# Jon Stewart is an enabler of fascism
Date: 2025-01-28

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### Jon Stewart is an enabler of fascism

Jon Stewart expresses [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byg8VZdKK88) that fascism is about breaking the law. Jon says we should reserve using the word fascist for when Trump really violates some laws.

![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/jon-stewart-is-an-enabler-of-fascism-99129884f7.png)

So for instance pardoning January 6th criminals isn’t fascist because an American president legally has pardon powers. Issuing unconstitutional edicts isn’t fascist unless courts don’t overturn them. Jon doesn’t mention [freezing all government spending](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce) but presumably he thinks that’s not fascist either.

Furthermore the American people voted for Trump and therefore, according to Stewart, Trump’s actions are democratically blessed.

Let’s be clear — **pardoning violent loyal criminals is fascist, unconstitutional edicts are fascist, freezing government spending is fascist, and even if a majority wants fascism, they are in no way constitutionally entitled to it.**

Or put another way Americans are free to elect a president but, even with a majority, they are not allowed to install a king. Jon Stewart recommends Democrats explain their plans to use king like powers instead of standing up to Trump’s use of those powers.

> Tell people what you would do with the power that Trump is wielding, and then convince us to give that power to you as soon as possible

That stance enables fascism.

Nor is Jon Stewart some outside observer of constitutionality allowed to any opinion he wants. He’s a member of a media that must function to hold democracy together.

Which brings us to the Nazi’s [Enabling Act of 1933](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933) (or ‘Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich’ as they would call it):

> the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government … In order to obtain the act’s passage, the Nazis implemented a strategy of coercion, bribery, and manipulation.

Trump is already beginning to bypass our government’s system of checks and balances and we don’t have to wait for an enabling act to call it fascism. As Otto Wels said of the enabling act in 1933:

> Such omnipotence of the government must have all the more serious repercussions inasmuch as the press, too, lacks any freedom of expression.

Jon Stewart points out that Republicans hold majorities in all three branches of government but a majority is [not the same as a dictatorship](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/28/congress/schumer-murray-funding-freeze-00200955).

> “Can you imagine what it’s going to be like … if those agreements mean nothing? That somebody can sit back and say, ‘Sure, I’ll give you that,’ knowing full well that their president’s in power and they will keep the funding out?” Murray said Tuesday. “We cannot function as a democracy in this country if we cannot respect and abide by our ability to make agreements in Congress.”

This is a key tenet of fascism — undermining democracy and making it seem too “inefficient” to preserve. Why bother with all of those checks and balances when you can have a king make all decisions?