Trump 2.0: Making America Progressive Again

currently titled Trump Isn't Fascist, He's Progressive. This essay ties in pretty well to what I'm looking to put out for the next couple of special episodes of History Impossible. While you guys all patiently wait for the next installment in the Muslim Nazi series, which is coming, I'm making good progress on it, even in the midst of all this work I'm doing for school, and yeah, I will

keep you guys posted on that for sure. Before we get going on this, I want to thank everybody who's so ports this show over on Patreon or on substack. So if you head to Patreon dot com, slash History Impossible Orhistory Impossible dot substack dot com and become a supporter today, I would be eternally grateful, like I am to my longtime executive producer level supporters John Andre Saither

and Mike Malebin. I really appreciate all the support that you guys can give me, so please consider doing so if you have a couple extra books you want to throw my way. Anyway, let's get into some impossible history.

President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent. He was a natural businessman and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama after the United States, I mean, think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before, and lost thirty eight thousand lives in

the building of the Panama Canal. We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made, and Panama's promise to us has been broken unquote. There's obviously plenty to respond to in that speech that

many historians are probably scratching their heads over. But the main thing to focus on, at least that I focused on the re christening of Mount McKinley, plus the praise of its namesake as well as his successor, does not align with the usual comparisons made between Trump and certain ideological figures. Now, these comparisons, as probably all of you listening are aware and remember, ranged from the absurd and hyperbolic like Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, to the

more reasonable such as Andrew Jackson. As Eli Lake explained on his show Breaking History, I Believe in its first

episode highly recommend by the way, guys. Back in twenty sixteen, the historian Neil Ferguson made a compelling case for defining Trump not just in terms of populism, but in terms of the populist backlash that was occurring at the time of the first selection in which he won, Comparing him, as I also did on my very first episode of History Impossible, to the Irish American populist firebrand Dennis Kearney

of the eighteen seventies. You guys might remember that I did call it the original Donald Trump, and I won't pretend it was just my idea. I did definitely lift that from Ferguson, but gave credit where it was due. Of course. The thing is, with the handover of power from the Biden administration to the new Trump administration and this new administration's ever sharpening ideology, things seemed to have

noticeably changed. We now see in Trump's second term a very different shape than the crude populism that has defined his political life for the past decade. The populist rhetoric is still there, and Elon Musk's antics as the scheming foreign born royal advisor, for lack of a better comparison, those seemed to be rooted in a quasi libertarian milieu loosely borrow from Argentina' Javier Malay, though with less consistency

or seemingly principle. Now, obviously, these are still early days, making it hard to draw firm conclusions as of April twenty twenty five when I'm recording this, but Trump's increasingly imperialist rhetoric, combined with the manic expansion of executive privilege, suggests a clear, if not fully stated or articulated goal, namely, having the courts and legislature ultimately sort out these power struggles while the executive branch steams on ahead with its plans.

In short, Trump increasingly resembles a nineteenth century progressive, not a fascist. The picture that emerges is not a universally rosy one for those who understand the history of American progressivism, which is why, as I see it, it's worth examining that history through comparative lens, if only to help place Trump within the proper context of American history and really get into what he is, at least ostensibly hearkening back towards.

One of the most jarring things about Trump's second term, and most important to what we're talking about here, has been the interest that he and the people in his administration have shown in legit territorial expansion. He's pushed to retain American control over the Panama Canal, and he's even attempted to insert the US into Greenland's push for independence from Denmark, essentially seeking to annex the world's largest island.

And in addition, there has been a lot of brash talk about annexing the entirety of Canada and making it into the fifty first state quote unquote. Never mind that Canada is more than willing to defend itself, as has been made clear in comments made by people in this leadership. Perhaps most disturbingly, Trump has floated the idea of essentially turning the ruins of the urban micro or state of

Gaza into a slice of American led commercialism. Gaza el Lago is the sort of running joke that people have

been making. Much of This has all been met with disbelief, laughter, and ridicule, including from yours truly, but there is something deeply serious behind these plans and threats, at least if we look at the historical precedence, with the possible exception of Gaza, which is not being treated with the same seriousness as the other examples that I just mentioned, these strategies are all part of a broader effort to strengthen

US strategic influence, particularly over the Western Hemisphere. All the talk involving the Panama Canal is under the pretext of securing it against control by Chinese investments, which are certainly significant,

with Chinese ports straddling both ends of the canal itself. Now, whether or not those ports owned by the Chinese constitute a threat to US national security, as Trump has claimed it least that's another debate, But what is clear is that securing the Panama Canal, perhaps even by force, would place one of the most important trade routes in the

