritarianism, call it state-sponsored terrorism. Whatever. If we don’t call it something that adequately characterizes and warns against what is happening and just focus on listing textbook distinctions, we’ll all be victims—of whatchacallit.
I'll suggest that Trump is a fascist. None of what Ms. Berg writes contradicts that. She herself writes that "Trump is better understood as a stress test" for American institutions. I.e., the separation of powers between the President, Congress and the courts that the founding fathers created has so far prevented Trump from acquiring the absolute powers of a totalitarian autocrat, as he certainly would if he could. To be precise, it is the courts rather than Congress that have stood in the breach so far, Congress having abdicated its powers.
So when one calls Trump a fascist, it doesn't mean that the US has become a fascist country yet. Nor that ICE is like the Gestapo, or that its detention camps are like concentration camps. It means that Trump glorifies violence, enjoys bullying whoever is perceived as weaker. It means he is trying hard to destroy norms that usually restrained the exercise of the power of the presidency, such as using foreign policy to enrich himself or using the federal prosecution to attack his personal and political enemies. It means that while he hasn't overturned elections, it is not for want of trying. It means that Trump gives every indication that he envies the absolute powers wielded by a Putin or a Xi, and is more deferential to them than to elected leaders of America's allies. And the hypocrisy and incompetence of the Democrats that call Trump a fascist is neither here nor there.
So yes, Trump is a fascist, and only the courts are preventing the US from becoming a fascist country. And none of what Ms. Berg wrote contradicts that.
Excellent analysis .The cries of fascism and Holocaust type rhetoric cheapen those terms simply because Democrats have no program except opposing Trump’s dismantling of the woke DEI CRT driven anti American and anti Israel agenda of the left
Has Trump called for mass murder? Has there been plans by either him or The State around him for mass murder? Have there been any mass murders? The answer to these three questions is No. Deportation is NOT murder. Yes, Trump is hard, and Hard Right. But if Demographics is not corrected in America then the future could be much worse than under Trump. Trump is excellent precisely because he is showing Demographics can be put right without Nazism, and is now doing this for America. All Nazism is Genocidal. Trump is not Genocidal. Thus Trump is Not a Nazi. He is Hard Right. Good! Because he is precisely what is needed. The minute he becomes Genocidal my support will be withdrawn. There is no indication he is or will be. Demographics MUST be answered. President Trump is doing this within the Law and won the Democratic mandate to do so. Good! Now keep going, because you are doing a good job, Sir.
What I mean to say is if Trump will attempt to order mass murder, and also cancel Democracy and free Elections. Those will be indicative of Nazism and will give plenty of warning. But yes, I take your point.
How to answer demographics and the Muslim take-over of Europe, Mr Lazarus. This is happening now and will be complete in three generations. In America Trump is the answer. This is all provisional if he stays clear of Genocide as he has done thus far in his five years of holding Office.
You were doing pretty well until your last sentence, which is nonsense, unless you want to claim Fascism, which is what Il Duce called his movement, was secretly Left Wing Extremist Socialism. (This would be hard to justify, given Fascist Italy's religious and monarchial preferences, and also its corporatist economics.)
He is anti-demographic? He wants to make American Latino-Rein? He wants an all Aryan nation? What the heck do you mean by correcting Demographics? Eliminating minorities?
Expulsion of All Muslims, and reversal of the citizenship of Illegal Mexicans and deporting them. Then Boosting the population by supporting Protestant Christian family values. No Genocide involved.
I am not a bot. Whole cities here in Europe are now majority Muslim, and some areas have declared Sharia Law and are no-go areas for Whites. This is unacceptable and I want All Muslims Expelled because of this.
Apologizing for the man who is directly responsible for the demonization of entire communities, the stripping of civil rights of multiple social and biological identities, the governmental profit sharing from several private industries, and the murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti makes you complicit. Shame on you. I am unsubscribing. Shavuah Tov.
Please explain how Trump has stripped the civil rights of multiple social and biological identities, and please elaborate on what you mean by identities?
I find many or even most of thet articles in this paper very well thought out and backed up with factual evidence. I am very disappointed in this one.
I will agree that references to the Holocaust and events of that time, in comparison to Modern Day events, are often loosely and thoughtlessly cast. In this case, however, I believe that the author, and many of the comments on the article are comparing the end results of German fascism with the beginnings of the same in the U.S. and that is the wrong comparison to make. The disaster in Germany did not begin with the end results, but Minnesota today is looking a lot like Germany in 1939.
