"Re-Elect President Wile E. Coyote," By The Numbers (Updated Below)

In Jacobin, Luke Savage writes, "2024 Is Beginning To Feel A Lot Like 2016."

"[I]t's difficult to understate how shaky Joe Biden’s reelection campaign really looks... Were it not for a global pandemic, there is good reason to believe that Trump would have beaten Biden [in 2020] and secured a second term. And even with a COVID handicap, the latter’s electoral college victory came down to no more than about forty-four thousand votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. If he is indeed the Democratic candidate for president in 2024, the available evidence suggests that Biden will be running the same playbook with fewer advantages and less popularity."

Nothing new there, of course. Biden's presidency has been a major bust. Everyone knows it, even if many partisans are still loath to say it. To anyone who can follow data, has any more-than-rudimentary an understanding of politics and who doesn't want a return of rule by Trump's Republican party, a Biden reelection effort seems a very bad idea. Biden is spectacularly unpopular, and that dislike doesn't just threaten to take down his own reelection campaign but will impact every Democratic candidate at every level in the 2024 general election.

Last Summer, one of the dimmer Clintonites over on Twitter wrote,

"And the people who kept telling us [Joe Biden] had no chance are now telling us he needs to step aside. Sigh."

My initial response to this became an ongoing Twitter thread cataloging some rather pertinent polling on this, one that has continued to the present. In February, that thread up to that point was slightly expanded into an appendix to an article on the baleful influence of Clintonite-right dominance of the Democratic party and its elected officials. I'm reproducing and further expanding it here:

12 July, 2022 - The people saying Biden needs to step aside include the overwhelming majority of Democrats; only 26% of Democrats say they want their party to renominate Biden in 2024.

Huge majorities of Dems in every age group don't want their party to renominate Biden, except in the 65+ bracket, where a plurality agrees. Huge majorities at every educational level, a plurality of black voters and a majority of every other racial group don't want him back.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released on 11 July found that only 26% of Democratic voters said the party should renominate Biden in 2024; 64% said they prefer someone other than Biden. An astonishing 94% of Democrats under age 30 don't want Biden again.

26 July, 2022 - Another poll, same conclusion:

"A new CNN poll finds 75% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters want the party to nominate someone other than President Joe Biden in the 2024 election..."

CNN's poll offers a breakdown on why Dems don't want Biden to run again:

--24% say they want someone else because they don't think Biden can win in 2024.
--32% (the plurality) said they didn't want Biden reelected.
--25% said they prefer Biden as the 2024 nominee.

29 July, 2022 - Gallup, the Grand Old Man of pollsters, has been around since 1935. It reports that approval of Biden's job performance stands at 38% and offers some historical context. The New York Post reports, "How bad has it gotten for Biden? Gallup says the average approval rate during his first six quarters in the oval office was a historic low of 40%--worse than the 42% recorded by ex-Presidents Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump..." Guys who, though doing better than Biden at this point in their presidencies, ran for reelection and lost.

9 Nov., 2022 - Exit-polls on the 2022 midterm elections showed that 67% of voters--of all voters--don't want Biden to run in 2024.

15 Nov., 2022 - An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that, in the words of the Hill, "just 35 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want President Biden to run for second term in 2024."

1 Dec., 2022 - An Economist/YouGov poll of adults found that 56% didn't want Biden to run again, compared to 22% who said they did. This poll featured a sky-high-enough-to-be-very-questionable 22% saying they're "not sure"--a regular unfortunate feature of YouGov polls.

A slight majority of black and Hispanic Americans don't want Biden to run again, while solid majorities of every other demographic group oppose his seeking reelection. 39% of Dems say he should run again with a very unlikely 29% saying they're not sure.

10 Dec., 2022 - A CNBC poll found that a whopping 70% of adult Americans don't want Biden to run again; only 19% said he should. Those who said Biden shouldn't run again include 57% of Democrats and 66% of independents.

There's no breakdown on Dem-leaning independents, which is quite problematic. Dem "leaners"--that is, those who call themselves independent but almost always vote Democratic--are a large and indispensable portion of the Dem coalition. With 66% of "independents"--no breakdown--saying they don't want Biden to run again, it means Biden's standing among Dems is even worse than the above results suggest.

14 Dec., 2022 - A CNN poll asked registered Dems and Dem-leaning indies who they thought the party should nominate in 2024; 40% chose Biden, while 59% said it should be someone else.

5 Feb., 2023 - A Tale of Two News Stories - The first, from ABC News...

"'I have heard from no one within the DNC or other power brokers within the Democratic Party any reservation about Joe Biden,' one of the DNC members said."

...and--simultaneously--the second, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 58% of Dems "support the idea of nominating someone other than Biden... Just 31% said they would support Biden... Sixty-two percent of Americans say they would be 'dissatisfied' or 'angry' if Biden were reelected."

In the same poll, 62% say Biden has achieved little or nothing during his administration. Respondents' views of individual areas of policy yield equally dismal results.

7 Feb., 2023 - An Associated Press/NORC poll finds that 62% of Democrats don't want Biden to run for reelection in 2024 vs. only 37% who do. Overall, 78% of Americans don't want Biden to run again.

The poll understates how little Dems want Biden to run again, as those numbers segregate Dems from Dem-leaning independents, and 88% of unsorted indies don't want Biden to run again.

27 Feb., 2023 - Another new poll, this one a Fox poll of "Democratic primary voters," only 37% of whom want to keep Biden as the nominee.

6 March, 2023 - There appears to have been some sort of major short-circuit in the new Emerson College poll, which just found that 71% of Democrats now want Biden to "carry the party’s banner" in 2024.

"Support for Biden to run for a second term is highest among 18- to 34-year-old Democratic voters." All of these findings are, of course, entirely impossible. Dem opposition to Biden running again has been overwhelming for months and has been strongest among young voters.

There are always outlier polls that turn up from time to time, some of them even extreme ones but this is maybe the most extreme I've ever seen. It isn't credible that every other polling org has gotten this so wrong for so long.

So what's the real story with this poll?

[The problem appeared to be an overreliance on landline phones.]

