Trump is no conservative, but an extremist threat to democracy - and he is not alone

The pundits have been legitimizing the extremist actions of Trump and his followers for quite some time, mostly unintentionally. This has aided extremism with pushing its way into the mainstream.

If the pundits can call such an extremist a “conservative”, without even using the prefix “ultra-“, then what do they even consider extremism to be, whom would they consider an extremist? Even 10 or 15 years ago, almost all debaters of any relevance knew that extremism was unacceptable and belonged on the margins of society, and they acted accordingly.

Many contemporary pundits, without admitting it, view extremism as a criticizable, but nevertheless normal, part of politics and society today. That is a dangerous mistake.

This is not just about Trump, of course, whom we are using here as a tangible example of what we do not not want. This is also about the future of the European Union and of its Member States, about whether Europe will remain democratic or not.

Where will the Europeans, led by politicians following the examples of Fico, Netanyahu, Orbán, or Trump, based on these debates in public where extremist methods are now considered legitimate, start heading?

Dismantling the rule of law

Extremist practices and thinking are the opposite of both conservative and liberal values, or at least they are the opposite of conservatism as we have known it since the end of World War II, the conservatism we have had in mind so far when we have discussed it in the context of politics today. American conservatism has appealed to personal responsibility and emphasized free enterprise, individualism, and a limited role for government.

In Europe, the perception of conservatism is more influenced by the wars of the 20th century, specifically by the fact that their direct fighting happened in Europe (as well as in other places, although not in the USA, for the most part), and different experiences lead to different solutions. It was the Conservatives in Germany, for instance, who introduced the welfare state after World War II, and none of them would ever have thought of laying off civil servants as Trump and Musk have done, personnel without whom their agenda, which is essential for society, would begin to collapse.

An American conservative would not be dismantling the rule of law as Trump is doing, because American conservatives support a limited role for the state, and dismantling the rule of law leads to the role of a strong leader manifesting in all areas, to authoritarianism in some form. Conservatives also do rely on established institutions and mechanisms, and the defense of everything functional against change is part of their “job description”.

Trump, on the other hand, is trying to strip several functioning institutions of their power and to deprive American democracy of one of its fundamental pillars – the judiciary. This is because the courts are hindering his efforts to become an autocrat (in which he is being aided by the oligarchs).

There are countless examples of this, but perhaps the most ominous one has taken place in the last few days. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a major tax and spending bill, or “the Big, Beautiful Bill,” as Trump calls it.

As Professor Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor in the first Clinton administration, a member of the administrations of U.S. Presidents Carter and Ford, and an advisor to former U.S. President Obama points out, that bill contains a provision that makes it impossible to enforce court orders. Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has tried to neutralize the courts by ignoring the rulings which overturn or suspend some of his executive orders.

However, the courts in the U.S. can hold both Trump’s associates and the president himself in contempt for ignoring such rulings. If the aforementioned provision were to be approved, the courts would no longer be able to do this.

“In other words, with this single provision, Trump is crowned king. Neither Congress nor any court could stop him. Even if a future Congress tried to stop him, it could not do so without the courts’ authority to enforce congressional hearings, investigations, subpoenas, and laws,” writes Robert Reich.

Distinguished law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, notes that “this approach cannot be understood as anything other than a way to prevent the Trump administration from being constrained in violating the Constitution and other laws.” Since Republicans themselves in the House of Representatives have been chaotically, radically transforming the bill, it is not yet clear whether this unconstitutional provision was retained through that process or not.

For instance, at the time of writing, the HuffPost was reporting that the provision had been removed, while The Guardian was reporting that it remains in the bill. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” will now be considered by the Senate, which is also preparing to overhaul it.

It is significant that almost nobody is speaking out against this provision, and it is reportedly unknown who specifically inserted it into the bill, or at whose instruction.

Conspiracy theories and extremism

A conservative does not believe in conspiracy theories, does not spread them around the world, and does not act on them, because in addition to spreading untruths, such theories also require sudden changes in the attitudes of their supporters. Sudden transformations would be strange even for progressive-minded persons, let alone for a conservative who hates change.

The campaign Trump is waging against the government, the media, minorities, and universities is taking place entirely in the spirit of one of the most widespread conspiracy theories in the world, according to which Washington, D.C. is controlled by the so-called “Deep State“, a rumor Trump spread already during his first election campaign. The “Deep State” is supposed to be an all-powerful, secret structure involving Democratic Party politicians, institutions, intellectuals, the mainstream media (of course), public figures, and state officials.

For those same reasons, a conservative cannot be part of an extremist current of thought that also brings about radical transformation. Trump has already aspired to be a monarch once before, but back then it was just in the imagination of his supporters on the far right.

In August 2017, months of protests by the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists aimed at uniting the far right culminated in a demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia. Anti-fascist protesters confronted them and a fight broke out.

A 20-year-old neo-Nazi drove his car into the crowd of anti-fascists, killing a 32-year-old law firm assistant and injuring 19 people. He had displayed his favorite heroes on his Facebook profile: a drawing of Donald Trump as a king, a childhood photo of Adolf Hitler, and a photo of then-President Bashar al-Assad of Syria (nicknamed the “Butcher of Damascus”), with the words UNDEFEATED.

“We’re not doing anything different than what President Trump said. We’re taking our country back,” former Ku Klux Klan leader and Holocaust denier David Duke told reporters afterward.

Chaos and extremism

If we fail to call things by their right names as precisely as is possible, and if we fail to think about events and things accordingly, it will only backfire on us. All such lack of clarity does is intensify the chaos that the extremists, and Trump’s supporters in particular, need in order to confuse as many non-aligned or undecided voters as possible, to hide or obscure their attacks on democracy, to lure as many brainless people as possible “into the limelight”.

Every major social transformation, including today’s partially successful attempts by both the American and the European extremists to exchange our democracies for authoritarianism and oligarchy, begins by completely changing or distorting the meanings of words, by emptying concepts of their real meaning. After that has been accomplished, it is no longer as difficult for the extremists to pass off their “alternative facts” (lies) as the truth, their evil as good, their herd behavior as freedom, and their nodding along with their leader as them thinking for themselves.