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After days of declaring that Donald Trump admires Adolf Hitler and dismissing evidence that his scoop that Trump cursed in a racist manner at the cost of a military funeral was false, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, took his place in the anchor’s chair of PBS’s Washington Week with The Atlantic and declared it is only “allegedly extreme” for Kamala Harris to label Trump a fascist.

Goldberg first needed a definition, and for that he turned to fellow Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum, “So, you’re a scholar, among other things, of Soviet communism and authoritarianism generally. What is fascism?”

Applebaum replied with a broad definition:

So, fascism was a movement that was created in the 1930s and it has — it’s hard to define because it’s really — it’s more about emotion over reason. It’s about creating a leader who says that he embodies the will of the people and that his will is stronger than the rule of law and stronger than the Constitution. It’s a movement typically — typically fascist leaders or leaders who use fascist tactics will divide the nation into the real people and the outsiders, immigrants, you know, foreigners, traitors, and seek to create a kind of cult of hatred against them in order to build up the sensibility of the majority.

If dividing the nations into traitors and non-traitors is a sign of fascism, then a lot of people who went all in on the Russia Collusion narrative have some explaining to do. Another sign of fascism is the belief in an all-powerful state, but that’ll be hard for Trump to enact while also promising to pursue a policy of deregulation and tax cuts.

Regardless, a few minutes later, Goldberg turned to Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reaction to Harris calling Trump a fascist:

They’ve just condemned Kamala Harris for her allegedly extreme rhetoric. They said in a statement, ‘the Democratic nominee for president of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath’—it’s a little bit overwritten, if you ask me—’has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus. Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th century seem to dare it to boil over.’

If Kamala Harris had been the victim of two assassination attempts, nobody at PBS or The Atlantic would just flippantly dismiss concerns about political rhetoric as “overwritten.”

Here is a transcript for the October 25 show:

PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic

10/25/2024

8:04 PM ET

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, you’re a scholar, among other things, of Soviet communism and authoritarianism generally. What is fascism?

ANNE APPLEBAUM: So, fascism was a movement that was created in the 1930s and it has — it’s hard to define because it’s really — it’s more about emotion over reason. It’s about creating a leader who says that he embodies the will of the people and that his will is stronger than the rule of law and stronger than the Constitution. It’s a movement typically — typically fascist leaders or leaders who use fascist tactics will divide the nation into the real people and the outsiders, immigrants, you know, foreigners, traitors, and seek to create a kind of cult of hatred against them in order to build up the sensibility of the majority.

…

GOLDBERG: I want to note something that Mitch McConnell, the Senate, and Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House. They’ve just condemned Kamala Harris for her allegedly extreme rhetoric. They said in a statement, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath”—it’s a little bit overwritten, if you ask me—”has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus. Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th century seem to dare it to boil over.”

DANA BASH: I missed the statement that they made about Trump calling America a garbage can.

GOLDBERG: Well, there’s the garbage can rhetoric. Wait, remind us because that just came today, I think.

BASH: He said that in his latest attempt to be even more sort out of control on his rhetoric, he said that what is happening with illegal immigration, undocumented immigrants are making America like a garbage can.