Western Hemisphere firmly under US control. The same goes for Greenland, and in the case of Greenland, Trump's from Mark during his address to a joint Session of Congress that the US would acquire it one way or another quote unquote takes on new significance and light of the Independence Gradualist Party's recent victory in Greenland, the ones who want to separate themselves from Denmark fully this move has essentially made it more of a free agent and in theory thus

ripe for the taking. But the true significance lies in Greenland's vital strategic importance for the North Atlantic, like I just implied a moment ago, given that eighty percent of Greenland lies within the Arctic Circle and acts as a defensive hub for vital shipping lanes. Additionally, Greenland is home to abundant rare earth mad minerals that are crucial for

modern technology such as smartphones and green energy batteries. Despite the people of Greenland showing little interest in joining the US and instead opting for true independence the world's largest island. To call it that again is that you can't understate the significance of that would be a boon for any nation seeking to control it. Finally, when it comes to Canada, this plan to annex it, on the face of it is probably the most outlandish and nakedly expansionists of them all. However,

beyond sheer imperialism, there are other justifications being floated. According to Trump, one major motivation is to curb the two hundred billion dollars that the US pays Canada annually. And Furthermore, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged that the Trump administration is very aware his words of Canada's natural resources

and has expressed interest in controlling them. The talk surrounding border security in the context of fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration cannot be discounted either, though tariffs which have taken on a new meeting since I started working on this recording version, given our so called liberation Day, that's just happened. But those tariffs seem to be the methodology that the

administration is taking in regard to stopping fentanyl trafficking. And so forth, at least to incentivize the Canadian government to do more to stop it. I guess the point being obtaining a vast territory like Canada, with its innumerable resources, would essentially cut out the middleman in the thinking of the administration. Despite well, the existence of NAFTA until twenty twenty, you know, the thing that guaranteed free trade between Mexico,

the United States and Canada. Now, all this amounts to something very familiar to those who have studied American history during the progressive era, when the nation was busy developing and strengthening the sphere of influence as a matter of policy, I want to give a quick note in terminology. I mean, we've discussed progressivism in its various forms on this podcast, especially with the help of the friend C. J. Kilmer of the Dangerous History podcast, but it's worth getting into

just a little bit here. It may be difficult for some to appreciate this similarity between the progressive era and today because the word progressivism has long been associated with those on the left side of the political ledger. However, the progressive vision in the United States has hardly ever been unified, except in terms of core principles of so called social progress. The differences have largely stemmed from ancillary

political concerns. For example, the George W. Bush administration was defined ostensibly by evangelical Christianity, whereas the Obama administration leaned into technocratic expertise. But the ideological split within the progressive way worldview has deep historical roots. That first manifested very clearly in nineteen twelve between Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, with Poor William Howard Taft and Eugene Debs caught in

the middle. After that fascinating election that one could legitimately call a four person election, the country generally embraced the more academic and genteel Wilsonian vision of progressivism, leaving the bellicose and nationalist Rooseveltian brand of progressivism behind. That is,

in my view, until now. The second Trump administration has very clearly aligned itself with the legacy of Roosevelt, as we heard, but also again as we heard, Trump made himself very clear in this in his inauguration speech, with that of President William McKinley. Other commentators have made similar observations.

I'm not pretending to be unique in this regard. For example, writing for Unheard, Michael Linde argued that Trump is governing quote in a tradition of realist presidents going back to Theodore Roosevelt more than a century ago, who have viewed world politics as a great power club rather than an arena for idealism unquote. Lin's overall point about moral consistency is certainly debatable, but he is not alone in recognizing

this shift. An American conservative Ted Snyder argues that Trump's hero worship of McKinley and Roosevelt represents something unpleasant to imagine, because, as the article's subheading points out, quote, his heroes were war bonkers unquote. So clearly, Trump's attempt to rebrand himself within this historical lineage has not been well received by those with we could say anti imperialist perspectives, if we want to put it as broadly as possible. Now. In

my view, this concern is for good reason. Very few US presidents have been more imperialist than the progressives who ruled between eighteen ninety six and nineteen twenty. I mean, under McKinley alone, the US acquired the following Hawaii, Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines as part of the famously lopsided Spanish American War of eighteen ninety eight. And this is to say nothing of US involvement in the Boxer Rebellion in China nineteen hundred, what I like to call

the first global war of the twentieth century. McKinley justified these acquisitions under quote the law of belligerent right over conquered territory unquote. The conquest of the Philippines then turned into what many people have compared to the Vietnam War in the nineteen sixties or the Iraq War in the two thousands, something known as the Philippine American War of eighteen ninety nine to nineteen oh two, and that was

the most infamous of all the conflicts that occurred. It erupted when Spain seeded control of the Philippines and the US quickly annexed the islands instead of granted independence. Ultimately, over forty two hundred American soldiers and more than twenty thousand five Lapino combatants perished. This was something that Dan Carlin talked about in my opinion underrated episode in the hardcore History catalog called American Peril a number of years ago.