23 March, 2023 - Meanwhile, as Biden has been making high-profile lunges to the right, his approval continues to plummet. In the new Associated Press-NORC poll, it's 38%, with a fatal 61% saying they disapprove of the job he's doing as president.

30 March, 2023 - This new Monmouth University poll just found that only 25% of Dems/Dem-leaners want Biden to run again in 2024.

The very high "no preference" result is a problematic feature of this poll but here are the results, for what they're worth:

Joe Biden carried New York by a whopping 23 points over Trump in 2020, but in a new Siena College poll of registered Dems in NY, only 43% said they want Biden renominated in 2024; 51% said they want someone else.

8 April, 2023 - Another one for the pile: A new CNN poll asked adults, "Do you think Joe Biden deserves to be re-elected, or not?" A very strongly-worded question; 67% said he doesn't deserve reelection.

CNN doesn't do a breakdown of Dem- and Repub-leaning independents, which, honestly, makes one wonder why they're bothering, but supermajorities of Repubs (96%) and indies (70%) say Biden doesn't deserve reelection, while 68% of Dems say he does. That strong wording at work.

Some details: 57% say they disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job as president, with large majorities--usually supermajorities--disapproving of every one of the 6 general policy areas about which respondents were asked.

Some other eye-catching results: 54% of respondents said Biden doesn't care about people like them, 54% said he isn't "honest and trustworthy," 65% say he doesn't inspire confidence, and 67% said Biden doesn't have "the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president."

The poll asked Dems and Dem-leaners--the correct combo--"Who do you think the Democratic Party should nominate as the party's candidate for president in 2024?"

56% chose "a different candidate," with only 44% going with Biden.

22 April, 2023 - A new Associated Press-NORC poll has found that 73% of Americans--including (again) a majority of Democrats--do not want Biden to run for reelection. AP-NORC fouls up their findings by segregating independents with no effort to break them down into Repub- and Dem-leaners.

Given that an overwhelming 86% of indies don't want another Biden run, those numbers would be much worse if Dem-leaners were included with the Dems.

Also, 56% of respondents said they either probably wouldn't (15%) or definitely wouldn't (41%) vote for Biden if he did run again.

23 April, 2023 - Another day, another poll telling the same story: An NBC News poll finds that 70% of Americans say "Joe Biden should not run for president" in 2024. Only 26% say he should run again.

That large number includes most Dems but NBC segregates Dem-leaning indies from them. 41% of registered voters said they'd probably or definitely vote Biden if he ran, with 47% saying they'd vote Repub. Only 22% of indies say they'd back Biden.

26 April, 2023 - Biden announced his reelection bid. While by any serious, objective measure, Biden has accomplished very little, he says "Let's finish the job."

14 May, 2023 - New ABC News/Washington Post poll: Only 36% of Dems and Dem-leaners want the Dems to renominate Biden for 2024, and 68% of Americans say Biden is too old to run for another term. His approval rating stands at only 36%.

That article notes that, in polling going back to Harry Truman, Biden's approval at the point is his presidency is similar to "Gerald Ford, at 40% approval in May 1975; Jimmy Carter, at  37% in May 1979; and Trump, at 39% in April 2019. None were re-elected."

25 May, 2023 - In a new Quinnipiac poll, 66% of adults say "Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve" another term, including nearly half of Democrats and supermajorities in every age-bracket and every racial category, except black Americans, who are evenly split.

Continuing, 54% of registered voters say they have an unfavorable opinion of Biden, compared to 39% favorable; 58% of adults say they disapprove of his job as president vs. 36% approve; Biden is ranked negatively in all 4 policy categories about which the pollsters asked.

And that's where the Twitter thread currently stands--nearly a year of wretched numbers for Biden. A negative public impression, hardened to diamond. A new CNN poll just asked respondents if a Biden victory in 2024 would be "a disaster for the country, a setback, a step forward, or a triumph for the country."; 66% said it would either be "a disaster" (41%) or "a setback" (26%); only 7% chose "a triumph."

After the fiasco that was the 2016 election, I collected many of my notes from that primary into an article and to pick up from where Luke Savage left the matter in Jacobin, Biden's polling here is very reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's polling from this same point in that cycle. Clinton joined that race in the 2nd week of April, 2015, her polling already showing her more disliked than liked, but Biden's negatives in the corresponding period this year were even higher than hers.[1]

One of the least useful things corporate media have done in covering Biden's grim fortunes is both-sides-ing the story by pointing out that Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, is also very disliked. In early head-to-head polls, Biden sometimes even wins. And sometimes Trump wins. And in neither case are the margins significant.[2] Too many in and overly adhered to the Dem Establishment seem drunk on the thought that while Biden bites, Trump overbites. The notion that Trump's suckage will trump Biden's suckage is another example of pure 2016 thinking.[3]

We all know how that worked out.

None of this means Biden will definitely lose his reelection bid, but one doesn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind's blowing. Biden has always been a weak candidate, and now, diminished by age to a shell of even that, he's a weak and disliked president, which carries a lot more baggage. He spent most of covid-locked-down 2020 in his basement reading, often quite badly, from prepared cue-cards while the weight of a failed presidency did all the work of drowning Trump. He wasn't broadly disliked (he finished 2020 with a net favorable rating) and he won by default. Barely. Tightly-controlled basement-dwelling won't be an option in 2020, Biden's advanced age and cognitive decline won't be so easily swept under the rug, those net favorable days are long gone and that weight of a bad presidency--Biden's approval has been at an unbroken majority-disapprove since 8 months into his presidency--will now be on his back. Unless just trying to lose is the point, throwing such a weak president into any new race is madness. Black-hole-level shade should be directed at Biden for choosing to run again under these circumstances, ensuring the party apparatus will close ranks around him and suck all oxygen (and light) out of any effort to find a good, more electable candidate. By running again, he's only further proven he was unfit to be president in the first place.

Democratic party officialdom is barreling ahead. For all its talk of "protecting democracy" in the face of GOP attacks on it, the party isn't scheduling any Democratic primary debates--part of that "closing ranks" (and while it's true--and always noted by those seeking to brush aside concerns over this) that there isn't really much precedent for primary debates when an incumbent president is running for reelection, it's also the case that, as one of the news articles above noted, there's no precedent for an incumbent president with Biden's numbers winning reelection either. By renominating Biden, Democrats would be absolutely begging for a loss.