The reason fascist and Nazi are used is because even 80 years afterward the memory of WHO they actually were still resonates. However, the left has trivialized those words by sheer repetition just like the word racist because they disagree with Trump or ANYONE else.
The reality is that Trump is actually a weak leader, has no intent or ability to be a real fascist.
The real fascists are on the political left who riot in the streets. The real danger to America is Obama, Biden, AOC, Mamdani, Bernie Sanders et al along with political hacks that the Democratic party has placed on judicial benches.
The issue here is really a debate about semantics. Me? I guess I'm anti-semantic. I don't think it matters what you call it. Personally, I call it "awful." I call it "scary." I call it "disgusting."
As to certain statements in this article, Trump for sure favors one party rule. He fuses American policy with his MAGA ideology. He has ignored courts and criticized judges to the point that judges are being shot. He has in fact normalized political terror. Minorities are not protected. Disagreement is not permitted. While there are no book burnings there are book bannings-- books that mention things such as homosexuality and trans.
We don't have secret police yet, though they do wear masks to try to hide their identity. He hasn't shuttered the press, just sued them and kicked them out of the press room.
He says he's in control of Venezuela, that Cuba and Colombia are next, he wants control of the Panama Canal Zone and Greenland.
Read this quotation and guess from where it comes - it's not hard.
"Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared … Everyone is scared … No one can keep out of the conflict … the end is nowhere in sight."
Berg's overly long essay "doth protest too much," likely in service to the author's exclusive focus on Trump's policies toward Israel (the longer term outcomes of which remain vin doubt). Fascism is defined not only by its ultimate outcomes but also by the intent of those in power to impose it. The parallels are not to 1939 Germany, but to the brownshirts' path to power during the 1920s and 1930s. Recall that both Germany and Italy were democracies with democratic institutions that failed to protect them when they gave way to fascism. There is nothing "offensive" to Jews about raising the alarm based on what are certainly deeply worrisome parallels..
Berg says fascism "is the system that turned Jews into subhumans by law, by culture, and by force." Indeed. As we have seen, the current US Administration has turned immigrants more broadly into much the same. Berg further notes that fascism features "one-party rule, the fusion of state and ideology, the abolition of independent courts, the suppression of opposition through force, the criminalization of dissent, state-controlled media, and the normalization of political terror." Consider Trump's constant intimidation of the media, the weaponization of the Dept of Justice, the efforts to punish those who dissent (e.g. Sen. Mark Kelly), the stacking of the Courts with pliant judges, the repeated failures to comply with court orders, the demonization of Democrats and other dissenters as "traitors" worth of the "death penalty," the home invasions by ICE without warrants, and most recently the murders of American citizens in the street by masked government operatives, followed by demonization of the victims by Trump and Vance, on through to the heads of key government departments and agencies, absent any due process or likely even review of the evidence.
Berg goes on to insist on "precision," even as she engages in her own polemical sleight of hand. She says that "Donald Trump did not abolish elections;" well, no, but he did try mightily to do so after the 2020 election, and failed only because some of the institutions of the country held, prior to his current regime. That's no guarantee that they will continue to hold under repeated assault. She goes on to say that Trump is a "stress test," who has "exposed cultural fractures, elite failures, media dysfunction, and institutional brittleness." Well, yes, but that's missing the key point that Trump himself has been one of the key actors and role models in exacerbating the issues she claims he has merely "exposed."
Then there's her argument concerning ICE, in which she harks back to its stated purpose when it was first created in 2003. But John Mitnick, who helped establish ICE and was General Counsel for DHS during Trump’s first term, is now calling out DHS’s “lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty” and saying Trump should be impeached.
My mother fought in Israel's infantry in the 1948 War of Independence, and I am a citizen of both the US and Israel. I acknowledge Trump's roles in the Abraham Accords and ending the "hot" phase of the Gaza war. But, in my view, the longer term implications of his actions concerning Israel's future remain concerning, as his policies characteristically shift without warning, according to where he perceives his personal interests lie. Witness his failure to date to follow through on the needed post-war initiatives in Gaza and his fracturing the NATO alliance.
Ms. Berg would do better to stop preaching to the rest of us Jews, and to examine her own motivations and premises.
Whoever wrote this article does not know how Hitler and the Nazis took over the Weimar Republic. ICE is now murdering US citizens. The parallel to the brownshits is staggering. This apologist article is written because Trump supposedly supports Israel. He like other dictators is a narcissist and truly doesn’t care about Israel or Jews. We Jews who support democracy and ethical behavior can and should label this administration as fascists.
The parallel to the brownshirts is staggering??? Wow. Sounds like you don’t know how Hitler and the nazis took over.
Please tell us how Hitler took over the Weimar Republic and please document your answer. I can back up my statement can you?
I was responding to your comment where you compared ICE to Brownshirts. Why don’t you explain your reasoning instead of deflecting.
You seem to be the pot calling the kettle black. You made the statement "you don’t know how Hitler and the nazis took over." You are the one deflecting. If you question my statement then show me how I am wrong, I know that you probably know you can't.
No point. We have different world views and we get our information from different sources. In good faith, have a good night. :)
Isaac Asimov warned us — are we finally proving him right?
"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent."
The celebrated scientist and writer spent his life warning about a future where ignorance isn’t just tolerated — it’s celebrated. Where questioning authority is branded un-American. Where reason and critical thinking are dismissed as threats.
That future isn’t science fiction. It’s uncomfortably close.
Asimov believed that a society cannot remain free if it turns against its thinkers. Patriotism, he argued, should never mean blind loyalty. It should mean striving for better — through knowledge, curiosity, and truth.
But when intelligence becomes suspicious… when facts are politicized… when experts are vilified…
We’re no longer protecting freedom. We’re protecting ignorance.
ICE is murdering US citizens like the Nazis or useful idiots impeding on federal arrests of illegals are being killed? 🤔I live by the US-Mexico border in El Paso and as a Mexican American I can assure you that ICE is NOT murdering US citizens but arresting illegals. ICE is not perfect but it is far from being the Gestapo. Read Raul Hilberg’s “The Destruction of the European Jews” for detailed accounts of how they operated. This article is spot on and should be shared worldwide. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Marshall Mermell..
You are just another apologist for the Communist/Islam Party - the Democrats. You hate America and the Constitution.
Are you a Chinese Communist Troll or just a run of the mill liar?
John Galt III you seem to be the troll. However, since you like name calling and denigrating me, I will plant a tree in your name in Israel. Israelis and Jews around the world thank you for the tree planted in your name.
100%!
Call it fascism, call it authoritarianism, call it state-sponsored terrorism. Whatever. If we don’t call it something that adequately characterizes and warns against what is happening and just focus on listing textbook distinctions, we’ll all be victims—of whatchacallit.
I'll suggest that Trump is a fascist. None of what Ms. Berg writes contradicts that. She herself writes that "Trump is better understood as a stress test" for American institutions. I.e., the separation of powers between the President, Congress and the courts that the founding fathers created has so far prevented Trump from acquiring the absolute powers of a totalitarian autocrat, as he certainly would if he could. To be precise, it is the courts rather than Congress that have stood in the breach so far, Congress having abdicated its powers.
So when one calls Trump a fascist, it doesn't mean that the US has become a fascist country yet. Nor that ICE is like the Gestapo, or that its detention camps are like concentration camps. It means that Trump glorifies violence, enjoys bullying whoever is perceived as weaker. It means he is trying hard to destroy norms that usually restrained the exercise of the power of the presidency, such as using foreign policy to enrich himself or using the federal prosecution to attack his personal and political enemies. It means that while he hasn't overturned elections, it is not for want of trying. It means that Trump gives every indication that he envies the absolute powers wielded by a Putin or a Xi, and is more deferential to them than to elected leaders of America's allies. And the hypocrisy and incompetence of the Democrats that call Trump a fascist is neither here nor there.
So yes, Trump is a fascist, and only the courts are preventing the US from becoming a fascist country. And none of what Ms. Berg wrote contradicts that.
I have long believed that Donald Trump's most incendiary quality is the fact that he is, at heart, a peasant.
Leftists imagine themselves intellectually Superior, a fiction to which they cling in the face of all their failures.
And they despise the working class.
Yup. Trump is a kid from Queens. A blunt New Yorker. He is no fascist. Lots of TDS here in the comments.
Yes. The pretense of intellectual and moral superiority is their core identity trait. Nothing can be allowed to challenge it.
Couldn’t disagree more.
Excellent analysis .The cries of fascism and Holocaust type rhetoric cheapen those terms simply because Democrats have no program except opposing Trump’s dismantling of the woke DEI CRT driven anti American and anti Israel agenda of the left
💯👏 Excellent article. Spot on. Those who call Trump a fascist have a severe case of TDS.
