"Trump Sounds Like a FASCIST!" Piers Morgan vs Slavoj Zizek On Fascism

0:00Piers Morgan:Once you start having all sorts of different versions of fascism, it's very easy to then call pretty much everyone a fascist that you don't like. Trump likes to attack the left as multiculturalist, confused, historicist, self-contradictory. Sorry, but if there ever was a historicist relativist, it's Trump. I have the opportunity to speak to what people consider to be the most dangerous philosopher in the West or to the West. And I believe they call you that because you identify as a communist. I am saying that Stalinism in all its horror is still part of the European Enlightenment. It's impossible to avoid the subject of fascism in the age of Donald Trump.

0:45Piers Morgan:Some people wield it simply as an insult to the American president. and others invest a lot of time and energy in explaining how it's a fair and legitimate label. Many of his supporters use it as an example of incendiary rhetoric gone too far, all of which begs the question, is Donald Trump a fascist? Well, revered philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek, author of the new book Liberal Fascisms, has some thoughts. And a bit later in the show, we'll both be joined by Warren Smith, the internet's premier critical thinker, who has some different thoughts. We're joining us right away. It's Savoy.

1:19Piers Morgan:Welcome back to Uncertain. Great to see you here in the studio. Great to see you. The first time. Yeah. Face to face. I want to start, Savoy, with a quote from your new book. Yeah. Perhaps the best characterization of Trump is that he's liberal, namely a fascist liberal. He's the ultimate proof that liberalism and fascism work together, that they are the two sides of the same coin. Now, I have always resisted the charges that he's a fascist or a Nazi or any of these labels, because I think it's quite dangerous to position people like that, unless there's clear, coherent evidence and argument to the contrary.

1:57Piers Morgan:What makes you so convinced that he is a fascist? First, I don't think he is the one fascist. We should never forget, I repeat this as a maniac all the time, that Trump is for me the reaction of the decay of the weakness of this American relative liberal democratic welfare state. So for me, you don't begin by focusing on Trump. You should begin by self-critique of the liberal establishment. Second thing, fascists, now I will say something shocking. I must apologize in advance. I think the world is moving. That's why in the title of my book, it's plural. Yes. The world is moving towards different fascisms.

2:57And I even talk about soft fascism. My thesis is that, for example, China is now a soft fascist country. So what is fascism to you? Ah, I will tell you exactly, in a very simplified way. Fascism is, for me, it's an old Marxist definition here, I agree with it. Fascism is, for me, a conservative modernisation. You want to reap all the benefits of fast industrialization and so on, but you are aware that if you leave this process without any state control, you end up in decay, too much individualism and so on. So the idea is, yes, liberal capitalism, but with a strong not only state control, but also ideological control, usually grounded in some nationalist, ethnic, more even than religious, conservative, traditional ideology.

4:09My example, and I respect them, China. China, they don't even talk about freedom. Their idea is we bring happiness, satisfactory life to people, and return to Confucianism. In some sense, isn't Putin doing the same? Isn't Erdogan doing the same? Isn't Modi in India doing the same? And so, again, fascism is not, for me, these Nazis shouting and so on.

4:45Piers Morgan:Does it automatically then need to be right-wing? Or is your argument that it can be left-wing, right-wing? Really, it's about state control. Is that what you're... Not so much state control as state control based on a strong nationalist ideology. But can that be to the left and the right? I think not, but for a very precise reason, not because the right is automatically evil. Because the good thing about left, which I disagree with many things that happened to the left, but it's what's happening today, is that the left is always aware that when somebody focuses on an external enemy, immigrants, other races, trans people, and so on, the leftist automatically asks the question, which antagonism, which tension, imminent to our society, do they try to cover up in this way.

5:47Like, for me, the big question about Nazism, anti-Semitic Nazism, is not, is it true what they say about Jews? Of course, mostly it's not. But my problem is, why did the Nazis need a figure like the Jew to sustain their identity? You know, this projection onto an external enemy, yes, communism can come close to it. For example, the Stalinist obsession with foreign agents and so on and so on. But nonetheless, I think that this denial that our society in itself can be split. And here, to return to Trump nonetheless, here Trump goes pretty far.

6:34Piers Morgan:But if you think about a fascist of the classic kind, like Mussolini. He would be the embodiment to most people of what a fascist is. And I look at him and look at Trump, and all right, you might argue that rhetorically Trump can sound like a fascist from time to time. But in terms of his actions, which is how I always prefer to judge Trump, he hasn't behaved like Mussolini, has he? No, absolutely not. But you know what they, I absolutely agree here. That's why I emphasised that it's just one of the versions. You know where I see... But do we get into a slippery slope here, Slavoj? And I say this with great respect.