Meep- meep.

--j.

---

[1] The comparison isn't precise, as it compares favorability numbers for Clinton to approval numbers for Biden but the two are always closely correlated.

[2] In the 538 database for May to date, Trump defeats Biden in 15 polls and Biden defeats Trump in 14, all but two by single digits, either within or barely outside the polls' margins of error (meaning they're statistical ties or razor-thin wins). In the two, Trump defeated Biden by double digits (11%) in one Harris poll and Biden defeated Trump by double digits (15%) in one Ipsos poll. In eight more polls, Biden and Trump exactly tie, putting the "dead" in "dead evenly."

[3] This also depends on Trump actually becoming the Republican nominee, and while he's by far the most popular candidate in his party, there are many months to go and a million things that could happen in them before that's settled. Presenting it as a foregone conclusion is journalistic malpractice, a way of both burying the lede--which is about Biden, the sitting president--and of manipulating the political process--presenting Trump as if he already has the nomination while he has over half a dozen opponents and it's months before any voting even begins. Team Biden has staked its entire reelection effort on running against Trump and will be in a sorry place indeed if Trump isn't the Repub nominee.

---

UPDATES:

11 June, 2023 - In the words of USA Today, "eight in 10 Democratic primary voters say in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll they would like to see a series of Democratic debates during the 2024 campaign." Those debates Biden and the DNC are refusing to organize. Those wanting to see primary debates "includes an overwhelming 72% of those supporting President Joe Biden."

17 June, 2023 - A YouGov poll of American adult, asks, "Do you think that Joe Biden is the strongest candidate that Democrats could nominate for president in 2024?" Only 19% say yes. Only 34% of even Dems say yes.

27 June, 2023 - An NBC News poll finds, in the words of NBC News, that "68% of all voters say they have concerns about Biden having the necessary mental and physical health to be president, including 55% who say they have 'major' concerns."

This compares to Oct. 2020, the first NBC News poll on that subject, in which 51% said they had concerns, with 38% having "major" concerns. In that earlier poll, 21% of Dems said they had moderate/major concerns about Biden’s fitness. In this one, it’s up to 43%.

11 July, 2023 - CNN reports on the average of the last 3 Quinnipiac polls shows Biden, along with (unhelpfully) Trump, have very poor favorable ratings, with 24% of respondents saying they don't have a favorable view of either.

At the same time, in an NBC News poll, 45% of registered voters said they'd be open to supporting a 3rd party candidate if Biden and Trump are the nominees next year; 45% of Dems say they'd consider it, compared to only a third of Repubs.

In the event of a Biden/Trump rematch, "a majority of Hispanic voters (58%), young voters ages 18 to 34 (57%), Democrats who backed progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary (55%) and Black voters (52%)" said they'd consider a 3rd party.

29 Aug., 2023 - In an Associated Press/NORC poll, 77% of respondents said Biden is too old to effectively serve another term as president. That includes 69% of Demcrats, 89% of Republicans and 74% of independents.

7 Sept., 2023 - A CNN poll shows that 67% of Democrats and Dem-leaning independents want the party to nominate someone other than Biden in 2024.

Other findings, as reported by CNN: Biden's job approval stands at only 39%; 58% say they have an unfavorable impression of Biden; only 33% describe Biden as someone they're proud to have as president; only 28% say Biden inspires confidence; only 26% say Biden "has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president" (that's down by 6 points from March, "with those declines driven largely by Democrats and independents"); 73% say they are "seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence"; 76% say Biden's age will negatively affect "his ability to serve out another full term if reelected."

When matched against the Republican contenders, Biden is statistically tied with Trump, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, with every Repub except DeSantis leading him by 1-2 points (while Biden and DeSantis are dead-tied with 47% each). Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is beating Biden by 6 points--above the margin of error.

17 Sept., 2023 - In a CBS News/YouGov poll, 72% of registered voters say they believe Joe Biden isn't "physically healthy" enough to serve another 4 years as president; 77% say he doesn't have the mental and cognitive health to serve another term. Asked if Biden would finish a 2nd term if reelected, 66% say they either think he would leave office before it was over (44%) or aren't sure he'd finish the term (22%).

Other findings: Trump is ahead of Biden by one point among likely voters in a theoretical 2024 match-up--a statistical tie; 51% of those who say they'd vote for Biden in such a contest say they'd only be voting against Trump, not in favor of Biden. Among registered voters, 64% say a Biden/Trump rematch in 2024 would make them feel "the political system is broken"; only 23% say it would make them feel "the political system is working."

24 Sept., 2023 - An NBC poll shows, "74% of registered voters say they have major concerns (59%) or moderate concerns (15%) that Biden, at age 80, doesn’t have the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term." A whopping 59% of Democratic primary voters say they want a candidate to challenge Biden for the Dem nomination. In a hypothetical Trump-vs.-Biden rematch in 2024, 58% of those who say they'd vote for Biden say they'd just be voting against Trump, while 57% of Trump voters say they'd be voting for Trump, not against Biden.

Other findings: Biden's approval rating among registered voters is at 41% approve and--the important number--56% disapprove. This is the highest disapproval of Biden NBC News polls have yet found (though others have found it even worse). Biden is more disliked than liked among women, Latinos, independents and voters aged 18-34.

In the face of this growing mountain of data, Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks has launched a petition asking Biden to step down and not run for reelection. He's just written an editorial in Newsweek promoting it.

2 Oct., 2023 - A Monmouth University poll finds that 51% of voters say they will "definitely" not vote for Joe Biden in 2024, with another 6% saying "probably not." That's the lede, even if every report on this seems to have buried it. Other findings: A fat 76% say Biden is "too old to serve another term," including 55% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans; 55% of voters "strongly agree" with this. Only 32% of voters say they're "enthusiastic" about Biden becoming the Dem nominee. As has been the damnable trend of late, Monmouth throws in Trump as well, showing he also has bad numbers (though not as bad as Biden's).

7 Oct., 2023 - A Marquette University poll offers a glimpse of the weight Biden's failed administration puts on him. Marquette asked about 8 policy areas, "Do you think Joe Biden or Donald Trump would do a better job handling each of the following issues?"

