Mehdi Hasan is a brilliant and talented journalist who has come to this country from the U.K. He has been an invaluable asset in the fight against… fascism. Hasan fearlessly brought on a lot of controversy in the summer of 2020 when he unapologetically called Trump a fascist while filling in for Chris Hayes. During the show, Hasan – likely by accident – dropped an f-bomb on live television, something we’ve been known to do on dead internet pages. We give him a pass.

Regardless, this last Sunday, he said he might have understated it and then set about to prove why. Hasan was ready and moved quickly through his very comprehensive and compelling list, all gathered in the time period after he made his case last summer.

“In the months since, we’ve seen Trump refuse to accept the results of a free and fair election and then cite a fascist mob to attack the Capitol.

“And now, the fascist revelations keep coming and coming…. According to a new book, Donald Trump called on his armed forces to crack skulls and beat the f out of racial justice protesters.

“Last summer, he reportedly said: Just shoot them…. And according to another new book, Trump, in the early days of the pandemic, wanted to send American citizens infected with COVID-19 to Guantanamo Bay to a literal prison camp.

“When I said Trump was guilty of fascism…. I was accused of overstatement. Nearly a year on, given what we’re now reading and seeing, maybe the f-word in relation to Trump was an understatement.”

If we heard about the same behavior from a dictator in Belarus, in  Burma, in Kuwait, in Sierra Leone, in Guatemala, or in Paraguay, the fascist nature would be a given. The United States State Department would be working within the international community to put together sanctions and pressure to remove the despot. But this happened in the United States of America, to cheers by 40% of the population.

The fact that it happened here doesn’t make it any less wrong or less fascist. In fact, it makes it more accurate.

My 60-second rant from last night's show on @MSNBC about why I was right all along about Trump and fascism.

It's basically a very-fast, minute-long 'I told you so' 😉pic.twitter.com/z80udXjneU

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) June 28, 2021

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