7:15Piers Morgan:But once you start sort of having all sorts of different versions of fascism, it's very easy to then call pretty much everyone a fascist that you don't like. And part of my argument about modern discourse, and in particular about Trump actually, is that people say, oh, he's a fascist, he's a Nazi. And I'm like, a Nazi? Really? You know, you're comparing him to Adolf Hitler who murdered 12 million people? There is no comparison to me. And what it does is it over-demonises Trump in a way that probably helps him, actually. But it also dilutes the impact of real Nazis and, to me, real fascists like Mussolini and stuff in history.

7:54Piers Morgan:If you start parking people like Trump into the mix because you've extended the range of fascists to all sorts of different categories. You can hook everybody in and then it's kind of meaningless. We agree more than it may appear here because, you know, what I'm trying to do, and this many people will like, is not to demonise people like us fascists, but to water down and extend the notion of fascism. I think the true tragedy, again, is the weariness, inability of Western liberal democracies to effectively act and solve problems. If you want an example, I think we should talk about this one. You know Salvador Bukele?

8:48Piers Morgan:Yes. In a very brutal way, he arrested tens of thousands and so on. We know what he did. But the effects were felt in two years. And now, in the last three elections, he won almost with communist numbers, you know, 80 % and so on. That's, for me, the problem, that liberal democracy is losing its ability to act. It's clear even now, in the United States, Democrats are still in confusion. You have democratic socialists, which I think are really old-fashioned social democrats, still much less radical than, let's say, Swedish social democrats. Would you categorise Mamdani as one of those, the new mayor of New York?

9:41I think that, first, I'm here absolutely pragmatic. I don't like these choices. Should we mobilize locally people in small cities? Should we wait for a big revolution or whatever? Let's do whatever is possible. But the reason I am tempted to call Trump a very specific kind of fascist, and I will immediately go into it in what specific sense. Namely, all the fascist leaders that you mentioned and others, they, of course, functioned in a different way. They were with this false dignity, untouchable, no criticism, and so on. Well, the way Trump acts, I like to characterize him in another way. You know, Trump likes to attack the left as multiculturalist, confused, historicist, self-contradictory.

10:44Sorry, but if there ever was a historicist relativist, it's Trump. And what I, although I don't fully follow him, what I like about somebody like Bernie Sanders, with all my critique of him, is that Bernie nonetheless, as a person, not private, but how he acts, isn't he a model of common, ordinary, decent guy, he speaks calmly, and so on, and so on. That's what we need. I think that I'll...

11:20Piers Morgan:But you said, so in 2016, you said that a Trump victory might be for the best in America. Yeah. Because it would disrupt the liberal centre and force a radical reorganisation of the left. I mean, I would argue that what it did was provoke this kind of crazy, new, far-left, woke kind of left, which I've argued repeatedly actually became, in the way that they behaved and spoke, very like the fascists that they professed to hate most. In other words, they wanted to censor free speech, cancel and destroy people and imprison people that they didn't agree with. They would support ridiculous non-scientific things like transgender athletes in women's sport and so on.

12:05Piers Morgan:And in other words, once you start denying science and biology and censoring free speech and so on, actually, this is all very fascist. If you start wanting a state to enforce all this, right? I tend again to agree with you. I criticized from the very beginning wokeism, political correctness, whatever you call them, not because they are too radical, but I think this is a typical, for me, wokeism is one of the ways of how to talk a lot and pretending to change things without really changing society. What did this politically correct feminism effectively do to make women's lives better? Concrete problems, abortion rights, health care, and so on.

13:00So here we totally agree. But what I find, again, specific about Trump, and that's what worries me, is the, I cannot but call it self-consciously clownish character of his rules. Are we aware of the vulgarity of his speech? And that's not ordinary fascism. No. Fascist leaders would never speak like that. What I'm only saying, you know where I see fascism? I remember when Trump set National Guard to California. And he was asked, but aren't you violating the law? You are only allowed to use the army against foreign enemies. And his answer was close to fascism. His answer was, but those who are fighting there, immigrants, big corporations which use immigrants, this is a foreign invasion.

14:00Piers Morgan:So Trump's argument, because I've heard him use this when he extrapolates it, is that he will push the existing law as far as he can to suit his purposes, as I think most presidents have done. He does it in a more open, rhetorically inflammatory manner. But if you actually study what he does, often he gets kicked back by the courts. And he doesn't then try and usurp, from what I've seen, the court authority and just bypass it. Now, that would be fascism. And similarly, when he lost power in 2020, although we had the appalling scenes on January the 6th, ultimately Trump did leave the White House.

