6. His calls for violence against protestors. Whether or not you believe Trump’s campaign fits the dictionary definition of fascism, there’s one way the word clearly fits: his habit of egging on his supporters to beat up protestors at his rallies. Calling for vigilante violence against the opposition is a classic fascist tactic and a sign of the dark undercurrents that motivate Trump and his supporters:
Demonstrators interrupted a Trump rally in St. Louis, Missouri, Friday. As they were being escorted out of the venue, the candidate bemoaned the fact that there were no longer “consequences” to protesting and insisted the “country has to toughen up.”
“You know, part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right?” he explained.
—All the times Trump has called for violence at his rallies, Mashable, 12 March 2016
5. His affection for and financial reliance on Vladimir Putin. Yes, this one is for real. There may be a more sinister reason why Trump refuses to release his tax returns: as his debt has ballooned, he’s become increasingly dependent on cash infusions from Russian investors with close ties to Putin’s inner circle. What’s more, some of his top campaign officials and advisors have direct personal connections to the Russian oligarchy.
Trump’s praise of Putin as a strong leader could just (just!) be one megalomaniac recognizing another, or it could be something much worse. Trump has declared that we might not honor our commitments to defend NATO member states on the Russian border; he’s also insisted on watering down language in the Republican platform about sending military aid to Ukraine, despite being almost completely uninterested in policy otherwise. It’s astonishing that, in 2016, it can’t be ruled out that a Russian dictator is pulling the strings of a U.S. major-party presidential campaign.
After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments… He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.
…Then there’s Paul Manafort, Trump’s nominal ‘campaign chair’ who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump’s campaign.
…Add to this that his most conspicuous foreign policy statements track not only with Putin’s positions but those in which Putin is most intensely interested. Aside from Ukraine, Trump’s suggestion that the US and thus NATO might not come to the defense of NATO member states in the Baltics in the case of a Russian invasion is a case in point.
—Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing, Talking Points Memo, 23 July 2016