On the big, important economic issues that always make up the upper strata of "most important issues to you" polling (and that tend to factor so heavily in voters' decisions), it's a one-sided massacre straight down the line. Only on "abortion policy"and "climate change" does Biden hold significant--though, one suspects, shaky--leads.

Marquette also asked, "How well does each of the following phrases describe Joe Biden?" Supermajorities agree that Biden doesn't have a strong record of accomplishments as president, doesn't understand the problems of ordinary people and is too old to be president.

Biden's approval rating in the poll stood at only 39%.

11 Nov., 2023 - Three sets of new polls surveying swing-states show Biden losing to Trump across most of them.

A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll has Trump ahead of Biden in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and, narrowly, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Biden tied with Trump in Michigan and leading Trump only in Nevada.

An Emerson College poll has Trump leading Biden in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and, narrowly, Arizona, while Biden narrowly leads in Michigan and the two are tied in Wisconsin.

A New York Times/Siena poll finds Trump leading Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania, with Biden narrowly ahead in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, a CNN poll has nothing but more bad news for Biden. Buttressing an Emerson poll from early October, "51% of voters nationwide say there is no chance at all that they would vote for Biden, and just 4% are not currently supporting him but say there is a chance they will." To repeat myself, if that holds, that's Game Over.

Only 25% of respondents say "Biden has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president"; 58% said Biden isn't "honest and trustworthy"; only 33% said Biden is "someone you are proud to have as president" (those offering the contrary view make up 57% of those 65 years of age or older and supermajorities of every other age-group). Asked if Biden is more part of the problem in dealing with the nation's issues or part of the solution, 61% chose the former; of the 19% who said both Biden and Trump were part of the problem, 46% say they'd vote for Trump, only 34% for Biden. Biden's approval rating in the poll stands at 39% and CNN notes that "Jimmy Carter was the only president with a significantly lower approval rating than Biden" at this point in is presidency--only 7% lower. Carter went on to lose 44 states in 1980.

In an unsurprising finding, "72% of all Americans say things in the country today are going badly." Sounds like an opportunity that could be exploited by a reform-minded politician with his eyes on the presidency. If there was any such thing.

16 Nov., 2023 - A Yahoo/YouGov poll finds that 54% of potential Dem primary voters say they would "like to see another Democrat enter the race to challenge Biden for the 2024 presidential nomination." Only 28% said they wouldn't.

The missing 18% there points to the usual problem with YouGov polls, the fact that they always return sky-high "don't know/unsure" responses--far higher than any other pollster and far higher than is remotely credible.

Whereas every other pollster who has asked has, over a very long period, a majority of Dems saying they'd prefer someone besides Biden be the Dem nominee, YouGov has, of late, been an outlier, showing majorities or pluralities of Dems picking Biden. The current poll shows 46% of Dems preferring Biden vs. 39% someone else, but it has a huge 15% saying "unsure." Caveat emptor.

14 Dec., 2023 - In an Associated Press/NORC poll, "most U.S. adults overall (56 percent) would be 'very' or 'somewhat' dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024, and a similar majority (58 percent) would be very or somewhat dissatisfied with Trump as the GOP's pick. Nearly 3 in 10 U.S. adults, or 28 percent, say they would be dissatisfied with both Trump and Biden becoming their party’s respective nominees..."

Most Republicans are thrilled with the prospect of Trump as their nominee. "Two-thirds of Republicans would be satisfied with Trump as the Republican nominee for 2024. About one-quarter would be dissatisfied, and 9 percent would be neutral."

Meanwhile, "about half of Democrats say they would be very or somewhat satisfied if Biden becomes the party’s 2024 nominee. About one-third of Democrats would be dissatisfied, and about 1 in 5 would be 'neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.'" For an incumbent president, that's pitiful but for Biden, it's a lot higher degree of satisfaction among his own party than polling since the Summer of 2022 has shown (though it does dovetail with a YouGov poll from last month). This could be a genuine shift in Dem opinion toward Biden but after such a long period in which they made it clear they didn't want Biden again, that doesn't seem likely. This could just be an outlier, or it could be Dems being team-players--having Biden forced on them and going along for now. Stay tuned.

19 Dec., 2023 - In a move that seems rife with all sorts of dire symbolism, the Biden campaign, earlier this month, rolled out Hillary Clinton--the toxic, All-Time-Loser-in-Chief herself--as a new surrogate. Clinton immediately utilized her sole talent on Biden's behalf by prostituting Biden's potential 2nd term to huge-money donors at a huge-money fundraiser in her Georgetown home.

Four days later, as if beckoned by this news, a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll showed Biden is now trailing Trump in all 7 swing-states surveyed.

"Trump [is now] leading Biden in North Carolina by 11 points, Georgia by seven points, Wisconsin by six points, Nevada by five points, Michigan by four points, Arizona by three points and Pennsylvania by one point."

Four days after that, Biden's approval rating hit a new Monmouth poll record low of 34%, with 61% disapproving. More granularly, a majority disapprove of the way Biden has handled all 5 specific policy areas polled.

That same day, the Washington Post reported that Biden was "increasingly frustrated" by his "dismal poll numbers." He "delivered some stern words" to his people:

"His poll numbers were unacceptably low and he wanted to know what his team and his campaign were doing about it."

Moreover,

"For months, the president and first lady Jill Biden have told aides and friends they are frustrated by the president's low approval rating and the polls that show him trailing former president Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination--and in recent weeks, they have grown upset that they are not making more progress."

Biden's presidency has been a miserable failure--his approval numbers have been at permanent majority-disapproval since only a few months after he assumed the presidency. What, exactly, did he think was going to happen if he ran for reelection? What, at this late date, are the aides he greets with these "stern words" supposed to do about this when he--the only one with the power to affect it--has refused, for 3 years to do anything about it? Is his reported exasperation here just a barometer of how profoundly out-of-touch he is? Is his cognitive decline really that severe?

Perhaps Hillary Clinton will help, eh?

8 Jan., 2024 - Redfield & Wilton Strategies polling of several swing states--Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania--found that Trump was leading Biden in all of them.