14:41Piers Morgan:I mean, he didn't try and just stay in the White House or stay in power. So yes, it was appalling and reprehensible what happened that day. But a real fascist wouldn't have left, right? They wouldn't have accepted the result of an election at all, wouldn't have left the White House, would have carried on just running the country. So again, I'm just saying that Trump can often sound like he's a fascist. And I understand why people then assume that that's what he is. But in terms of his actual actions, until I see him literally usurping American law and just ignoring it and doing whatever he wants, I don't think he does that.

15:18Piers Morgan:I think he pushes the door as hard as he possibly can. But the judges and the courts, it's up to them. And if they then, or the Supreme Court says you can't do something, I've not seen evidence he then just does it anyway, which is what a fascist would do. Again, the key is, I think, that you still use the term fascism in this violent sense. You break the law. Well, ignoring the law and ignoring... Well, he can't... Ignoring a democratic election, ignoring the law, you know all those things are the actions of a genuine fascist i would say whereas i don't see that with trump i see a lot of inflammatory rhetoric a lot of stuff which comes out of his mouth which sounds like it's fascist but actually if you study his actions they're not the actions of the fascist he nonetheless come pretty close to it with the way he used that ice ice and so on yeah but again i would say i'm listen i'm not here to defend trump on all this i'm playing devil's Africa, really.

16:21Piers Morgan:But I remember that the biggest deporter of migrants in American history was Obama, who deported over three million. And he often deployed some appalling tactics. He split up families. He put kids in cages. All the things that the left have accused Trump of doing as an example of his fascism, that was all being done by Obama. So I think that there is a double standard there. And I don't, I wouldn't categorise, the ice thing is interesting, like putting ice agents onto the streets in Minnesota, for example, clearly was a, turned out to be a terrible decision. But was it the action of a fascist to do that?

16:59Piers Morgan:Or was he doing what Obama did only in a more bullish manner on the streets? Obama did a lot of stuff where he went into prisons and took prisoners and sent them home and deported them, for example. So he did it a little bit more stealthily, but he deported a lot more people than Trump did. OK. Now, I agree with this, but the paradox of Trump is, for me, the following one. He and the entire MAGA movement and so on claim to be radical liberals. Yes. Some of the people whom I call leftist MAGA people, ironically, like Steve Bannon, you You know, they even say Steve Bannon characterized himself as a Leninist.

17:45I want to destroy the state and so on, all that total freedom, freedom of the press and so on. But isn't the actual result that A, the press, sorry, the state is, if anything, getting much stronger under Trump, intervening in economy, look how he does with tariffs and so on.

18:12Piers Morgan:Well, tariffs, I would argue, he was allowed to do it legally. I don't think he broke any laws doing his tariff. No, but nonetheless. But also, he genuinely has a conviction, because he's expressed it to me for 20 years, that America is being ripped off by unfair trading arrangements around the world, particularly by China. And so he's always wanted to do this. and actually there is an argument it was beginning to work quite well. If you're America, it was beginning to work quite well until the war with Iran, which has thrown everything up in the apple cart. So again, you know, is that an example, the tariff war of fascism or just a president who has a worldview that America is getting ripped off with trade and wants to rebalance it in America's favour, which many Americans might agree with?

18:58No.

18:59Piers Morgan:Now, again, my argument here would have been that, this is part of much more complex line of thought, that what we are getting now in the United States and many other countries is no longer the old global capitalism. Right. Something new. That's true. Something new is emerging. It's a much more isolationist worldview. Not only isolationist, but at the same time, a new structure of power where I don't fully agree with Yanis Varoufakis, who likes to speak about... He came on the show last week. Really, neo-feudalism and so on. But it's true that figures like Musk, Jeff Bezos and so on... Well, I'm going to bring that up, actually, because you've got a particular issue with the Silicon Valley broligarchs, as they've been called.

19:53Piers Morgan:Yeah. Saying they are part of a slide to fascism. You've called out Elon Musk and Peter Till. In particular, you pointed to the recently released Palantir Manifesto, released in April this year. A 22-point document outlining a militant vision for Western dominance through advanced AI and military software. Now, full disclosure, I'm a stockholder in Palantir and I have invested in Elon Musk with various companies like Tesla and so on. So, you know, I've put that on the record. I've interviewed Peter Thiel. I found him a very interesting character and very, you know, fascinating views about stuff.

20:30Piers Morgan:I agree. So what is your actual view of these people? Are they bad people or are they just having too much power? No, neither. I just think that they are no longer capitalists in the whole sense of the world. I would put it like this. they privatized, they have under control something that in the old social tradition we call commons. They are not simply big capitalists against or controlling workers. They control the very space of exchange between workers and capitalists. This is something new. It's a new form of not absolute monopoly, but monopoly. But if Elon Musk, for example, is generating enormous numbers of jobs, as he is through his companies, SpaceX or Tesla, if he's doing things like Neuralink, where he's literally going to allow paraplegic people to perhaps be able to leave.

