America’s Fascism, Past and Present

Guest Opinion

By Peter Bormuth | April 19, 2025

Though its original author is disputed, you’ve no doubt heard the quote: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carry a cross.”

Has the United States succumbed to fascism by reelecting Donald Trump?

To answer that question, a historical perspective is helpful. Mussolini defined fascism as “corporate control of the state.” According to that definition, fascism has arrived. Not including dark money, fossil fuel interests poured $96 million into Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and affiliated political action committees, according to The Guardian. This includes mega-donor oil billionaires such as fracking magnate Harold Hamm, pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren, drilling tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand, and Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the second largest privately-owned company in the United States.

Fossil fuel companies and their trade groups spent another $243 million lobbying Congress. Those donors stand to profit from priorities set by Senate-confirmed Trump cabinet appointees, such Chris Wright, the fracking CEO who was tapped to head the Department of Energy, Lee Zeldin, the former New York representative who accepted more than $400,000 in fossil fuel-tied campaign donations and who leads the EPA, and Doug Burgum, former North Dakota Governor and proponent of “drill, baby, drill,” who was tapped to head the Department of the Interior, which oversees 20 percent of the land and water in the United States.

Elon Musk’s role at DOGE is increasingly well known (he donated almost $300 million to Trump) and a myriad of other capitalist sectors stand to benefit from the Trump Administration.

Trump has his potential blackshirts in groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, members of the Christian Patriot movement, and Eric Prince’s global mercenaries. The roundup of undocumented immigrants creates the need for “detention centers,” a scary term that can easily morph into concentration camps for political opponents and other “undesirables,” like people devoted to protecting the environment or supporters of a Palestinian state.

Capital in the United States has always opposed the expansion of the federal government to help the people. The DuPonts and Rockefellers formed the American Liberty league in 1934 to fight FDR, particularly his plan for Social Security. American capital also financed Hitler’s rise to power. Henry Ford was an early donor before Hitler made inroads with Germans, and Hitler used Ford’s editorials from The Dearborn Independent word for word in his speeches against the Jews.

IBM developed the punch card system for the German census that allowed the Nazis to identify, locate, and round up Jews. Standard Oil of New Jersey (today Mobil/Exxon) partnered with IG Farben to build the concentration camps and gas chambers. William Stamps Farrish, CEO of Standard, was indicted and found guilty in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemies Act.

Hermann Goering, Hitler’s propaganda minister and commander of the Luftwaffe, stated at the Nurmberg trials that: “The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for exposing the country to danger. It is easy. It works the same in every country.”

It has been Trump’s genius to tell the people they are being attacked by internal enemies and to understand that fear and hatred are more powerful political motivators than love.

He made the people believe that the enemy of the middle class is illegal immigrants and Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community and protestors and academics and scientists and liberal media, and he used the network of conservative Christian ministers and Christian nonprofit organizations who want to replace our Constitution with Biblical law to pull it off: twice.

Ever since the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, there is no stopping the spigot of corporate money buying our politicians and political process. With dark money contributions, we don’t even know who is financing these reactionary organizations, campaign ads, and individual politicians.

What can we do? I have two suggestions that might yield positive results in the future. In order to stop capital from controlling our political process through campaign contributions and dark money dollars we need a simple, six-word Constitutional Amendment: “A corporation is not a person.”

It was not until 1886 in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific that corporations were given the rights of persons, and the doctrine was upheld two years later in Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania 125 U.S. 181 (1888). The 14th Amendment, passed to protect the rights of freed slaves, was used to enhance the rights of corporations. Let’s correct that.

Second, we need to eliminate the religious exemption from property taxes. A property tax is not a tax on religion. It is a tax on property. Opposition to churches retaining property tax exemptions was expressed by at least three U.S. presidents: James Madison (who drafted the Establishment Clause), James Garfield, and Ulysses S. Grant. Make churches pay their fair share and stop the Christians from overthrowing our Constitution and establishing biblical law.

Peter Bormuth is a Pagan Druid living in northern Michigan.