Pulpit Bullies

Madeleine Albright Talks Trump, Antifa and the Return of Global Fascism

- Nicole Goo

IN THE WAKE OF DONALD Trump’s election, a troubling word re-emerged in the American political lexicon: fascism. The left says the president mimics strongmen by attacking the media and targeting immigrants. The right claims liberals suppress dissenting views on everything from climate change to gender politics.

But is this really fascism? Few are in a better position to judge than former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Born in Czechoslovakia, she fled fascist regimes twice, first during the Nazi occupation of her home country in 1939 and then after a Communist coup a decade later. In her new book, Fascism: A Warning, Albright says she sees a revival of creeping nationalism and authoritarianism at home and abroad.

Albright does not consider Trump a fascist, but she says his behavior is paving the way for fascism around the globe. In her book, she studies the rise of past autocrats like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and finds similar patterns in modern leaders like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The result is an in-depth look at a changing world order and America’s diminishing role in that hierarchy.

I spoke with Albright, currently a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, about Trump, antifa and what she describes as an international fraternity of “bullies.”

In your book, you write that the term fascism has lost its meaning.