I think it's actually been over ten years. It's a very good one, and I recommend people go back and listen to it, or check out my friend Danielle Blelli's podcast about Teddy Roosevelt in general to get a good, decent idea of the kind of war that was being fought over there, and the ideology that spawned it, and

the personalities and so forth. Anyway, the justifications for the annexation of the Philippines were legion at the time, ranging from strategic concerns to just outright racism, with some arguing that Filipinos were just not frankly fit to govern themselves, or that they were not sufficiently Christianized in order to do so. But the thing is, ultimately this was all

about expanding the American sphere of influence. That's it. Because at the dawn of the twentieth century that sphere of influence paled in comparison to the empires of Europe, and the United States had a bit of what Freud called

penis envy at that point, if you'll pardon the crude analogy. Now, this imperial impulse was shared by McKinley's vice president and successor Theodore Roosevelt, who further expanded US interventionism after McKinley was assassinated when the Polish born anarchist Leon soul Goes

shot him in the stomach. Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, as it has come to be known, and which has clearly influenced the forty seventh president, involved creating what became the Panama Canal Zone after taking it from Columbia nineteen oh one, reasserting control over Cuba despite its nineteen oh two independence, and turning the US into a police power quote unquote of the Caribbean Sea with the nineteen oh four Roosevelt

Corollary to what was then simply the Monroe Doctrine. The corollary justified US intervention in Latin America by arguing that quote chronic wrongdoing may in America as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation unquote. This doctrine laid the foundation for further military occupations, such as the US Marine intervention in the Dominican Republic in nineteen oh five, and it also set the stage for the next major progressive president,

Woodrow Wilson, to continue to expand American interventionism. One thing that's important to remember is that despite the split between the visions of progressivism, the genteel academic version of Wilsonianism and a more muscular version of Rooseveltianism I guess we could call it, does not have one preclude the other of acting like imperialists. The impression I have is that

progressivism of all kinds has an imperialist, expansionist streak. We'll be getting into that a little bit more later, but it's important to remember that in the modern day versions.

particular political parties. This is important to point out because you see this already happen with history, Wilson's imperialism specifically being downplayed compared to that of McKinley and Roosevelt, and that is likely thanks to the progressive split that I was talking about as well as Wilson's greater association with the First World War breaking out just over a year and a half after he took office in nineteen thirteen.

World War One has to suck the oxygen out of the room, and for understandable reasons, but that doesn't make the other things that happened under Wilson's watch, or at under his orders suddenly not matter. Because Wilson was no stranger to foreign intervention in occupation, particularly in Latin America, where Roosevelt's corollary provided broad justification for it to just keep going. During his presidency, Wilson so called Banana Wars, which we will be talking about in a future episode

if history impossible, coming hopefully pretty soon. They raged south of the border, caused by interventions in Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama. Justification for American involvement in Latin America and in the Caribbean aligned with Wilson's views on the importance of what he called pan Americanism, which he believed would create a quote unquote progressive order and that would prevent a quote unquote state of uncontrollable chaos. In the words

of historian Lloyd e ambrosious. As with the or Roosevelt's own expansionist actions, there were high minded justifications, but it is clear that this had to do with securing the

US sphere of interest. Yet again, as historian Ivan Mussakant has written, Roosevelt's motives lay largely in quote cementing America's newfound role as quadrispheric constable, in which quote the United States could militarily and utilaterally intervene in any regional state where the political, economic, or social conditions invited a European

protective response in force. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt himself said in a speech delivered in Cincinnati in the year nineteen oh nine, quote expansion is not only the handmade of greatness, but above all, it is the handmade of peace. Every expansion of a civilized power is a conquest for peace. It means not only the extension of American influence and power. It means the extension of liberty and order, and the bringing nearer by gigantic strides of the day when peace

shall come to the whole earth. This belief that American expansionism was a force for stability and global order provided the intellectual foundation for US interventions throughout the early twentieth century, driving American foreign policy and reinforcing the Rooseveltian approach to empire building, even as Wilson's style himself as a more idealistic and principled leader. The parallels between Trump and nineteenth

century progressive presidents are striking, to say the least. However, the closer one looks, the more obvious it becomes that not everything aligns perfectly between them. I'll be the first to admit that now. This, of course, has more to do with the fact that the world, especially the United States, has significantly changed in the last one hundred twenty five years.

