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About a month ago, in the wake of an apparent assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump, his running mate was among the many Republicans calling on Democrats to curtail their criticisms of the former president. “We cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist,” Sen. JD Vance of Ohio declared.
It was a curious public appeal for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Trump had already spent the preceding months routinely accusing his political opponents, including Kamala Harris, of being “fascists” for no particular reason. For another, despite Vance’s complaints, Democrats had not responded in kind.
At least, that is, at the time. A month later, the public conversation has changed. The New York Times reported:
The word ‘fascist’ has hovered around former President Donald J. Trump from the moment he rode down his golden escalator in 2015 to warn of Mexican rapists and drug dealers in the memorable opening of his bid for president. But for most top Democrats, it was a provocative term loaded with dread, historical import and potential incitement — best left unsaid. Until Vice President Kamala Harris this week made clear — again and again — that it would be just fine with her to use the word.
The shift began in earnest this past weekend, when the public learned that retired Gen. Mark Milley, who served as Trump’s handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward that he believes the former president is “a total fascist” and a “fascist to the core.”
It was against this backdrop that Harris appeared on Charlamagne Tha God’s program, and the host said the Republican’s vision “is about fascism. Why can’t we just say it?” The Democratic nominee responded, “Yes, we can say that.”
A day later, Harris spoke in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, quoted Milley and urged Americans to “heed this warning.”
The day after that, the vice president again referenced the retired general’s “fascist to the core” assessment at a campaign event in Wisconsin.
Harris hasn’t come right out and said, “Trump is a fascist,” though she’s been awfully eager to point to the former chairman of the joint chiefs — who worked alongside Trump — and to remind voters of Milley’s conclusion.
The Democratic candidate, in other words, doesn’t have to make the accusation directly, she can simply use the retired general as a proxy.
What’s more, it’s not just Harris. After Milley’s comments reached the public, former House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and said, “I see no reason to disagree with that assessment.” A day later, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, highlighting her former GOP rival’s increasingly racist and nativist anti-immigrant rhetoric, wrote online, “Let’s be absolutely clear so that no one is confused. Trump’s rhetoric has become blatantly fascist.”
Around the same time, retired U.S. National Guard Major Gen. Randy Manner appeared on MSNBC and said plainly that Trump voters “are absolutely supporting fascism.” Hours later, the retired two-star general appeared on CNN and made similar comments: “[H]ere’s the sad part: The people who vote for Trump, they don’t realize that they are also supporting a fascist.”
In other words, the conversation changed quickly, and Milley made it happen.
As for the significance of the retired general’s condemnation, The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie did a great job summarizing the context.
“It is simply extraordinary that the nation’s top general would tell anyone, much less one of the most famous reporters in the world, that the former president of the United States was a ‘fascist’ — a ‘fascist to the core,’ even — and a threat to the constitutional order,” Bouie wrote. “There is no precedent for such a thing in American history — no example of another time when a high-ranking leader of the nation’s armed forces felt compelled to warn the public of the danger posed by its once and perhaps future chief executive.”
No wonder it delivered such a jolt.