Does Trump Care What You Want? No. Does that Make Him a Fascist? Yes.

Trump doesn’t want you to remember what he’s done or know what he’ll do. Flickr

Let’s boil this presidential election to down its basics with this simple question:

Should American presidents care about what the people want and work to realize their will?

The answer to this question is as simple as the question itself.

Of course, American presidents need to care about what the people want and listen to them.  This expectation is a condition our representative democracy itself. The president is supposed to represent the people and exercise authority to realize the will of people.

That’s the theory behind representative democracy. The people elect presidents, congressman, and other government officials to represent them because the candidates have proposed platforms responsive to their perspectives and wishes.

Now, fascist leaders, by contrast, are notoriously strong men who defy the will of the people and instead bend the people to their will.  If one is realizing the will of the people and has their support, then, think about it, they really don’t need to resort to authoritarian strength, which is typically of a military or police variety.

So, where does Trump fit in here? Does he care what you want?

To answer this question, let’s look back at a moment in the first and only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Speaking with regard to his successful campaign have Roe v. Wade overturned, taking away women’s reproductive rights, Trump insisted, “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.”

Trump’s statement is, of course, robustly false. Most people, and certainly the lion’s share of Democrats and liberals, surely did not want the federal law of the land regarding a woman’s right to choose revoked so states can decide.  According to a Pew Poll in May 2024, 63% of Americans believe abortion should be legal “in all or most cases.”  One would be hard-pressed to find in these 63% of Americans folks who want the government making healthcare decisions for them.

Harris’s response brought the matter—and Trump’s egregiously whopping lie—even more squarely in focus in sensibly human terms, revealing the serious stakes of Trump’s leadership and dishonesty, saying,

I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that.

And we need to look at this debate moment for its significance beyond even the paramount issue of women’s human and reproductive rights.

We need to look at it for what it says about Trump’s complete lack of concern for what Americans want.

He doesn’t know what Americans want. And it’s not that hard to find out if he wanted to, so clearly he doesn’t care.

Perhaps even more serious, he’s absolutely willing to lie about what Americans want.

He doesn’t know what you want, doesn’t care what you want, and will make up lies about what you want as cover for doing what he wants.

I write this asking for you to think in the most basic way about what you want in a president.

When a leader is not beholden to the law or to the will of the people, that is called fascism.

But putting aside political terminology, just ask yourself if you want a president who doesn’t care what you want or need and will do what serves him, not the good of the people.

Trump’s and Vance’s repeated lying should concern you for the same reason.

It should worry you they don’t want to tell you honestly what they have done and will do and would prefer to keep you in the dark and, worse, deceived.

For example, both Trump and Vance lie repeatedly that Trump salvaged the Affordable Care Act for Americans, when in fact Trump and Republicans attempted to destroy it during his presidency; and they would have if not for John McCain’s famous thumbs down vote.

Every now and then during his presidency, as a matter of ritual, Trump would promise he would be unveiling a new and wonderful healthcare plan in the next couple of weeks. It never happened.

It would serve Americans to reflect on the fact that Trump and Vance don’t want you remember what Trump has really done and don’t want to tell you what they have in store.

And think about whether you really want a president who doesn’t know what you want or care.