While the second Trump administration seems animated by the Rooseveltian progressive spirit when it comes to geopolitics, this has not always been the case. Trump's first term from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one was more animated by an energy

of crude nativist populism that largely rejected global expansionism. After all, this was the only Republican nominee in twenty fifteen that broke ranks and openly denounced the Iraq War, despite also falsely claiming that he had always been against it, which is just not true. Back in two thousand and two, when he was on the Howard Stern Show, Trump had

literally said that he was in favor of invading Iraq. Regardless, the road to this seeming about face reveals not a contradiction so much as as I see it at least

a logical conclusion. Woodrow Wilson, despite resuscitating and maintaining the tradition of McKinley and Roosevelt's militarism in Latin America and Caribbean, often spoken idealistic terms, especially in nineteen seventeen, when he pled for congressional approval to send American men into the fray of the First World War under the pretense now made famous of quote making the world safe for democracy unquote. This was certainly sincere on Wilson's part, driven by his

legit messionic complex. This is something that the aforementioned friend of the Show and of Mind, C. J. Kilmer, has talked about on his series about Woodrow Wilson. I think most pointedly made clear when Wilson himself said to Democratic Party leaders when they approached him after his election, who were expecting to get these nice, cushy appointments these jobs in his administration for helping put him in the office.

Wilson looked them dead in the eye and said, and I quote, I wish it to be clearly understood that I owe you nothing. Remember that God ordained that I should be the next president of the United States. Neither you or any other mortal could have prevented that, unquote. So we clearly have a much different way of looking at things, I think than really anyone other than from what I can tell George W. Bush and his decree that God wanted him to aus Saddam Hussein from power.

But unlike Wilson, and unlike George W. Bush, the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations were more animated by a school of thought that today is known as realism, concerning themselves with what I see as largely deterministic, supposedly rational interpretations of geopolitical forces that must be harnessed rather than defied in

the name of ideals. Now, similar to McKinley and Roosevelt, Trump sees the projection of American power not in terms of the Wilsonian notion of spreading American values, as like I was hinting at figures like Bush Junior, Obama and Biden believed, but rather he and his administration see the projection of American power in terms of securing interests and influence.

This is a function of the worldview that has crystallized, particularly but by no means exclusively, on the American right during the last fifteen years, neatly aligning with what we could call maga populism. In twenty eleven, CNN commentator and writer for Read Zakaria released a second edition of his landmark two thousand and eight book The Post American World, updated to reflect the tumultuous events that were occurring as

the first edition was being published. At the time of its original writing, Barack Obama had yet to be elected into office, the war in Iraq had not yet ended, and most crucially, the consequences of the Great Financial Crisis of two thousand and seven to two thousand and nine aka the Great Recession had not yet made themselves apparent. By twenty eleven, Zakaria's updated analysis of a world characterized by the quote unquote rise of the rest, as he

put it, was even more prescient. The war on terror in the Great Recession made clear to many that the American Way had been built on a house of cards, and to the less charitable among them, a house of lies. But as Zakaria explains in his book, people were starting to suspect that quote America had had its day unquote years before the financial crisis. As the co founder of the company Intel, Andy Grove said in two thousand and five, quote America's in danger of following Europe down the tubes.

And the worst part is that nobody knows it. They're all in denial, patting themselves in the back as the Titanic heads straight for the Iceberg, full speed ahead unquote. For the rest of the world. American decline became apparent even earlier than that, As Zakaria notes, US global influence quote reached its apogee with Iraq unquote, an unprovoked invasion

launched despite widespread international opposition. The skepticism of the American led end of history quote unquote that supposedly began in nineteen eighty nine quickly became global. As Zakaria explains, that new world order that George H. W. Bush spoke of in nineteen ninety one quickly unwound when the unpopular Iraq War became even more unpopular, as it became obvious very quickly that despite the understandable ousting of the genocidal Baptist

regime under Saddam Hussein, the whole enterprise was an unmitigated disaster. America, in its brief window of true global dominion, had frankly

