'Full-flung fascism': Columnist raises alarm on Trump's change in rhetoric

Former President Donald Trump is seeking a dangerous agenda that could uproot American democracy, warned columnist Scot Lehigh in the Boston Globe on Tuesday.

This comes amid a broader uproar over Trump's reported plans for a second term, including purging the civil service and replacing it with loyalists — with the Heritage Foundation helping him to recruit his new footsoldiers and build a Christian nationalist blueprint for reshaping the government — and as he amps up dehumanizing rhetoric, describing left-wing opponents as "vermin" to be rooted out in a Veterans Day speech.

"Former president Donald Trump has crossed a red line into championing what we’d recognize as full-flung fascism if it came from the mouth of a foreign leader," wrote Lehigh. "It demonstrates just how inured we’ve become to Trump’s despicable despotic rhetoric that he’s not ostracized or treated like a renegade to the US Constitution and American democracy. Instead, he remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. In that role, he obviously feels comfortable espousing views that go well beyond anything he said in his 2016 or 2020 campaigns."

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Lehigh further quoted former White House Counsel John Dean, a key player in the Watergate scandal, who is warning Trump wants to "normalize" fascism in the country as part of his plan.

It's important for regular Americans to take a stand against Trump's plans, which also include efforts to abolish the 14th Amendment's right to citizenship and even the mass roundup of immigrants into camps — and make a plan to vote, according to Lehigh.

"Is there an epiphanic antidote to Trump’s poisoning of our political dialogue, some way to make a significant percentage of Trump followers realize what they’ve gotten swept up in? Probably not, sadly. Indeed, at least according to polls, much of MAGA would stay with him even if Trump were to be convicted of federal felonies," wrote Lehigh. "Yet there is a larger solution: the rest of us."