25 Jan., 2024 - A Reuters/Ipsos poll gives a look at a volatile electoral situation. 67% of respondents said they were "tired of seeing the same candidates in presidential elections and want someone new" 52% said they were dissatisfied with the 2-party system and "want a third choice." That last sentiment was shared by 49% of Repubs and 57% of Democrats. It's also shared by 60% of independents, but Reuters/Ipsos doesn't separate Repub-leaning indies and Dem-leaning indies, which makes many of their results a lot less helpful.

Looking at the candidates, 56% of respondents said Trump "should NOT run for president again in 2024" (46% "strongly" agree, 10% "somewhat" agree). Among Republicans, 18% "strongly" agree, with 13% "somewhat" agreeing, but 54% "strongly" disagree with this (hold that thought). Among independents, 63% agree (50% "strongly," 13% "somewhat").

For Biden, it's, overall, much worse, but with some caveats: 70% agree Biden shouldn't run again, 51% "strongly," 19% "somewhat" agreeing. But among Democrats, only 49% agree, 20% "strongly," 29% "somewhat." This, like a pair of polls late last year, contrasts with most of the polling over the last 2 years, wherein supermajorities of Dems have opposed Biden seeking a 2nd term, but if Biden and his supporters want to take this as some glimmer of good news, it's immediately undercut by the numbers from independents. A whopping 75% of independents agree Biden shouldn't run again, 59% "strongly" and 16% "somewhat." If those were broken down by leaners--as they should be--we'd still be looking at a supermajority of Dem voters saying Biden shouldn't run again. Only 26% of Dems "strongly" disagree with the statement that Biden shouldn't run again--less than half Trump's number.

Biden's apparent better numbers with his own party here could be Dem voters bowing, as they see it, to the inevitable, forced to accept a candidate they don't really want and just going along with it for now--something that could come back to bite Biden later.

Other results point strongly in this direction. For example, 60% of Democrats and 76% of independents say Biden is "too old to work in government" (sentiment with which 74% of respondents, overall, agree and with which only 7% "strongly disagree"). An even more direct pointer: The pollster asked those who said they'd be voting for Biden if they were "voting to support Joe Biden and his policies" or merely "voting against Donald Trump and his policies." 59% of Biden's voters say they're just voting against Trump, and that includes 57% of Democrats. Trump voters were asked the inverse, and 59% of them said they were voting for Trump, with only 39% saying they were voting against Biden. Among Repubs, 61% said they were voting for Trump.

In yet another election, people are being left with no good choices--a recipe for apathy, low turnout, a high third-party vote and a difficult-to-predict outcome--but most of Trump's voters really do support him, and most of Biden's don't.

30 Jan., 2024 - ABC News reports, "Interviews with voters throughout the election cycle so far have painted a picture of an electorate seemingly in disbelief--and, sometimes, dread--that the two 2020 presidential nominees could again find themselves on top of the 2024 ballot."

31 Jan., 2024 - New Bloomberg/Morning Consult polls of 7 swing states--North Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania--showed Trump leading Biden in all of them.

11 Feb., 2024 - An ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that 86% of Americans think Biden is too old to serve another term. 59% said both Biden and Trump were too old. The partisan split is instructive: "73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump."

21 Feb., 2024 - A Quinnipiac poll, this one of registered voters, finds that 67% said Biden "is too old to effectively serve another term--compared with 57 percent who said the same of Trump, who is 77. Only 34 percent said Biden had the mental fitness to serve a second term, while 48 percent believed Trump is mentally fit."

29 Feb., 2024 - A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of registered voters across swing states--Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania--found Trump leading Biden in all 7. Eight in 10 respondents in those states, including majorities of black voters, young voters and women, said Biden was too old.

6 March, 2024 - A New York Times/Siena College poll of registered voters found that 73% said Biden "was too old to be effective [as president], and 45 percent expressed a belief that he could not do the job." This poll took an unique stab at the age issue: the pollsters specifically polled those who had voted for Biden in 2020. Of those, 61% said he was "just too old" to be an effective president; 19% of his 2020 voters (and 13% of those who said they would vote for Biden this year) "said the 81-year-old president’s age was such a problem that he was no longer capable of handling the job."

No, Bernie Didn't Say Abortion Rights Were A "Distraction" From "Real Issues"

 Hey, remember when Bernie Sanders called abortion rights a "distraction" from "the real issues"?

Well, no, you don't. But if you've spent any time discussing public affairs on social media in recent years, you've seen that claim dozens--maybe hundreds--of times. It's a tenet of the online Clinton cult, repeated as a mantra not only to attack Vermont Sen. Sanders but progressives in general. Back in the Summer, I created a brief thread on Twitter correcting it--figured I'd adapt and expand it here.

This began--as is usually the case with these things--with Hillary Clinton. In her 2016 struggle with Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton was unable to match Sanders on policy. Policy should theoretically be central to any such campaign but compared to Sanders, Clinton was really bad on it, so to parry his advocacy of wildly popular progressive issues, she turned to weaponized "identity" attacks, aiming at key Democratic constituencies by suggesting Sanders was weak on race- and gender-related issues, even that Sanders, the lifelong champion of civil rights and women's rights, was a "racist" and "sexist"/"misogynist." The "distraction" talk began as just another chapter in that despicable playbook.

In March, 2016, the always-appalling Donald Trump said women who had abortions should be legally punished. The Democratic candidates were dutifully publicly appalled by this but at a campaign appearance in New York, Clinton insisted that, during an interview with Rachel Maddow, Sanders had dismissed abortion rights as a distraction from the important issues.

"'Last night, Senator Sanders agreed that Donald Trump's comments were shameful but then he said they were a distraction from, and I quote, "a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America,"' the Democratic presidential candidate told the crowd of roughly 700 people at an event here in Purchase, New York-- prompting boos from some in the crowd.

"'To me, this is a serious issue. And it's a very serious discussion,' she continued."

This was amplified by the Clinton cult, which dropped even Clinton's pretense of nuance ("shameful"), and we were off to the races with, so far, 7 years and counting of the Clinton cult claiming Sanders had called abortion rights a distraction.