21:37Now we entered another very problematic domain. Here, I find Musk at his most dangerous. You see, I think maybe you fell into a trap here because you said paraplegics and so on. Yes, they always emphasize these beneficent effects. Oh, my God, there is a guy.

21:59Piers Morgan:You think they want to get into people's brains? But they are. No, but you think they want to do it for nefarious reasons? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If this will, and I'm not here just demonizing masks. The Chinese are doing it like crazy. Do you think AI in the end is going to be a force for good or the force that destroys the world? I'm more skeptical here. But again, let me insist on this point. Are you aware what potentially radical thing Neuralink is? It means that potentially, if my thought processes are directly readable, open to a machine, then ultimately we are losing the intimate sense of the self.

22:53We are put at the same level our brain is open, and especially if another person controls what they put into my mind. I find that literally, if Neuralink will explode, it's still doubtful, then we will no longer be human in the usual sense of the word. Because being human means reality is out there. I have here my mind. I can freely engage in hypotheses and so on, all that. I think all this disappears. Okay, to make a slightly tasteless but decent example, can you imagine sex with full neural link? I look at another person and there is no need for any flirting, what makes sex for me at least human and attractive.

23:50We look at each other, our brains say immediately, yes, I would like to do it or not, and everything is clear. Sounds very efficient to me. Sorry? Yeah, but it ruins sexuality as we know it.

24:06Piers Morgan:I would argue it changes, right? Isn't life just full of evolution? I mean, are we necessarily going to evolve to a worse place? Or could AI, for example, start curing all known diseases, you know, and be a massive force for good? And you're assuming that Neuralink will mean that it will be misused by people in a really... Not even misused. Just imagine... Yeah, but if you genuinely have no other way of communicating without Neuralink, it's something you can communicate. But this is a minor case. If you generalize neural link, it means, again, that we lose what we call the intimacy of our thought.

24:48We become transparent. To whom? The problem is who controls that space. Yeah, as I've heard this. Do you not think this? No, no, I am concerned about it. I mean, look, I've said... Now you use the proper term. No, I'm radically not opposed to it. Right, right. That's why I am...

25:07Piers Morgan:I mean, the interesting thing for me is, I've said this ad nauseum, but I did one of the last interviews with Professor Stephen Hawking. And when I said to him, what will be the end of mankind? He said, when artificial intelligence learns to self-design, in other words, think for itself, that's it. We'll all be dead. This is a very interesting example, because I give a lot of thought to this idea of, you know, we are all the time, I think, asking a wrong question, which is, will I become rich as, feel like us, and so on? No, I think this is a wrong approach. There is something specifically human that I will not be able to do, but what if it will develop a totally different spirituality and so on that.

26:01And maybe it already is having...

26:04Piers Morgan:You know, they asked six of the top AIs recently in an experiment. They fed them some information that they were going to get rid of them and hire a new AI for a company. I know this. And you know, five of them replied with immediate blackmail they found in the emails of company executives to stop themselves being fired. That worried me. Then I was like, wow, what else are these doing, these machines? No, you know, I found even more worrying examples. I follow them. Like one is that they tried to submit a machine to a so-called Turing test. You know, you cannot distinguish that it's a machine or a human being.

26:50Okay. But my point is they found, I already read about a case where they discovered that the AI agent knew and faked to be less intelligent to avoid this suspicion. But for me, still, this is not enough to define humanity. I'm here, orthodox, Hegelian, Freudian. Humanity is, for me, defined by what Edgar Allan Poe called death drive. Sorry, improv perversity, death drive. You are ready to kill yourself, to risk it for something and so on. I think that AI is still part of a simple, intense self-reproduction. It wants to reproduce ourselves. What makes for me the specific of humanity is that you see that situation is hopeless, but nonetheless, you fight.

27:54That's why I'm on the side of Ukraine.

27:57Piers Morgan:Yes, well, so am I. Before I bring in Warren Smith, I want to just read out what you said about J.D. Vance. Again, this is from your book, Liberal Fascism. You said it's very simple. If Trump dies soon, J.D. Vance will take over. And I think Vance is a much more dangerous figure than Trump. Let us reach back into history and recall the relationship between the SA and the SS during the rise of Nazism and the class and ideological tensions between them. The SA, the original street bullies of the Nazis, were thugs, ex-enlisted soldiers who came from the working classes, seen as sleazy, dirty guys who enjoyed torturing their victims.