Has Trump called for mass murder? Has there been plans by either him or The State around him for mass murder? Have there been any mass murders? The answer to these three questions is No. Deportation is NOT murder. Yes, Trump is hard, and Hard Right. But if Demographics is not corrected in America then the future could be much worse than under Trump. Trump is excellent precisely because he is showing Demographics can be put right without Nazism, and is now doing this for America. All Nazism is Genocidal. Trump is not Genocidal. Thus Trump is Not a Nazi. He is Hard Right. Good! Because he is precisely what is needed. The minute he becomes Genocidal my support will be withdrawn. There is no indication he is or will be. Demographics MUST be answered. President Trump is doing this within the Law and won the Democratic mandate to do so. Good! Now keep going, because you are doing a good job, Sir.
Demographics put right is a backlash to Biden’s open border policy.
"The minute he becomes genocidal ...." Isn't that too late.
What I mean to say is if Trump will attempt to order mass murder, and also cancel Democracy and free Elections. Those will be indicative of Nazism and will give plenty of warning. But yes, I take your point.
Mussolini didn’t call for mass murder. Do you want to argue that the man who named his movement Fascism wasn’t a Fascists?
Mussolini killed many people with his RSI movement to take power. Trump has not.
The March on Rome was almost bloodless.
I don’t find an argument that two murders in a month isn’t enough to be Fascist persuasive.
It’s also pathetic that a nominally-Jewish Substack allied itself to the Great Replacement Theory, where the villains are (liberal) Jews.
Two leaders of American Nazi movements of the 1960/70s were born Jewish.
How to answer demographics and the Muslim take-over of Europe, Mr Lazarus. This is happening now and will be complete in three generations. In America Trump is the answer. This is all provisional if he stays clear of Genocide as he has done thus far in his five years of holding Office.
There was a tiny group of German Jews who supported Hitler. He ignored them and dissolved their organization.
You would have joined.
I absolutely would not. Hitler hated Jews and said so. All Nazis are Antisemitic. Trump is not Antisemitic. Therefore Trump is not a Nazi.
Mussloni was a Left Wing Socialist like all the Democrats way before he was a Fascist.
FACT: He was the editor of Italy's Number One Socialist Publication: AVANTI!
He wasn't kicked out of the Socialist Parties due to ideology but rather because he was in favor of WWI.
He lived and died a Left Wing Extremist Socialist!!!!
You were doing pretty well until your last sentence, which is nonsense, unless you want to claim Fascism, which is what Il Duce called his movement, was secretly Left Wing Extremist Socialism. (This would be hard to justify, given Fascist Italy's religious and monarchial preferences, and also its corporatist economics.)
He is anti-demographic? He wants to make American Latino-Rein? He wants an all Aryan nation? What the heck do you mean by correcting Demographics? Eliminating minorities?
Expulsion of All Muslims, and reversal of the citizenship of Illegal Mexicans and deporting them. Then Boosting the population by supporting Protestant Christian family values. No Genocide involved.
Dan, Are you a Bot? “Expelling Muslims n reversing citizenship”? Sounds more like a fascist state than what America was founded upon!
I am not a bot. Whole cities here in Europe are now majority Muslim, and some areas have declared Sharia Law and are no-go areas for Whites. This is unacceptable and I want All Muslims Expelled because of this.
"some areas have declared Sharia Law and are no-go areas for Whites."
Poor guy should try meditation.
‘Try meditation’ you sarcastically reply. Andrew, that is no answer whatsoever to the facts here in Europe.
Great piece - and long overdue. Thank you.
No different than the left's over/misuse of the charge of racism to defame anyone not towing the party line.
Apologizing for the man who is directly responsible for the demonization of entire communities, the stripping of civil rights of multiple social and biological identities, the governmental profit sharing from several private industries, and the murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti makes you complicit. Shame on you. I am unsubscribing. Shavuah Tov.
Good riddance. Take your baseball bat, glove, and ball and go home.
Please explain how Trump has stripped the civil rights of multiple social and biological identities, and please elaborate on what you mean by identities?
Blah, blah, blah........
I find many or even most of thet articles in this paper very well thought out and backed up with factual evidence. I am very disappointed in this one.