To untangle this, here's what Sanders actually said about abortion rights in that interview with Rachel Maddow:

MADDOW: After, uh, the word spread that Donald Trump had made those remarks today about abortion, that a woman needs to be punished, uh, if she seeks an abortion and abortion should be banned, you said today that was shameful. What is shameful about it?

SANDERS: Well, I think it is -- shameful is probably understating that position. First of all, to me, and I think to most Americans, women have the right to control their own bodies and they have the right to make those personal decisions themselves.

But to punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension. I -- I just -- you know, one would say what is in Donald Trump's mind except we're tired of saying that?

I don't know what world this person lives in. So obviously, from my perspective, and if elected president, I will do everybody that I can to allow women to make that choice and have access to clinics all over this country so that if they choose to have an abortion, they will be able to do so.

The idea of punishing a woman, that is just, you know, beyond comprehension.

At one point, Sanders went off on the perpetually-recurring press obsession with every stupid, outrageous thing Trump says--a major problem with the coverage of the 2016 campaign:

"You know, you mentioned a moment ago, Rachel, that the media is paying attention to Donald Trump. Duh? No kidding. Once again, every stupid remark will be broadcast, you know, for the next five days. But what is Donald Trump's position on raising the minimum wage? Well, he doesn't think so. What is Donald Trump's position on wages in America? Well, he said in a Republican debate he thinks wages are too high. What's Donald Trump's position on taxes? Well, he wants to give billionaire families like himself hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. What is Donald Trump's position on climate change? Oh, he thinks it's a hoax perpetrated, shock of all shock, by the Chinese. You know, on and on it goes. But because media is what media is today, any stupid, absurd remark made by Donald Trump becomes the story of the week. Maybe, just maybe, we might want to have a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America. Donald Trump will not look quite so interesting in that context."

These entirely uncontroversial remarks--the press obsession with Trump's absurdist, attention-grabbing hijinks in 2016 have been called out by pretty much everyone--are what Hillary Clinton misrepresented as Sanders calling abortion rights a "distraction."

Several years later, Clinton cultists began buttressing that false "distraction" narrative with a hacked-up video of a Sanders appearance on THE ED SHOW on MSNBC, which they insist shows Sanders on the 2016 (sometimes 2015) campaign trail against Clinton, throwing under the bus both abortion rights and gay rights.

The video is from a clip of an interview with Sanders from 18 Oct., 2013, long before the presidential race, and can be seen in full on Sanders' own Youtube channel. At the time, Sanders had been touring deep-South states, noted that Republicans use things like abortion and gay rights to rile up white working class voters and get them to vote against their own best interests and suggested popular economic policies could counter this:

"I honestly believe that [Democrats] can win states in the South, because you got a lot of folks here who are hurting terribly. These are people who are working for low wages, they don't have any health care, they can't afford to send their kids to college, and if we start pounding away at the economic message, out willingness to take on the big-money interests, to take on Wall Street, to create millions of jobs we need, to raise the minimum wage, to make college affordable, y'know what? I think we can win in these Southern states."

Pretty much the same things Sanders has said for years. Republicans have been cynically weaponizing social issues in this way, as wedges to get people to vote against their own interests, for over four decades, and--more to the point--Democrats and other political commentators have been pointing it out for over 40 years as well. It's entirely uncontroversial. Unless it's Sanders saying it. Sanders' comments on the Ed Show had been a matter of public record for 9 years--displayed, as noted earlier, on Sanders' own Youtube channel--before Clinton cultists pulled it out and began misrepresenting it.

Bernie Sanders' record on abortion rights is unambiguous: He holds perfect 100% ratings from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Even given the often-dubious nature of interest-group ratings, he's never cast a single vote with which these orgs disagree.

Sanders was, in fact, on the record as pro-choice on abortion before, in 1973, Roe v. Wade had even been decided--significantly longer than many of the Clinton cultists perpetually attacking Sanders over this nonsense have even lived. From 1972:

In 2016, Sanders was stronger on the issue than Hillary Clinton, who said she'd be willing to accept restrictions on abortion rights, whereas Sanders refused to support any. It was, in fact, in the aftermath of a Clinton/Sanders debate, when the press began to make note of the contrast between Sanders' firmness and Clinton's mushiness on the issue, that Clinton launched her phony narrative about Sanders calling abortion rights a "distraction."

Here's the sort of thing Sanders actually said about abortion rights, the Roe v. Wade ruling, etc. during the 2016 campaign:

Another example: a long string of Sanders' tweets on the subject, starting here.

This piece is likely to have no impact on the false claims of the Clinton cult on this "issue." The cult has long made it clear that when it comes to this sort of thing, it doesn't really care about the truth. But the relevant facts are recorded here for anyone who does and may come across it.

--j.

Fascism: What It Is & Some of What It Isn't

"Fascism" is one of the most repeated but least understood words in political discourse, perhaps second only to "socialism" in words whose meaning has been almost entirely lost to relentless, politically-motivated misuse. As far back as the 1940s, George Orwell famously lamented that in common usage, it had come to mean merely "something not desirable." For decades, it has been ubiquitously spewed like a grudge by political factions across the spectrum. Reduced to virtual meaninglessness, its emptiness encouraged people with too much time on their hands to fill it with all manner of nonsense. Thus at a point in history when it has become a more important subject than it has been in decades--because fascism and its prototypes are on the rise everywhere now--people aren't just uninformed about it, they're often very badly misinformed. This isn't just troublesome, it's potentially dangerous.

Any effort to define fascism as a body of ideas must contend with the fact that one of its defining elements is a seething anti-intellectualism and a fundamental anti-rationalism that sometimes masquerades as a faux-rationalism, travestying the real thing but counterfeiting it in the service of the fascist cause. Fascism prioritizes action over reflection. Its basic antagonism toward serious, informed thought means it isn't so much a cohesive ideology as it is an impulse; reactionary, to use another word that has gone out of fashion in common political discourse. Built not so much around ideas as mobilizing passions. Any discussion of fascism must account for this. Few of those that occur in internet forums ever do.