blown its wad. That was the way it looked. However, the most striking insight provided by Zakaria is not that the Iraq War quote killed American dominance unquote, or the uni polar world order itself, but that it that is, the Iraq War and the two thousand and eight financial crisis accelerated pre existing global trends, mainly the rise of the rest, and thus the necessary declension in relative terms

of the United States. As Zakari writes, quote, the unipolar order of the last two decades is waning not because of Iraq, but because of the broader diffusion of power across the world quote. Chinese strategists had long recognized this transition, characterizing the world as made up of quote many powers in one superpower unquote. But for these Chinese strategists, this was no benign observation. It was a strategic assertion, a

mission statement. One could even see it as it was only a matter of time before Americans themselves would begin to experience real and significant self doubt that mirrored the doubt being felt by the rest of the world about them. But unlike the rising rest, who naturally saw and made moves to take an opportunity being presented them, Americans were perhaps inevitably going to react with variations of despair, possibly denial.

The despair and in some cases denial manifested in myriad ways into early twenty tens, most dramatically with the now infamous Occupied Movement in twenty eleven to twenty twelve, which ended up mostly coding left. The right had the Tea Party moment starting from twenty ten, but it was not clear that the populist backlash was in full swing for them until it became embodied by Donald Trump's rise in twenty fifteen and the birth of what we can now

call Maga populism. This first incarnation of Trump was much more inwardly focused than the second one appears to be as of this recording. This was largely thanks to the influence of nativists figures like Steve Bannon, but it was of a piece with the current incarnation as well. In that maga ideology, what little of it actually can be articulated, is firmly rooted in the idea that the US is

not the unipolar powerhouse that it once was. The only seemingly real, serious ideological figure deep in the administration, that is, Vice President J. D. Vance has made this clear that the US exists and should thus act like it exists in a multipolar world. We saw this made very clear in his speech given at the Munich Security Conference on

February fourteenth, twenty twenty five. While notions of a multipolar world are interesting for their connections to more esoteric Russian figures like Alexander Dugan, who I've spoken to my friend Christops and Dreesen's about a lot the reality of a multipolar world, and by the way, it is a reality we should not be mistaken on. That is what matters for understand the second Trump administration's positioning of the US

in what appear to be nineteenth century progressive terms. This is because despite how unpleasant, thuggish and downright means spirited, it's all been. To let my bias come through there again a little bit. The administration is at least appearing to be trying to make the US exist in the world as it is, rather than the world as we

would like it to be. While I would argue there are multiple ways to navigate this other than the way the administration has been going about it, which I see as a deep pessimism masquerading as realism, they are taking a supposedly proven approach by mirroring the imperial spheres of influenced methodology of the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations one hundred

and twenty five years ago. The primary difference between the two parties in Washington has been revealed, at least as they have been manifesting for the last ten to twenty years. The Democrats are more than willing to try and appropriate the symbols and rhetoric of their populists the one percent Black Lives Matter me Too, without ever really changing anything meaningful, while the Republicans under Trump seemed to be seeking to

actually remake the American image. The last time such a thing actually happened during relative peacetime was indeed under McKinley and Roosevelt. I believe therefore that it is fair, at least as of this recording to characterize a second Trump administration as the newest incarnation of American progressivism. What that

actually means is what should concern us. If there was one overused bromide of the last eight years that I'm sure a lot of you listening know that I got very sick of, very quickly, and remain sick of for those eight years. It was the invocation of fascism in almost any and all negative commentary directed at Donald Trump. Everyone from random commenters on Reddit to Rachel Maddow took

a swing at the reductio ad hit Lerum fallacy. While it is now clear that this was almost certainly political theater and hardly sincere, especially given the fact that the party that saw fit to continually make fascism comparisons was apparently more than happy to just hand over power to a supposed fascist. Plenty of people took it seriously, and you will find no shortage of angry citizens still comparing

the current administration to fascism or even Nazism. This has always read, and usually continues to read, as a textbook definition of a moral panic or mass hysteria. And yet there does seem to be something a little more apt about such a comparison this time around. Now bear with me here, guys. There is a bit of cheekiness, of course, to be expected when I say something like this. I'm

being a little provocative here. It is not to say, and I am not saying that the second Trump administration is absolutely resolutely a fascist administration, because that is not true. It is not. I mean, after all, the majority of me talking here has been elaborating on how this administration resembles nineteenth century progressivism more than anything else. But the truth is, nineteenth century progressivism and fascism, along with communism,

are all quite comfortable bedfellows. These three were the ideologies of the future one hundred and fifty years ago or so, and while they all had different ideas about the specifics, they shared one thing in common, and that is top down authoritarianism. Around this time in Western history, notions of government by the people for the people were facing a lot of skepticism, and there were multiple bold reasons for this, and they would take us far too long to chronicle.

