Why Biden was right to link MAGA, the Confederacy & the Axis in his SOTU address

I was so glad to see President Biden speak clearly and forcefully last night about the true scale of the threat facing our democracy. The history is clear: Biden was right to link Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin with both the Confederacy and the Axis powers of World War 2, and he was right to stand squarely with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Just after the State of the Union address, I spoke about it with Ian Paley of LBC (Leading Britains’ Conversation) Radio for his morning news show in the UK. You can listen here, and a transcript is below.

Ian Paley:
So President Biden used his State of the Union address overnight to set out a series of key election issues and criticized Donald Trump’s language on Russia and NATO. He’s warned that the US faces a greater threat to its freedom than at any time since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

Joe Biden:
History is watching. [If] the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to do what they wish, to do us harm. My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk away.

Ian Paley:
Well, he was in a really feisty mood. Let’s get some reaction from Spencer Critchley, who’s a Democratic strategist, former adviser to Barack Obama and the author of Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump was Inevitable and What Happens Next. So what happens next, Spencer? Good morning.

Spencer Critchley:
Well, I think that hopefully this will be the beginning of a campaign that helps us protect our democracy from, I agree, the most serious threat that it has faced since World War 2, I would say, and then before that, the Civil War, as President Biden pointed out during his State of the Union speech. By the way, I want to note I was an adviser to the Obama campaign, not to President Obama.

Ian Paley:
So why is United States facing such a threat to its freedom? What do you mean by that? What does he mean by that even?

Spencer Critchley:
I was very glad — and I say this as somebody who believe in democracy with a small “d,” not as a Democrat, with a big “D” — and I’m joined in this by a great many Republicans, including members of former President Trump’s cabinet and many senior members of his administration: The story of our time right now is that we are facing a threat to democracy that is way beyond the traditional partisanship of Republicans versus Democrats.

And what we are seeing in historical terms is a return of ethnic nationalism, as opposed to the liberalism by which the Western world has been functioning since World War Two. And ethnic nationalism, as it becomes more extreme, turns into fascism. And that’s what we’re seeing as well. I don’t think any of us expected to see this in our lifetimes.

I think we somewhat naively thought fascism have been defeated.

Ian Paley:
You’re accusing Mr. Trump of being a racist, are you?

Spencer Critchley:
Oh, he’s a fascist. And I think that I’m joined in that opinion by a great many historians. Ruth Ben-Ghiat at New York University, where I think she teaches , is one of the leaders on this. She has a book about authoritarian strongmen, but there are many others. Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale, sees this from the point of view of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe and Russia, as well as under the fascists in Nazi Germany and Italy and elsewhere during World War 2.

I’ve always been cautious about using the word “fascist,” and I think, frankly, people on the left have greatly overused it in the past, just to describe conservatives they disagree with. And unfortunately, that has taken some of the power out of the word. But we have to reclaim it, because former President Trump — hopefully never again President Trump — fits the description.

He is not just an authoritarian, he’s a fascist authoritarian.

Ian Paley:
Okay, well, I have to say that he’s not here to defend himself against the accusation, but just define, what do you fear will happen if Donald Trump wins the presidency? What will happen on foreign policy? What will happen with Russia, Ukraine and NATO?

Spencer Critchley:
Oh, he’s advertised what he will do. He greatly admires Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin, again, not to you know, I know it might sound like I’m just throwing this word around as an insult, as people do, but Vladimir Putin is an open admirer of the Russian fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyin. He frequently quotes him, including in his famous 5,000-word essay a few years ago, inventing an alternate history of Russia and Ukraine.

Trump openly admires Putin. He has openly advertised that he will end the war in Ukraine, he says, in 24 hours. The only way to do that is to surrender to Russia, which he shows every bit of eagerness to do. I think it will frankly be disastrous to the United States. He’s also announced he wants to be a dictator on Day One.

And then he walked that back a little later to say “only on Day One.” He just wants to be a dictator for 24 hours, presumably, as if he could trust him on that. He openly advertises that he wants to put, essentially, lackeys running the Department of Justice, running the Department of Defense, running every department. He wants to have a loyalty test for government bureaucrats.

And, you know, as anybody, any citizen of a Western nation knows, bureaucracies can be frustrating, but the point of a civil service that’s separated from the political branches of government is absolutely critical. It’s a critical point in a democracy to have that separation. He wants to eliminate it and wants loyalty tests for bureaucrats. All of these, combined with his open appeals to ethnic nationalism, as in so-called “Real Americans,” which has all those echoes of, you know, purely bred Germans and the redeemed Italians, etc.: it’s fascism.