Madeline Albright: Trump Is 'The Least Democratic President of Modern History'

Madeline Albright: Trump Is 'The Least Democratic President of Modern History'
The modern world provides a "petri dish" for fascism, the former secretary of state argues.

Isabel Fattal 7:00 AM ET Politics


“I am an optimist who worries a lot,” Madeleine Albright said Monday night when asked about the future of democracy. It’s a quotable phrase, but the former secretary of state is serious—both about her belief in the power of democracy and the fact that today, there’s substantial reason to worry about it.

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But Albright seems most interested in what she thinks of as the preconditions of fascism. Asked about the state of democracy in the world today, she offered a metaphor: “I am worried about the fact that there are conditions out there that provide the petri dish for something terrible to happen, where some of the definitions I gave of fascism would take hold.”

Goldberg pointed out that Albright indirectly references President Trump several times in her book; she mentions, for example, that one of Benito Mussolini's mottos was “drain the swamp.”

Goldberg asked Albright directly: Is Donald Trump a fascist? “He is not a fascist,” she responded. “I do think he is the least democratic president of modern history.” Trump, it seems, contributes to the petri dish: “His instincts are not democratic,” Albright argued, pointing to his attacks on the press, “how he treats the judiciary,” and his tendency to create “us vs. them” divisions in his rhetoric. These are “tendencies that make me very nervous,” she said.

Albright’s cautious pessimism seems colored, at least in part, by a life spent engaging with foreign leaders, and watching other nations approach the point of no return. While she seems sure that America isn’t quite there, she seems equally sure that it could be.

The petri dish of fascism, Albright argued, requires several catalysts mixed together: It needs a leader with anti-democratic tendencies, as well as a populace that puts certain kinds of pressures on that leader. Albright calls the force of the populace a “pressure from below”; fascism, she argued, comes “bottom up” through people who feel they’ve been discriminated against or denied job opportunities. “And then,” Albright concluded, “there’s a leader from above who takes advantage of disquiet and makes it worse by exacerbating the divisions in society.” Asked if she sees in America today the same preconditions for fascism that she’s seen in the other countries she’s studied, Albright pointed to a few similarities: the sense of disenfranchisement among the American people, the anger over a lack of jobs and educational opportunity, and the instinct to blame foreigners for problems. “We’re operating on the fear factor,” she said.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/madeleine-albright-conversation-fascism/558254/