Entire Podcasts have been made dedicated to just parts of this story. But the short version, as short as it's going to get, is that the early to mid nineteenth century saw incredible disruptions to what had long been the relative status quo in politics, economics, and war, ranging from the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars to the Second Industrial Revolution, the Year of Revolutions as in eighteen

forty eight, and then the American Civil War. In short, the will of the people became associated with chaos, and generally speaking, those in power abhor chaos unless they can make it work for themselves. This is certainly a crude and shortened version of nineteenth century history, but it generally

helps paint the picture. It helps explain why governments, including democratic ones, perhaps especially democratic warses ones, would develop warm feelings toward authoritarianism as the twentieth century began to loom. These warm feelings would manifest in different ways depending on the country in question. I mean, as we know, for Germany it would become national socialism, though remember communism was giving the national socialists to run for their money as well,

but the point remains. And then in Italy it would become fascism, and then ultimately in Russia it would become communism. Before the United States some decades even before all that happened before the Great War, it would become muscular, technocratic progressivism, which endured until the nineteen twenties, before revitalizing itself under the auspices of Franklin Dilano Roosevelt in the nineteen thirties

in the wake of the Great Depression. If one zooms in, the different ideologies of these powers cast very different shadows, but zoomed out, they all indeed share an authoritarian nature.

Whether it was the FDR administration forcing the slaughter of over thirty thousand pigs to exert control over the livestock economy, or one of Stalin's five year plans, or Hitler's autocratic drive to make Germany self sufficient, the essence was always the same, if not the effect, obviously, considering the latter

two examples resulted in tens of millions dead. The different authoritarian powers, though they often looked at each other admiringly for their efforts to protect their people from the horrors of the Great Depression, and this included progressives seeing something to like across the Atlantic or across the Eurasian land mass.

The communists, the fascists, the progressives, they all saw each other as part of a sort of kindred movement that had essentially grown out of the shackles of parliamentary democracies or constitutional republics, a movement of pragmatists, a movement to get things done, to get action. As Teddy Roosevelt liked to say, while the Great Depression had given this worldview in the world's democracies a new lease on life, these notions of top down, technocratic, authoritarian managers taking hold of

national or even civilizational destiny long predated those events. The writer and the world famous progressive HG. Wells had been by his own account, advocating for such a shift for three decades. When he spoke on the subject of fascism in the early nineteen thirties, indeed, he saw the parallels between the fascist movements of Europe and the progressive movement of the early twentieth century, which again had seen a new lease on life under the auspices of FDR, which

he saw positively. And he saw all of them in a favorable light. He made this clear in nineteen thirty two when he addressed to young liberals at Oxford, proclaiming the following in his speech quote, I have never been able to escape altogether from its relentless logic. We have seen the FASCISTI in Italy and a number of Franklin Roosevelt's Fascist New Deal clumsy imitations elsewhere, and we have seen the Russian Communist Party coming into existence to reinforce

this idea. I am asking for a liberal FASCISTI for enlightened Nazis. And do not let me leave you in the slightest doubt as to the scope and ambition of what I'm putting before you. These new organizations are not merely organizations for the spread of defined opinions. The days of that sort of amateurism are over. They are organizations to replace a dilatory indecisiveness of democracy. The world is sick of parliamentary politics. The Fascist Party, to the best

of its ability, is Italy. Now the Communist Party, to the best of its ability, is Russia. Obviously, the fascists of liberalism must carry out a parallel ambition on a still vaster scale. They must begin as a disciplined sect, but they must end as a sustaining organization of a reconstituted mankind. Unquote. H. G. Wells was not a fascist, at least in the same way as Hitler. Or even

Mussolini were. As Philip Coupland explained in his paper on the subject, Quote Wells showed how fascist, that is, elitist, authoritarian, and violent means could yield liberal ends. Fascism was, in essence a tool to be wielded for the common good. This notion only changed after it became unfashionable for obvious reasons to advocate for such a tool, when world events revealed why. As Joonah Goldberg has explained, fascism only really started to get a truly bad rap after World War

II began, and especially after it ended. As Gouldberg emphasizes, the real reason fascism got so tarred with a broad brush was its association with the Holocaust, and for obviously good reason. The Holocaust was, in essence, the end result of an authoritarian state was zero checks and balances and

creative bureaucratic apparatus, all fueled by a singular lethal obsession. Now, the important thing here to remember Fascism did not necessarily lead to the Holocaust, as seen by the relatively put an air quotes here favorable treatment the Jews of Italy experienced until the Nazis took over in nineteen forty three after Mussolini's fall. But the important thing to remember, though, is that the Holocaust could also not have happened without fascism.