Oxford defines fascism as "an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization." While not really incorrect, that's far too general and incomplete, as dictionary definitions will tend to be. Among other things, fascism is a movement, something with which that definition doesn't reckon at all. To the extent that such definitions feed that vacuum that has developed around the word, they may do more harm than good.[1]

Presenting itself as "radical," even "revolutionary"--and even often aping the superficial trappings of radical and revolutionary movements--fascism is militant far-right sentiment on legs. The fascist is ultranationalistic, which is the most important thing to understand about him and the source from which nearly everything else about him flows. His conservative, excruciatingly circumscribed notion of The Nation is conceptualized as an organism. He despises modern liberal democracy, which he insists has failed and betrayed the people, and calls for national renewal by sweeping it aside and replacing it with an authoritarian regime. He holds that socialists, liberals, labor unions, immigrants, democrats, racial or ethnic minorities, sexual "deviants," non-conformists, women who don't understand their place is in the kitchen and bearing male children, those measured as less than patriotic, not of the right ethnicity or religion, those pesky "intellectuals" with all their ideas about things, etc. are, by their mere existence, an attack on the established institutions and traditions (or imagined institutions and traditions) of the particular cultural milieu chauvinistically favored by the fascists--disruptors of The Nation and its unity, enemies who have no place in society. Fascists foster a cult of aggrievement against these "enemies," who are relentlessly demonized and scapegoated as a rationale for self-righteously stamping them out in the name of that project of national renewal, and are willing to employ an incredible amount of violence, often up to and including mass murder, to crush them. As Benito Mussolini put it, "The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better." All of the fundamental values of the liberal society--freedom, self-determination, democracy, diversity, tolerance, openness, free inquiry--are held in contempt by the fascist, who projects strength, resolve and moral clarity against what he depicts as weakness, softness, incompetence, betrayal, decadence, idiocy, relativism, appeasement, impurity, indecision, indecency, bleeding heart-ism and that Great Other--that which is outside that favored milieu. The fascist typically indulges in a perverse Romanticism that revels in the imagined glories of some mythologized past and seeks to recapture them. He embraces martial values, hyper-masculinity and glorifies violence and war and conquest--means of proving strength, superiority, heroism. The fascist venerates heroism; in his story, he's the hero who is going to save civilization from these evils.

Fascist movements ally themselves with traditional conservative elites and tend to congregate around charismatic demagogues who rise to power preaching this message and presenting themselves, rather than any particular political program, as the living embodiment of it. The State, The Nation, The Leader, all intertwined. Because these movements are tied to the cultures and the times from which they emerge, some specific details about the various permutations of fascism will differ but they're a bit like slasher movies; it may not be quite accurate to say of them "if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all," but it ain't far off the mark.

That's fascism, a far-right movement that preaches national renewal by means of the destruction of the liberal society, the suppression of the left and the adoption of an authoritarian state run along ultranationalistic lines. Hopefully, this makes clear how much any brief, positivist description--like, for example, the previous sentence--necessarily leaves on the cutting-room floor and helps knock some of the ambiguity out of the subject.

Nearly everything beyond this is merely ad hoc, and the failure to understand this is where the efforts of so many of the internet's amateur lexicographers fail. It's hard to do history and political science when you don't know either, and the matter of fascism is further complicated by the almost-constant presence of politically motivated revisionism that actively seeks to take advantage of the general ignorance of the subject for partisan advantage. In the name of further demystifying the matter, some of the many hashes made of fascism are worth some attention here.

A popular one is an effort to define it via a structural model and this hash's Exhibit A-Z is the following quote by Mussolini:

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

The first big problem: While Mussolini did put forth the idea of a "corporate" or, more typically, a "corporativist" state, this quote isn't real. It appears nowhere in the recorded utterances of Benito Mussolini. The next: Those selling this notion of fascism invariably treat "corporate power" as a reference to modern business corporations, a reading that is entirely alien to fascist corporativism. A repudiation of socialism, the theoretical fascist "corporativist" state was one in which sectors of society were organized into corporate entities that made a pretense of representing these various interests but, of course, these entities would be created and run by the fascists themselves. Fascists don't do democracy.

A nugget of truth that gives strength to that "state and corporate power" hash is that fascism does entail what we could call, in more modern parlance, a "public/private partnership" with capital. The Marxists presented fascism as a form of capitalism in crisis, proposing a narrative wherein the established Big Money interests, feeling threatened by socialists and other radical reformers, turn to fascism in order to smite these foes and protect their interests. That basic narrative is largely correct (and, in fact, the Marxists deserve credit for recognizing some important aspects of fascism well before they were widely understood). The support of the, broadly, capitalist class is typically critical in bringing fascist movements to power, after which the money-men enter into a mutually profitable arrangement with the regime that develops.[2] Where the cruder Marxists sometimes collapse into hash is in suggesting that the fascist states were merely the puppets of that capitalist class, a preposterous proposition. The money-men embraced the fascists movements and were made even wealthier by them but if a dispute arose between they and the government, they may get their say but the regime got the last word. While, in practice, these regimes are invariably pro-capitalist, this is usually just part of fascism's larger alliance with traditional conservative elites, not reflective of some doctrinaire commitment to capitalism itself.[3]

Another hash--one of the most common, in fact--is made by those who attempt to present fascism as an economic doctrine or to examine it as any sort of cohesive economic system. Fascism isn't an economic system, it isn't an economic doctrine and it has no economic doctrine. As Hitler put it, "the basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all." Fascists aren't intellectuals sitting around reading economic texts--certainly not writing them--or putting any real effort into trying to learn how economies work. "Economic policy" under these regimes is ad hoc--whatever it takes at the moment to meet the ultranationalistic goals (or perceived goals) of the day. Policy could radically change on a dime with circumstances then change again shortly after. Beyond the ultranationalist sentiment driving it, there's no real consistency, either internally or between the different fascisms.[4] Trying to define fascism as an economic doctrine or economic system--as an industrial policy of a fascist regime or a welfare-state policy of another or the fiscal policy of another--is a confession of complete ignorance of the nature of fascism. That's now what fascism is about.

