Donald Trump aspires to be a warlord. As he showed repeatedly during his presidency and afterward — and in his decades of public life before that — he idolizes violence and is willing to use it to achieve his goal of unlimited power. More broadly, the ideological root and driving force of fascism is the quest for unrestrained, corrupt power. Violence is a central and inseparable element of that political project.
Trump must also be understood as the leader of a personality cult. His followers are devoted to him not just because of his personality and undoubted charisma — although those are important — but because of what he represents and symbolizes. In this case, Trump has offered his followers license to hurt those people they resent, fear and view as "un-American" or as lesser human beings, and otherwise to indulge their worst impulses without consequences.
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