“American Fascism”: Historian Rick Perlstein on Trump’s Grip on the GOP & Chances of a Second Jan. 6

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at the state of the Republican Party as Tuesday’s presidential primary in New Hampshire narrows down to a two-person race after Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he’s dropping out, in a video posted Sunday on social media.

GOV. RON DESANTIS: I am today suspending my campaign. I’m proud to have delivered on 100% of my promises, and I will not stop now. It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.

AMY GOODMAN: As DeSantis drops out of the race and endorses Trump, more questions are being raised about Trump’s mental capacity. At a campaign event Friday in New Hampshire, Trump confused his Republican rival Nikki Haley repeatedly with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

DONALD TRUMP: By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley — Nikki Haley — Nikki Haley — you know they — did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it, all of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security? We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s lapse prompted his Republican presidential opponent Nikki Haley to question his mental fitness in an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

NIKKI HALEY: I mean, he claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II. I’m assuming he meant World War III. He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama. He says that I’m the one that kept security from the Capitol on January 6th. I was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th. But, Margaret, don’t be surprised: If you have someone that’s 80 in office, their mental stability is going to continue to decline. That’s just human nature. We know that.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by historian Rick Perlstein, author of a four-volume series on the rise of the modern conservative movement. His column for The American Prospect is “The Infernal Triangle.”

Rick, welcome back to Democracy Now! We don’t have much time, but a lot to cover. Talk about the significance of DeSantis pulling out, endorsing Trump, what this all means now, the two-person race, though he is winning in polls by a level — I mean, in Iowa — we haven’t seen before, trounced DeSantis by 30%. And one after another Republicans are endorsing him.

RICK PERLSTEIN: Yes. He is definitely going to be the nominee, presuming his continued ability to function as a human being, which is, you know, negligible. The important thing to understand is that, you know, the horse race stuff is fine, but the horse race doesn’t matter if the guys in the MAGA hats blow up the track. The important thing is not how many votes Donald Trump is able to get. He’s going to win the nomination. The important thing is not how many votes he gets in November, because he’s going to claim he won no matter what. The important people is — the important question is: How many people are going to be willing to take arms up for Donald Trump, you know, on the next January 6th, you know, in 2025? I don’t want to be melodramatic about it, but, you know, reality itself now seems to — for millions of Americans, a considerable part of the Republican Party, flows from the person of Donald Trump. And the word we have to begin using for this situation, as melodramatic as it seems, is “American fascism.”

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about people like New Hampshire Governor Sununu, who did endorse Nikki Haley, now saying if it’s Trump, he’s going to ultimately support him, to the questioning of Kristen Welker on Meet the Press? “You’re saying you would support him despite January 6, despite what you said about insurrection?” All of these Republican leaders who have questioned Trump falling into line in the end, as Trump now, today — 

RICK PERLSTEIN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — once again, is dealing with the rape of E. Jean Carroll, the judge called it, essentially, in common parlance, “rape.”

RICK PERLSTEIN: Right. There’s nothing new about that — right? — if we look at what people like Lindsey Graham said in 2015 and 2016 about Donald Trump, and then what they said when they saw him as a vector to keep their own power. Again, it’s really unfortunate and kind of creepy that the only sort of words that we have within the context of political philosophy that describe what’s happening come from the German language. This is Führerprinzip. You know, the truth comes from the leader.

And when they need to kind of get behind a criminal in order to be, you know, kind of a legitimate figure within a political party, that political party is — you know, you’ve got to wonder what these guys are going to look like 50 years from now in the eyes of history, right? They’ll look like, you know, the guys like Fritz von Papen, who said, “We have Hitler backed into a corner so far that he’s going to squeal.” Right? Fritz von Papen was the vice chancellor of Germany, the guy who made a coalition with Hitler that made him chancellor of Germany, right? These things are processes, you know? And we’re very far along a process, one for which the questions that are asked by conventional political journalism no longer signify anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to continue this discussion and post Part 2 online at democracynow.org, also talk about what Ron DeSantis represented, as he goes back to Florida as governor. Rick Perlstein writes The American Prospect column in “The Infernal Triangle.” He wrote Nixonland. He wrote Reaganland. More later.