Many-a-hash is made by those--even, over the years, many of the top experts on fascism--who try to explain fascism as one would any other traditional political movement. If fascism's anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism doesn't trip them up, its relationship with doctrine will. If one wants to get a general picture of the policies for which most political parties stand, one need only consult that party's current platform. Fascists tend to be very opportunistic though, political omnivores who make a show of syncretistically gobbling up bits and pieces from other political movements and parties across the spectrum and deploy propaganda in the worst sense of that word. In their hands, "doctrine" in the programmatic way ordinary political parties conceive it doesn't really exist. It's treated as a fluid, the generation and exploitation of popular grievances or the steering of existing ones toward fascist ends, that which needs to be said from day to day in order to achieve then maintain power. Mussolini had originally been a socialist. He'd been expelled from the Socialist party in 1914 for a growing list of heresies, principally his support of the First World War, and in March 1919, he founded the Fasci di Combattimento--the Fascism from which we get the word--in order to, as he put it, "declare war against socialism." Initially, he tried to craft a sort of fusion of right and left views. The original Fascist manifesto, though anti-socialist, was quite progressive in many respects, even radical in others--calculated to draw attention--but this drew little interest and after the Fascists were utterly squashed in the 1919 elections, Mussolini simply abandoned--or, more often, directly reversed--most of the left elements[5] and Fascism became a movement of reactionary ex-soldiers who mustered into far-right paramilitaries that were rented out to the industrial and agribusiness elite to physically crush the Italian left. This approach led them to power. In internet discussions of German fascism, some amateur professional will inevitably pull out the 25-point program of the National Socialist German Workers Party from 1920 as representative of that party. In that platform, there is, to be sure, plenty of the Nazism that would later emerge but the radical planks in it, the items that inevitably prove to be the reason it's brandished in these discussions, were entirely ignored once the Nazis seized power. Likewise, the German fascists' use of socialist slogans and imagery and even the word "socialist" itself amounted to little more than an effort to attract votes (at which it largely failed) and attention (at which it succeeded beyond what anyone could have expected). Those attracted to the movement who took the radical window-dressing seriously were successively purged.[6] The fascist freely poses as adopting various doctrines to which he has no real commitment to serve various ends and freely discards them if they've served their purpose or outlived their usefulness. Always in this is ultranationalist grievance. Fascism doesn't have a traditional political movement's connection to programmatic doctrine. And once in power, it's about recognizing the authority of the fascist leaders and doing what they say.

There are plenty of other sources that contribute to misunderstandings of fascism. The history of the entire Nazi experience, for example, is polluted by an endless array of cranks and kooks that gravitated around Nazism and tried to create a fuhrer in their own image or, among those opposed, their own image of evil--cranks and kooks whose claims are then picked up and perpetuated by others. That's a much larger subject than can be done justice here, so it's best to set it aside for the moment, perhaps return to it later. Suffice it to say, the study of fascism can be a real minefield for a layman.

That's a brief, general overview of what fascism is, and some of what it isn't. Hopefully, the sort of useful contribution to public discourse one wishes all of these pieces would be.

--j.

---

[1] Some of the other standard dictionary definitions are even worse. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Vocabulary.com calls it "a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)." The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed." And so on. Definitions so devoid of substance that they would cover nearly any dictatorship. Perhaps the worst, most offensively inane "definition" comes from Britannica: "a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government."

[2] That doesn't, of course, prevent some of those capitalists from experiencing buyer's remorse. Even if one is becoming fantastically rich via the arrangement, it sucks to live under a dictatorship.

[3] Nonetheless, this arguably makes fascism a form of capitalism. There's a history of both rightist "Libertarian" capital-C Capitalist ideologues embracing fascism and of fascism embracing them, perhaps most infamously in the Pinochet regime in Chile. This is a large subject that would quickly turn into an overly long tangent here, so I've set it aside.

[4] In "The Anatomy of Fascism," Robert Paxton, one of the foremost living experts on fascism, wrote:

"This [economic policy] was the area where both fascist leaders [Hitler and Mussolini] conceded the most to their conservative allies. Indeed, most fascists--above all after they were in power--considered economic policy as only a means to achieving the more important fascist ends of unifying, energizing, and expanding the community. Economic policy tended to be driven by the need to prepare and wage war. Politics trumped economics... [F]ascist economic policy responded to political priorities, and not to economic rationale. Both Mussolini and Hitler tended to think that economics was amenable to a ruler’s will."

In a 2015 interview with Vox, Paxton said "it's hard to link those people [the fascists] to any one kind of economic idea."

In "A History of Fascism 1914-1945," historian Stanley Payne, who specializes in Spanish fascism but has written on the broader subject, writes that "economic policy under [Italian] Fascism did not chart an absolutely clear course." Of Germany, Payne concludes "no completely coherent model of political economy was ever introduced in Nazi Germany."

Daniel Woodley, from "Fascism & Political Theory":

"...as a political innovation, fascism is distinguished by an absence of coherent economic ideology and an absence of serious economic thinking at the summit of the state. Not only are economic factors alone an insufficient condition of understanding fascism, but the decisions taken by fascists in power cannot be explained within a logical economic framework."

Stuart Woolf, "The Nature of Fascism":

"No comparative study exists of fascist economic systems. Nor is this surprising. For one can legitimately doubt whether it is appropriate to use so distinctive a term as 'system' when discussing fascist economics... Nor, in the economic field, could fascism lay claim to any serious theoretical basis or to any outstanding economic theoreticians."

He describes fascist economics as "a series of improvisations, or responses to particular and immediate problems" and notes that "the actions of any single fascist regime... [were] so contradictory as to make it difficult to speak of a coherent and consistent economic policy in one country, let alone in a more general system..." And so on.

[5] When the movement made its sharp rightward turn, Alceste De Ambris, the principal author of the 1919 Fascist manifesto, left it in disgust. When the Fascists rose to power, he opposed them and was eventually forced to flee Italy because of it.

[6] An element of the fringe right has long gnawed on the farcical notion that fascism is some sort of movement of the left or even a socialist movement and the internet has helped spread this far-right and wide-right. Essentially a form of Holocaust denial, it's the sort of idiocy that could only gain traction in a profoundly historically illiterate population. It may be the subject of a future piece.

[If, faithful reader, this article sounds familiar, it's adapted from an earlier one from February 2017, which defined fascism in order to delineate the similarities and differences between fascism and the then-newly-empowered Trump movement, an article I fear is now pretty out-of-date. My book-length updating of it, from Sept. 2020, was lost. This may be the beginning of further work on the subject.]