This right here is the seeming chicken and egg problem that tends to trip most people up who don't study this part of history. Fascism was not at the time solely because of the Holocaust. Rather, the Holocaust revealed just how bad fascism could be. Now, I depart from Jonah Goldberg's analysis pretty sharply in the sense that, unlike him, at least when he wrote his book Liberal Fascism back in two thousand and seven, I don't personally really care whether or not fascism is the domain of the left

or of the right. It's a top down authoritarian ideology that historically tends to result in expansionist violence, and in the case of the nazis a obsessive drive for virulent race purification, and that in and of itself is bad enough for anyone who appreciates individual freedom and agency. Whether it's a left or right phenomenon, does it really matter.

The real problem is that the domains of the left and the right both equally believe that if either secures power they will lose the freedom and agency that they have. Whether or not one side can make a better case than the other, it just matters far less than the possibility. I personally believe near certainty, but one's mileage may vary. That they are both correct but hate each other more than they hate any kind of tyranny. I mean, look

at it this way. If you enjoy seeing tyranny exercised on white nationalists or hamas supporting college students, then you don't hate tyranny. What you enjoy is a selective application of tyranny, and that's just tyranny. It's really that simple. This is all to say that fascism itself is not what should concern us. What should concern us is top down expansionist authoritarianism. However it defines itself progressivism, fascism, communism

trumpsm it doesn't matter. And if we are to take the second Trump administration at face value, with how it has been conducting it, particularly with foreign policy, including aggressive tariffs that as of this recording, supposedly liberated US two days ago, and we haven't really seen much evidence of that yet, it is concerning, However, unlike the previously worn dangers of Trump and his movement. I don't believe that it makes any sense to treat things as existential to

our government. Bad ideas which are just in my opinion, bad ideas. This is just my opinion, after all, are not a life or death problem. They don't automatically constitute an existential threat to us. All. I have heard it said that it would behoove us not to react to Trump two point zero like a resistance or hashtag resistance, we should say, But rather those of us who don't like the policies or the direction things are going in to react to it like an opposition, because, to be frank,

that is what a democracy does. That is what a republic does. Despite the resurgence of democratic dominated progressivism in the nineteen thirties that arguably continued nearly uninterrupted, if not fully uninterrupted, into the Obama era, the Rooseveltian brand, as in the Teddy Roosevelt brand, lost its influence outside of

the mythological context. By the nineteen twenties, more liberty minded administrations prevailed, and had it not been for the Great Depression providing the incentive for revisiting top down authoritarian measures, those more liberty minded administrations and ideas might have continued, if only for a time. The world today might be multipolar, and the US needs to start acting like it understands

this fact. But doing so by breathing new life into a century old playbook of discredited, nakedly cynical imperialism is not the answer. I was thinking about a lot of this while reading an essay from Gorvidal actually where he talked about Theodore Roosevelt, who he calls an American cissy. And I think to close this out, it would be appropriate for me to read this passage that just really

stuck out to me. So, if you'll indulge me, I think that this can help illustrate some things in a way that my own words can't, especially because it's very hard to compete with one of the literary masters of the twentieth century. So if you'll indulge me, let's turn to what Gorvidal had to say, as follows, there is something strangely infantile in this obsession with dice loaded physical courage, when the only courage that matters in political or even

real life is moral. Although Theodore Roosevelt was often reckless and always domineering in politics. He never showed much real courage, and despite some trust busting, he never took on the great ring of corruption that ruled and rules in this republic. But then he was born a part of it. At best, he was just a dude with the reform play. Fortunately,

foreign affairs would bring him glory. As Lincoln was the Bismarck of the American States, Theodore Roosevelt was the Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, a more fortunate and intelligent figure than the Kaiser, but every bit as bellicose and conceited. Edith Wharton described with what pride tr showed her a photograph of himself and the Kaiser, with the Kaiser's inscription. President Roosevelt shows the Emperor of Germany how to command an attack. I once asked Alice Longworth just why her father was

