Historians are usually quite good at pointing out precedents for what is happening in their own times. But I’m afraid I can’t think of any close precedents for what is going on today. For the clear ‘Fascist’ tendencies in modern politics, yes, certainly: 1930s Germany, for a start. For tariff wars: OK, there were several of them in the past. But for a tariff war on this global scale, accompanied by other fascistic measures, perpetrated by a leader who seems to have accrued absolute power, and in America, supposedly a bastion of modern democracy: no, I believe there’s nothing in the past to compare with this. We’ve suddenly been plunged into a new and alarming age.

For historians (like me) of a moderately Marxist bent, it does make a sort of sense. Donald Trump is a real estate developer – a very modern kind of capitalist – above everything, now appearing on the political scene at what Marxists would recognise as a ‘late stage’ in the natural evolution of the capitalist system. As it evolves, capitalism becomes more ultra-competitive, more monopolistic, more amoral, and – as a consequence – less democratic. In the USA this tendency has resulted in some of the most prominent capitalists of the day, mostly fabulously rich technocrats, exerting more and more influence on government, and by this means shaping national policy to satisfy their commercial needs; and – more importantly – to adopt their business philosophy and methods. These methods are profoundly undemocratic, quite understandably: no CEO of a business is going to want to be told what to do by the people. And so a ‘democracy’ like America’s becomes in effect an oligarchy, if not a dictatorship. The rest all follows: universities defunded and controlled; ‘improper ideologies’ (the ‘woke virus’) banned; dissent crushed; barriers erected; immigrants summarily expelled; blame for domestic failures placed on foreigners – ‘looting, pillaging, raping, and plundering our nation’, as Trump put it last week: all of them attitudes and measures that in any other context – for example in 1930s Germany – would be openly called ‘Fascist’; suddenly foisted on a country that had used to be known for (among other less admirable traits) its liberalism and toleration.

Fascism wears different clothes in different situations. So we shouldn’t look for too close parallels with pre-War Germany or Italy. (The Jews can relax – for the time being. Unless they want to join in. If Netanyahu hasn’t already.) This is a very American version of Fascism; which is also influenced by other traits in the US’s historical culture, but is au fonde the end-product of her ultra-capitalist evolution. As Marx might have concluded if he had been alive today.

He would have also viewed it as inevitable (‘historical determinism’). That’s where I would part company with him, albeit more in hope than out of conviction. Apparently – although it’s difficult to see it from this side of the pond – there is resistance to Trump and Trumpism in America; which nation of course embraces other cultural traditions besides the proto-fascist ones (see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz79ewg193ro). Or a stock market crash might bring the whole building down. So in the end it could turn out alright for us wokerati. Let’s just trust that if this happens, it’s without the ‘new American civil war’ that some are already predicting.

Anyway, that’s my sub-Marxist theory. It may be a simplistic one, and I can’t prove it. But it fits.