Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.

Most political coverage of the presidential election has treated the contest as a horse race between two conventional candidates. I would suggest that framing doesn’t do justice to the Harris-Trump match-up. We are not talking about two candidates who support democracy.

Donald Trump has shown himself to be a dire threat to democracy. He showed that again in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris when he once again denied that he lost the 2020 election. Election denialism in the form of the Big Lie is incompatible with democracy. Democracy requires that losers accept results of the popular will which Trump has not done. Any election he loses is falsely and automatically attacked as “rigged.”

Election denialism is hardly the only oddity of the Trump candidacy. Observers have been trying to define how Trump’s candidacy is different from Republicans of the past. The best analysis I have seen comes from Federico Finchelstein in his book “The Wannabe Fascists.” Finchelstein says Trump represents a new breed of politician who aspires to destroy democratic institutions for short-term personal gain.

He calls such politicians “wannabe fascists.” He says they lack the ideological fervor and extremism of a Hitler or Mussolini. They are weaker and more incompetent than the classical fascists although Finchelstein sees them as potentially highly dangerous since they are angling to be dictators.

Along with Trump in this category, he places such other leaders as Jair Bolsanaro of Brazil, Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Narendra Modi of India, and Viktor Orban of Hungary. Finchelstein says these leaders, when in power, have not entirely destroyed the legal system in their countries nor have they unleashed violence at the level of classical German or Italian fascism but they welcome violence. Think of Trump at the Capitol on January 6 saying “we fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”

In making his case, Finchelstein offers some important distinctions about the fascist project. He writes:

“The primary aim of fascism was to destroy democracy from within in order to create a modern dictatorship from above. Fascists proposed a totalitarian state in which plurality and civil society would be silenced and there would be few distinctions between the public and the private, or between the state and its citizens. Fascist regimes shut down the independent press and destroyed the rule of law.”

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Trump talks up violence and revenge against his opponents. He has promised to use military tribunals against President Obama and House committee members who investigated January 6. He has suggested General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserves execution for alleged treason. Trump has repeatedly tweeted about locking up President Biden and Hillary Clinton, among others. He says if he wins the election, his planned mass deportations will be “bloody.”

Violence and the embrace of violence are central to the fascist project. Being out of power, Trump currently lacks the resources to inflict mass violence but his attitude towards those convicted of January 6-related crimes is illuminating. He cozies up to Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others who might be his future storm troopers. He explicitly talks about pardoning the convicted January 6 defendants.

If he regains state power, he has been open about using the Insurrection Act against protesters and those opposing him. Whether he would resort to concentration camps and to the mass killing stage of fascism is an open question. There is a historical pattern where the early acts of fascists are jailing and killing those perceived to be their enemy, including leftists, social democrats and Jews. Trump talks about Marxists as “vermin.”

This talk is a first step in the dehumanization process to justify repression. If you see your opponents as sub-human monsters, you grease the path to concentration camps and executions.

Classical fascism has thrived on relentless propaganda and lies. Trump’s cult of personality follows that tradition. In his first term, the Washington Post fact checker team catalogued over 30,000 false or misleading statements Trump made. And that pattern has continued. I think Trump spreading outrageous racist lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets represents a new low.

Trump self-describes as a person of “extraordinary genius” although it is doubtful he has ever read a book. The writer Michael Wolff says he doesn’t even skim. His past aides have said he barely reads bullet points. Wolff quotes economic advisor Gary Cohn who says “It’s worse than you can imagine…Trump won’t read anything - not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing.”

Finchelstein writes, “To defend democracy, it is necessary to put a stop to the attacks on history that attempt to redefine our present with fantasies about the past. Many actors on the extreme right want to turn history into a myth and then use it as a model to distort the present.”

Trump’s motto of Make America Great Again is about myth creation. When was this golden age Trump is harkening back to? He is talking about a time that never existed. How does Trump square Make America Great Again with the American history of genocide against Native Americans and slavery against African Americans? He doesn’t.

Fascism defines itself against enemies. Instead of accepting differences of opinion, Trumpism aligns against immigrants, LGBTQ people and leftists. Fascists also have a problem with women who refuse to subordinate. They see the role of women as passive wife and mother, limited to the private sphere. Trump’s anti-abortion views remove agency from women. As an adjudicated sexual abuser and as an individual accused of sexual impropriety by over 20 women, his actions have reflected fascism’s misogyny.

Classical fascism used democracy to gain power. After they gained power, they ruthlessly repressed all opposition. They used the mechanisms of democracy to strangle it. They had no use for any democratic institutions after they seized power. Trump says he plans to be a dictator on “day one.” What dictator has ever relinquished power on day two or after? It doesn’t happen. He appeals to authoritarianism by saying only a strongman like himself can end chaos.

The mainstream media has performed a profound disservice in its efforts to normalize this race. Seeing the fascism performs the useful service of raising the stakes. Nothing about this election is normal.