Paul Street argues that it's wrong to call January 6th an "insurrection"; this wasn't a grassroots rank and file populist uprising by the people, it was instigated from the top down and part of a larger organized fascist effort.

Paul Jay

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Is Trumpism fascism? There's been quite a bit of debate about this over the last four years, coming to a head after the events of January 6th. Was the riot on Capitol Hill, the last act of an attempt by Trump's forces to organize a military coup? Watch and read my piece titled Trump's Treason and McConnells Mayhem, where I lay out the argument that there was such an attempted military coup as delusional and unsuccessful as it was, but are the forces behind this coup attempt and the Stop the Steal campaign fascist? Is that the right use of the word? What about the millions of people that continue to believe the elections were stolen? Franklin Roosevelt said that fascism is when one section of corporate capital seizes control of the state.

If so, is the cancerous growth of the power of finance over the economy and government – a process known as financialization – the systemic basis upon which there is a malignant tumor? Whose face for now is Trump's. Of course, both major parties are primarily the parties of finance, but does that make them more or less an equal threat to the people? There are some on the left who don't take the Trump malignancy as a serious threat. Some say that because the economic policies of the corporate Democrats helped till the soil for the rise of Trump and certainly they did, there's really no difference between the two, or some argue the Democrats' foreign policy is even more dangerous than Trump's, and those working within the Democratic Party are by definition selling out, or the Democrats are more deceptive and thus more dangerous.

They are all essentially saying it's wrong to use the word fascism when talking about Trumpism. My guest has been going through the various arguments and in several articles tried to provide some answers. Paul Street is an independent progressive policy researcher, an award-winning journalist, historian, author, and speaker based in Iowa City, Iowa, and Chicago. He's the author of nine books to date.

His most recent books are They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy and Hollow Resistance: Obama, Trump and the Politics of Appeasement. Paul writes regularly for Counterpunch. Thanks for joining me, Paul.

Paul Street

Thanks for having me on Paul.

Paul Jay

So let's start with January 6th and what happened. Some people are calling this an insurrection. Some people are using the word it should be described more as an attempted fascist coup. What's your thinking on?

Paul Street

Well insurrection I think is misleading. It implies a kind of grassroots rank and file populist uprising by the people, when in reality this was instigated from the top down. This is consistent with what even Trump insiders like Michael Cohen and others from within the administration and within the Trump circle have been warning us about for quite some time, which was that Trump would not leave peacefully. He would not accept a peaceful transition of power if he lost the election. He said it himself. He said it himself.

In fact Trump, even in 2016, wouldn't guarantee that he would honor the outcome of an election, that didn't go his way. He said the only way he can lose if it was rigged. Well, if it was rigged, that means it's illegitimate. If it was illegitimate,