Don't look away
PLUS: Trump invokes religion & why Christian nationalism is a threat to liberty in the US
I’d like to share a story about my first walk in Warsaw, and the first conversation I had in English. Before beginning, I think I should back up a bit.
A few years back, a different and less noble iteration of Chris Christie mentioned me in his book “Let Me Finish.” He described me as being a singular example of an overwrought Trump hysteric, and an examplar of the exaggerated rhetoric used by the “Never Trump” movement to describe his close friend of many years, Donald.
I’ll be honest. When I read the passage some years back, I laughed out loud before an inner voice said, “You just got called out for being a hysterical big mouth and shit talker by Chris Christie. What is wrong with you?”
This voice of doubt walks with all of us, and before I decided that what Christie had said was completely unwarranted, it made me think. I looked back from that moment, and have been conscious of it ever since. I weigh my words carefully, and choose them with intention. Always. I use language purposefully, and my goal is to be proportionate and precise when I do. For example, I do not use a word like “annihilate” loosely. My word choices are used to describe, not inflame. There are no exaggerations needed in this golden age of puffery, fraud, prevarication and corruption.
The Trump era has lasted for nine years, and continues onward — grindingly and relentlessly. I have done my best over many years to describe it precisely and accurately, as it fully revealed itself.
Donald Trump asked me to run his presidential campaigns three times. I refused. Apparently, he wanted me because I was the first person on American television who said he could win — when most everyone else laughed. I have always taken him literally and seriously.
I was sitting on television sets at MSNBC/NBC when I had to react in real time regarding what it was that I was seeing. For example, what did it mean when the delegates of the third oldest political party in the world started cheering and chanting, “LOCK HER UP!” over and over again, with a deranged retired US Army Lt. General leading the charge?
Or, what did it mean when Trump said that the election was only legitimate if he won?
Bit by bit, Trump’s bluster became a coagulant, binding together a hundred noxious parts into a coherent whole. What was it though? What could it be called in America? What was fair to call it?
Pretending that something isn’t what it is isn’t honest either. Lying can happen by omission and deletion. Looking away is avoidance, not evasion.
What is Trump? What is his movement? Where does it stand in 2024?
I do not use the words “dictator” or “fascist” lightly. I write about these words and their meaning because it has become necessary. It is necessary because American liberty has a cancer.
There is a quote that is apocryphally ascribed to Sinclair Lewis that prophesied “when fascism came to America it would be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Certainly, such a description applies to the MAGA movement that finished its illiberal striptease long ago. Dorothy Thompson, the brilliant “First Lady of American journalism,” who was deported on Hitler’s personal orders from Nazi Germany, had another keen observation about what an American incarnation of fascism would look like. In a 1937 “On the Record” column, she wrote:
No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will. When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model. If anyone turned up here in a fur hat, boots and a grim look he would be recognized and shunned…But when our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.
Does it sound familiar?
Back to my story.
I turned left out of my Warsaw hotel, and walked past the magnificent presidential palace. I did not hear a single word of English anywhere. I set out down the street towards Old Town, when I heard a loud, jarring, percussive rythmn ahead. The music was ominous, alarming, urgent, and filled with dread. There was a large banner flanked by speakers with body bags laid out in front of it.
I observed. I knew what this was. Do you?
I approached a long-haired man with a camera, who was filming the scene. He was wearing John Lennon glasses and had a scraggly Ho Chi Minh-shaped beard tied off at its end by a rubber band that left two wiry devil horns protruding downward towards his clavicle.
“Do you speak English,” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
I said, “Those are fascists.”
He laughed, and said, “No, we are Polish nationalists.”
He continued, “Each country must put itself first.”
Of course, his cause and the iconography of the poster tell a different story. The young girl is pure and safe, but endangered by a foreign war. Look at the symbols. These are fascists. These are Putin’s Polish stooges. They are Tucker Carlson’s allies in the cause of global fascism.
When Viktor Orban comes to CPAC, he comes with a message and an agenda:
Do you see it?
Can you feel it?
Perhaps not yet, but you will.
It seems unavoidable to me that a confrontation is at hand between the light and the forces of malignancy that have arisen again in defiance of freedom, humanity and peace. The lessons of the past seem to have faded beyond the horizon. They have disappeared from view.
Perhaps we won’t see the black uniforms in America. Do we really need to in order to know what has arrived?
What I saw in America is what I saw in Poland. I recognize it. I know what it is. I am certain about it.
With all respect to Chris Christie, I wasn’t hyperbolic or hysterical. I was accurate, proportional and precisely correct. I was right, and he was wrong. Of course, none of that matters except for one thing, and that is the subject matter. That matters a great deal because the threat at hand is lethal. Fascism is death.
Fascism has come to America, and it is carrying a cross, and it is wrapped in the flag. The leader is Trump, and he means what he says. Fascists always tell the truth about what they will do to their enemies if you listen closely enough.
Can you hear the promise in the wind? Can you see the storm clouds gathering?
They seem quite clear from Poland.
VIDEO COMMENTARY: Trump invokes religion & why Christian nationalism is s threat to liberty in the US
This morning, I spoke with Scripps News about how Trump is invoking religion into his campaigns, and why the rise of Christian nationalism is a threat to liberty and democracy in the United States:
Note: If you would prefer to read the transcript, instead of playing the video right on this page/email, click on “Watch on YouTube” on the video screen below. At this point, you should be on the YouTube page or YouTube app. Scroll down past “Description” (section where it describes the content of the video) to “Transcript,” and then click on “Show transcript.” If you’re still having difficulty, visit youtube.com, and just search for “Steve Schmidt The Warning.” You’ll be brought to my YouTube channel. All of my videos are there, and you will see the "Transcript" option after each video description.
Thanks for doing your best to convince us of what should be obvious. This Christian nationalist movement (Fascism) which is headed our way with Trump in the lead has a scary momentum. It seems like most of your readers probably get this so you are preaching to the choir. I wish there were other ways to get people’s attention. Look what it took to get the corporate media to reverse their offer to Ronna McDaniel, outrage and courage. We need more of this as we face the ripple effects of climate change, too. These national and global threats are interconnected in ways I can’t quite articulate at the moment.
Steve,
In your early appearances citing the (lower-case “w”) warning about Trump and rising American fascism, you were indeed crystal clear and accurate and proportionate.
I take this opportunity to thank you once again, because for the unflinching among us, such a voice is more than tonic — it is part of a diminishing bedrock upon which we’re able to rest our weary souls at night. We can’t thank you enough!
It was your very level of integrity, of course, that caused Chris Christie to make a MAGA monkey of himself flinging their own dung at you, and fumbling with his smartphone to grab a snap before it was gone.
Yes, Steve, we cannot thank you enough!