Our Fascist President: Evidence Continues To Mount That Donald Trump Is A Violent Authoritarian

Let’s be clear. John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened is an embarrassment.

Knowing what he knew, presidential advisor Bolton had a responsibility to sound the alarm while he worked at the White House and certainly during the impeachment of Donald Trump. His insider information - that Trump violated the Constitution, committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and generally besmirched the office of the Presidency of the United States - should have been divulged before making way for a dishy, profitable tell-all that is sure to net Bolton a personal fortune.

That he did not speak when he needed to speak, that he leveraged a national crisis for his own financial benefit, that he stood by, day in and day out, as Trump committed these crimes, is an indictment of Bolton’s character, and, following his own fascistic career as a professional luster for war and human destruction, the indictments at this point are overwhelming.

But I will say, Bolton’s account is integral to our understanding of who Trump and just what he is capable of.

Donald Trump is a dangerous authoritarian only interested in the illusion of government and is capable of widespread political and murderous violence on a genocidal scale.

The Trump we see in Bolton’s book is a president with no loyalty to his country and no intention of helping his people, a narcissistic authoritarian hell-bent on maintaining power at any and all costs. With rogue states like Turkey, Trump is more than happy to lend a helping hand. In conversations with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Trump begged the leader to help him re-election, yet another instance of Trump breaking our laws and seeking international help in his own political pursuits.

The conversation with Xi didn’t just hinge on political cooperation though as Trump went so far as to approve the building of concentration camps in China for Muslims. That approval is bewildering at first glance, and monstrous upon further examination. Here we have the President of the United States of America, supposedly the world’s protector of freedom, liberty, and human dignity, signing off on camps that violate human rights and could potentially kill scores of innocent people, all of it because of their religion and Trump’s obsession with personal power.

It is not hard to see to the dark, rotten core of Trump. For political purposes he has covered up the slaughter and dismemberment of an American journalist by fascists in Saudi Arabia. He has stood shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with the world’s foremost despots in solidarity. He gifted legitimacy to murderous dictator Kim Jong Un, continually prostrated himself before tyrant Vladimir Putin, and has shifted America definitively in the direction of criminality, corruption, and brutality.

Of course Trump would approve of concentration camps. In another instance, Bolton recalls Trump saying journalists in the United States should be jailed and executed. This is his operating mindset and worldview. That he has more or less said as much in public, outside of Bolton’s damned room, is more than enough proof. What we have here is a dangerous, dangerous man, an authoritarian with dictatorial designs and genocidal leanings.

This isn’t hyperbole, it’s a sad and troubling reality journalists, pundits, and politicians have fought in vain to deny this entire time. This is who Donald Trump is. Who he has always been. The fault has been ours for denying it and gifting him cover to operate and consolidate power.

Though Bolton’s cash-in is regrettable and nauseating, it does not change the fact that what he reports should be heard. We must recognize the truth of the matter. We must see the fascist authoritarian for who he is.

Jared Yates Sexton is the author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed its People, available for pre-order from Dutton/Penguin-Random House. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Politico, and elsewhere. He currently serves as an associate professor of writing at Georgia Southern University and is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast.