Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump, has accused the Republican Party of "fascism" for enabling the former president and has called on the Democrats and the media to be more forthright in condemning the GOP.
In an interview to promote her new book, The Reckoning, Mary Trump told MSNBC that her uncle had exploited racial tensions within the country and his continued popularity and influence in the party showed the effectiveness of appealing to American people's "worst instincts."
As such, the language of compromise from the Democrats would no longer work in the new political landscape, she said as she described the racial aspect of the January 6 attacks on the the U.S. Capitol and moves to push voter suppression laws.
"It's no accident that practically 100 percent of people at the insurrection were white people," she told anchor Lawrence O'Donnell. "And it's no accident that the Republican leadership has embraced Donald, has embraced what the rest of us might view as the worst things about him, which are the worst things in America."
Mary Trump says that it is "without question" that the Republican Party should be labeled fascist. pic.twitter.com/S1dfH3Gkom
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 4, 2021
She said that members of the GOP "know they have a very narrow path to stay in power and it is by appealing to the worst instincts in the American people."
"One thing that Donald did was expose the extent to which being an open racist is a winning proposition in the Republican Party."
Mary Trump, who is a psychologist, has been highly critical of both her uncle and her extended family. Her 2020 family tell-all Too Much and Never Enough portrayed a dysfunctional family not fit for politics.
She has also taken aim at the Republican Party. In July, she branded GOP lawmakers who opposed a formal bipartisan commission into January 6 as "traitors." A house select committee is currently investigating the insurrection.
On Tuesday, she told MSNBC that her latest book, which is out on August 17, examined the U.S. as it coped with the COVID pandemic when it was "so vulnerable" and when democracy "was on the brink—the American experiment was on the edge of failure."
O'Donnell read out a passage from Mary Trump's book which said that the former president is an "instinctive fascist who is limited by his inability to see beyond himself."
"What's more relevant now is whether the media—and the Democrats—will extend the label to fascism to the Republican Party itself," O'Donnell said, before asking, "should we extend that label to the Republican Party?"
Trump replied: "Without question...the next year and a half will be incredibly crucial to see if we can put a stop to this trend and the Democrats in particular and the media in general have to face this in a way that demonstrates that they understand the seriousness of the threat.
She said that "Democrats can't keep playing by old rules because Republicans have burned the rule book," adding that, "pulling punches and using language that's polite isn't going to get us where we need to be."
Newsweek has contacted the Republican Party and Donald Trump's office for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more
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