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[Frumple]

He has no particular power to enforce such an order, no. Trying might actually get him slapped down by congress, assuming panicking rich people can pull their GOP puppets out of his ass long enough to do so.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You're thinking of rich Democrats. Rich Republicans are apocalypse cultists who think Trump was anointed as the successor to Christ and that they can't get to Heaven until they use up all of their Earth.

[Kagus]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1164914959131848705

Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.

I don't think he can really do that...can he do that?

Ah, another fine official White House statement!

[smjjames]

He has no particular power to enforce such an order, no. Trying might actually get him slapped down by congress, assuming panicking rich people can pull their GOP puppets out of his ass long enough to do so.

Pure rhetoric is apparently not enough to get him slapped down by Congress since he's done similar rhetoric before but hasn't tried acting on it to my knowledge. As I said earlier, the only way I can think of where he can even close to directly do it is via massively sanctioning China and even those mostly have to get through Congress.

[wierd]

He can kinda-sorta do it the way they did with huawei:

"If you want to do business with the government, your product cannot contain materials from these vendors."

the government is a very big and important customer. They buy everything from paper products to tableware.


It would, of course, piss China off so much that relations in the future might be impossible.

[Reelya]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1164914959131848705

Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.

I don't think he can really do that...can he do that?

This is straight up literal fascist economic policy.

[wierd]

sorta... He doesn't OWN the american corporations, so it's not "Straight up", but it's as close as is currently feasible-- Yes.

[Reelya]

But that's the point. Hitler didn't own Mercedes Benz, but he "ordered" them to do things. The general rule in fascism is that the rich can stay rich as long as they defer to the dictator's whims, and serve nationalism.

What makes Trump an actual fascist in his thinking here is him not wanting to nationalize the companies, but still expecting that he can just decree "orders" for them to serve his goals.

EDIT: When they say "sanctions on dealing with China" those aren't actually sanctions on China because Trump has no direct influence on China. Those are laws targeting Americans, to stop them doing business as they see fit, so they are in fact direct sanctions on American businesses for not doing things the government wishes, thus they are a type of policy 1920s/30s fascist governments would enact. And if they were enacted by presidential decree and not by congress, they are in fact an example of Trump exerting rule by dictatorial decree. He's actually a classic fascist in his political and economic outlook.

[wierd]

Agreed; It's fundamentally "Government dictating to corporate leadership, out of nationalistic intent", which is straight up fascism.

However, there is no "synthesis", so not exactly the same thing.  Its just a nitpick.

[Reelya]

Maybe. If you're talking about the synthesis between grass-roots radicalism and nationalistic corporatism, it's arguable that Trump does embody that, too. Note Trumps frequent rallies, even when not campaigning, and how sort of circumvents Congress and the normal channels (such as the state department) rather than trying to work through them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/05/donald-trump-dictator-not-enough-laugh
Also, Trump is in fact a classic fascist dictator, it's just that the state apparatus doesn't quite go along with him on that. But, Hitler would still be Hitler even if the German state apparatus didn't quite go along with him on that. It wouldn't make him not-Hitler if there happened to be better checks and balances on his excesses. What really separates Trump and Hitler is not in fact themselves, is that Hitler had a freer reign on things than Trump does.

Also, we're only 2.5 years into Trumps first term right now, y'all got 5.5 more years of him doubling-down on what he's done already, assuming he wins the 2020 election.

[thompson]

I'd imagine Trump would go down the route of more tariffs rather than sanctions. "Command" was an interesting choice of word. He probably meant "advise", but being a narcissistic idiot with fascist leanings used "command" to sound more  authoritarian authoritative. Perhaps the stress of constantly being surrounded by people who think know he's an idiot is getting to him.

[smjjames]

IMO he was kind of missing a 'By my Royal Decree' in there.

He's still insisting that he has the absolute right to do so and a commentator pointed towards the economic emergencies act of 1977 (I think that's the same one he used to claim tariffs on cars or something or other was vital for national security). So, maybe he actually can? Not that he's actually tried to do it that way yet and it'd certainly get legal challenges.

The US is opening a consulate in Greenland, the first since 1953, though that was long before it's more recent increased autonomy. I wonder if Danish PM Mette Frederiksen put the idea to him.

[Teneb]

I mean, I guess he could nationalize those corporations if he really wanted to. Of course, that would be the one thing that would get him ousted with 100% certainty.

[Kagus]

For a while I thought he'd maybe gotten confused by the grocery store chain, but turns out that's called Iceland. My mistake.

...I am intrigued by the fact that autocorrect suggested both "wife" and "kids" instead of "mistake".

[PTTG??]

I mean, I guess he could nationalize those corporations if he really wanted to. Of course, that would be the one thing that would get him ousted with 100% certainty.

I don't really think so. I think that Trump supporters would insist that Trump knows best.

There's nothing Trump could do that is simultaneously believable enough for Trump supporters to not insist is "Fake News," while also being unacceptable enough for Trump's supporters to reject him. Like, raising taxes? Trump already did that with his praised tariffs. Gun restrictions? Trump already banned bump stocks, and nobody abandoned him. Work with hostile foreign governments to be elected? They insist it's fake news. Pal around with pedophiles? Well this one is fun because we get the relatively rarely excuse of "Clinton did it, so it's OK."