Panel of law, history professors at Willamette discuss fascism, democratic “backsliding” under Trump

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Three Willamette University professors addressed the authoritarian tendencies of President Donald Trump’s second administration and debated historical similarities with European fascism at a panel event on Friday, March 7.

Over a hundred people, including Salem community members and Willamette students, attended the event, titled This (Un)democratic Moment, organized by the Associated Students of Willamette University. The larger event included other panels about immigration under Trump, attacks on federal data and student activism.

The speakers on the fascism panel were William Smaldone, a history professor and former member of the Salem City Council specializing in European contemporary history and labor movements; Sammy Basu, a history professor specializing in public health and intellectual history; and Steven Green, a law professor specializing in constitutional law and legal history.

The central question posed to the panel was, “are we on the way to fascism?” to which Smaldone responded “yes,” but Basu and Green did not have a simple answer.

“When I talk about politics in the United States, I’ve always urged caution because I regarded it as sloppy to refer to people who might have certain authoritarian tendencies as fascists. I no longer hesitate to use that word,” Smaldone said.

Parallels with Nazi Germany

Basu and Smaldone pointed to similarities between Trump’s actions in government and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, such as installing loyalist officials who may not be qualified for the job, weaponizing government funding to reach political goals, limiting criticism and free speech online and punishing news outlets critical of administration actions.

Basu said he is cautious to draw strong parallels between the two governments “in order to preserve the historical specificity of that period and guard against rhetorical overreach,” but sees historical lessons as valuable to understand the present-day United States.

The Weimar Republic, a democratic government in Germany between 1918 and 1933, suffered hyperinflation and lost its remaining legitimacy after it failed to address the impacts of the Great Depression, Smaldone said.

“These disasters opened the door to the force of the extreme right who opposed democracy and socialism, was rabidly antisemitic and promised to restore the economy, crush the labor movement, enhance the power of capital, create a new racial order and restore German greatness in Europe,” Smaldone said. In the United States, millions have similarly “fallen into poverty and homelessness while the rich get richer than ever,” which he said has threatened the legitimacy of the state and opened the door to the far right.

Smaldone and Basu also argued that Hitler gained power because he understood mass media and promoted lies through repetition and propaganda, especially with threats of the “deep state” and by “othering” vulnerable populations. 

During the Weimar Republic and present-day United States, propaganda, polarization and partisan news created echo chambers, and as a consequence, both Hitler and Trump “built a mass following based on class and racial resentments in fear of social change,” Smaldone said. 

“With an instantly recognizable appearance and vigorous speaking style” Hitler portrayed himself as a strongman who “promised to solve everything,” according to Basu. While the opposition mocked him, criticism backfired and worked in his favor, he said.

“The equivalent today would be someone with no political experience and a record of spurious entrepreneurial achievement who is popular through his self-promotional books, high-visibility TV shows, wide use of Twitter, occasional media appearances holding the Bible, sticking to a highly recognizable overdone hairstyle, skin tone and long red necktie,” Basu joked by referencing Trump. 

In 1930s Germany, the opposition was hesitant to act against Hitler because they feared civil war and preferred to wait for the situation to get more severe, Smaldone said. 

“While they waited, he acted. And we know the price they paid,” he said. 

Constitutional crisis

All speakers pointed to Trump’s anti-democratic tendencies and a significant “bending” of the constitution, but Green, the law professor, declined to consider the situation a constitutional crisis. 

Trump “aims to take permanent control of the state apparatus and, once installed, will be very difficult to dislodge,” Smaldone said. He has already “seized control of the Republican party and used it as a vehicle to gain state power,” according to him.

Basu disagrees with many people’s view that Elon Musk, who is leading a broad effort to dismantle or drastically cut many federal agencies, is the de-facto president. “Rather, he has bested others by out-Trumping them in the eyes of Trump,” he said.

Basu noted that Vivek Ramaswamy, who had been tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency initiative with Musk “lost the competition and backed out without visible or public acrimony.”

“What this suggests is that going forward we should fully expect others in the Trump regime to settle in and begin to try to out-Trump one another to gain the media limelight and Trump’s approval,” Basu said.

Despite Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, Green does not view the situation as a constitutional crisis because Trump has not yet defied court orders limiting his presidential powers. 

Nonetheless, “we’ve never faced a person like this,” he said, referring to Trump’s criminal record, two impeachments, liability for sexual assault and a “long record of malfeasance and disregard for the law.” 

He added that there is likely “not another period in American history other than the Civil War, and maybe the Great Depression” where we have witnessed such levels of constitutional tension.

“Trump is not the first president to push the limits of the Constitution,” Green noted, pointing out that Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt also stretched constitutional boundaries. The key difference, he argued, is that while Lincoln and Roosevelt faced crises like the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II, Trump is dealing with a “self-made crisis.”

Trump’s repeated claims that only he can make America great again and that others are corrupt “tend to start to be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Green said. 

It is not normal for a president to replace officials who hold other powers accountable, such as inspectors general and special counsels, with loyalists, according to him. 

“The problem with the law is that it’s going to take a long time to litigate these cases, and Trump will be pushing it as far as he can,” Green said. 

“I think we have a 250-year-old document that can withstand this, and we have to keep within the norms” to oppose Trump, he said.

Contact reporter Alan Cohen: [email protected].

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