I will agree that references to the Holocaust and events of that time, in comparison to Modern Day events, are often loosely and thoughtlessly cast. In this case, however, I believe that the author, and many of the comments on the article are comparing the end results of German fascism with the beginnings of the same in the U.S. and that is the wrong comparison to make. The disaster in Germany did not begin with the end results, but Minnesota today is looking a lot like Germany in 1939.
The reason fascist and Nazi are used is because even 80 years afterward the memory of WHO they actually were still resonates. However, the left has trivialized those words by sheer repetition just like the word racist because they disagree with Trump or ANYONE else.
The reality is that Trump is actually a weak leader, has no intent or ability to be a real fascist.
The real fascists are on the political left who riot in the streets. The real danger to America is Obama, Biden, AOC, Mamdani, Bernie Sanders et al along with political hacks that the Democratic party has placed on judicial benches.
The issue here is really a debate about semantics. Me? I guess I'm anti-semantic. I don't think it matters what you call it. Personally, I call it "awful." I call it "scary." I call it "disgusting."
As to certain statements in this article, Trump for sure favors one party rule. He fuses American policy with his MAGA ideology. He has ignored courts and criticized judges to the point that judges are being shot. He has in fact normalized political terror. Minorities are not protected. Disagreement is not permitted. While there are no book burnings there are book bannings-- books that mention things such as homosexuality and trans.
We don't have secret police yet, though they do wear masks to try to hide their identity. He hasn't shuttered the press, just sued them and kicked them out of the press room.
He says he's in control of Venezuela, that Cuba and Colombia are next, he wants control of the Panama Canal Zone and Greenland.
Read this quotation and guess from where it comes - it's not hard.
"Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared … Everyone is scared … No one can keep out of the conflict … the end is nowhere in sight."
Berg's overly long essay "doth protest too much," likely in service to the author's exclusive focus on Trump's policies toward Israel (the longer term outcomes of which remain vin doubt). Fascism is defined not only by its ultimate outcomes but also by the intent of those in power to impose it. The parallels are not to 1939 Germany, but to the brownshirts' path to power during the 1920s and 1930s. Recall that both Germany and Italy were democracies with democratic institutions that failed to protect them when they gave way to fascism. There is nothing "offensive" to Jews about raising the alarm based on what are certainly deeply worrisome parallels..
Berg says fascism "is the system that turned Jews into subhumans by law, by culture, and by force." Indeed. As we have seen, the current US Administration has turned immigrants more broadly into much the same. Berg further notes that fascism features "one-party rule, the fusion of state and ideology, the abolition of independent courts, the suppression of opposition through force, the criminalization of dissent, state-controlled media, and the normalization of political terror." Consider Trump's constant intimidation of the media, the weaponization of the Dept of Justice, the efforts to punish those who dissent (e.g. Sen. Mark Kelly), the stacking of the Courts with pliant judges, the repeated failures to comply with court orders, the demonization of Democrats and other dissenters as "traitors" worth of the "death penalty," the home invasions by ICE without warrants, and most recently the murders of American citizens in the street by masked government operatives, followed by demonization of the victims by Trump and Vance, on through to the heads of key government departments and agencies, absent any due process or likely even review of the evidence.
Berg goes on to insist on "precision," even as she engages in her own polemical sleight of hand. She says that "Donald Trump did not abolish elections;" well, no, but he did try mightily to do so after the 2020 election, and failed only because some of the institutions of the country held, prior to his current regime. That's no guarantee that they will continue to hold under repeated assault. She goes on to say that Trump is a "stress test," who has "exposed cultural fractures, elite failures, media dysfunction, and institutional brittleness." Well, yes, but that's missing the key point that Trump himself has been one of the key actors and role models in exacerbating the issues she claims he has merely "exposed."
Then there's her argument concerning ICE, in which she harks back to its stated purpose when it was first created in 2003. But John Mitnick, who helped establish ICE and was General Counsel for DHS during Trump’s first term, is now calling out DHS’s “lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty” and saying Trump should be impeached.
My mother fought in Israel's infantry in the 1948 War of Independence, and I am a citizen of both the US and Israel. I acknowledge Trump's roles in the Abraham Accords and ending the "hot" phase of the Gaza war. But, in my view, the longer term implications of his actions concerning Israel's future remain concerning, as his policies characteristically shift without warning, according to where he perceives his personal interests lie. Witness his failure to date to follow through on the needed post-war initiatives in Gaza and his fracturing the NATO alliance.
Ms. Berg would do better to stop preaching to the rest of us Jews, and to examine her own motivations and premises.