such a war lover. She denied that he was. I quoted her father's dictum, no triumph of peace is quite as great as the supreme triumph of war, A sentiment to be echoed by yet another sissy in the next generation. Meglio undiorno dalone che cento anni de pecora. Oh well, she said, that's the way they all sounded. In those days, but they did not all sound that way. Certainly Theodore Senior would have been appalled, and I doubt if Eleanor

really approved of Uncle Teddy's warmongerine. As President, t R spoke loudly and carried a fair sized stick when Colombia wouldn't give him the land that he needed for a canal. He helped invent Panama out of a piece of Colombia and God his canal. He also installed the United States as the policeman of the Western Hemisphere in order to

establish an American hegemony in the Pacific. Tr presided over the tail end of the slaughter of more than half a million Filipinos, who had been under the illusion that after the Spanish American War, they would be free to set up an independent republic under the leadership of Emilio Guinaldo. But TIR had other plans for the Philippines. Nice Mister Taft was made the Governor general, and one thousand American teachers of English were sent to the islands to teach

the natives a sovereigns language. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the Boxer rebellion, TR's open door policy in China had its ups and downs. In nineteen oh five, the Chinese boycotted American goods because of American immigration policies, but the United States was still able to establish the sort of beachhead on the mainland of Asia that was bound to lead to what tr would have regarded as a bully fying war with Japan. Those of US who were involved in that war did not like it all that much.

In nineteen oh five, the world famous Henry James came in triumph to Washington. He was a friend of Secretary of State John Hay and of Henry Adams. Theodore Rex, as James called, the President, felt obliged to invite the Master to the White House, even though tr had denounced James as efete and a miserable little snob. It takes one to no one, while James thought of Tr as a dangerous and ominous Jingo, but the dinner was a success.

James described the President as a wonderful little machine. Quite exciting to see, but it's really like something behind a great plate glass window on Broadway. Tr continued to loathe the tone of satirical cynicism of Henry James and Henry Adams, while the Master finally dismissed the president as the mere monstrous embodiment of unprecedented and resounding noise. Alice Longworth used to boast that she and her father's viceroy Taft were the last Westerners to be received by the Dowager Empress

of China. We went to Pee King, to the Forbidden City, and there we were taken to see this strange little old lady standing at the end of the room. Well, there was no bowing or scraping for us, so we marched down the room just behind the chamberlain, a eunuch like one of those in that book of yours, Justinian, who slithered on his belly toward her after he had announced us. She gave him a kick, and he rolled over like a dog and slithered out. What had they

talked about? She couldn't recall. I had my impression that she rather liked the way the Empress treated her officials. Now that war is once more thinkable among the thoughtless, Theodore Roosevelt should enjoy a revival. Certainly the new Right will find his jingoism appealing, though his trust busting will give less pleasure to the honorable society of the invisible hand.

The figure that emerges is both fascinating and repellent. Theodore Roosevelt was a classic American sissy who overcame or appeared to overcome his physical fragility through manly activities, of which the was exciting and ennobling was well made.

Emily Schmidt, Pierre Vorpuni, and of course f you. I also want to thank again my friend David Joseph Vlatsko for providing me a platform to write this original essay on so it would get more eyeballs, and for letting me turn it into a podcast of course, so all of you find people who might have missed it get to hear it at least in the dulcet tones of my voice that I'm told I have. And yeah, so I really want to thank David for that. Please subscribe

to the Radical List if you haven't already. We're planning some other stuff for me to put on there. I'm sure he and I will have more conversations, especially now that there's ever more demand apparently for live streams on most platforms. I don't know, we'll see what happens with that, but yeah, so we have that in the bag, and I want to just thank everybody for listening, and please stay tuned for the next special episode I have planned for History Impossible. Like I said, I keep saying, I

am working on the Muslim Nazis. I'm feeling a renewed sense of purpose on that, especially because the semester is winding down and I don't really have much left to do except get a lot of writing done for my classes, and then it's summer break and hopefully I'll be able to wrap everything up on this next major installment. I have no doubt in my mind that it will end up being a very long one, as it usually is, so yes, please stay tuned for that and for any

and all updates that you might want from me. Consider subscribing on substack history Impossible, that substat or the patreon just history Impossible on patreon, patreon dot com slash history Impossible, I should say, And yeah, feel free to follow me on social media as well. You might get some more updates on there, or some sort of sneak previews from something that pisses me off that I end up writing

about later. So yeah, please find me on x at a Raider Vaughan or on Instagram at history Impossible or Facebook's History Impossible page, whatever works for you, And as always, please spread the word on History Impossible if you think someone you know might enjoy this weird thing that I've been doing for over six years now. So thanks again guys, and see you again soon