Musk calls Wikipedia ‘broken’ after resurfacing page defining Trump as ‘fascist’

The page “Comparisons between Donald Trump and Fascism”, was mainly left-wing academic sources and included an entire section comparing the January 6 riot to Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch.

Rindsberg noted that the page was created on September 21, 2024, the same day that UK newspaper The Tutor published an essay titled “Is Donald Trump a Fascist?”

The Pirate threads the article also featured the Wikipedia page on “Trumpism,” the ideology and movement associated with Trump, which is described in hostile terms.

“Trumpism has been described as authoritarian and neo-fascist. Trumpist rhetoric features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist and racist attacks against minority groups. Aspects identified include conspiratorial, isolationist, Christian nationalist, evangelical Christian, protectionist, anti-feminist and anti-LGBT beliefs,” the page reads.

Rindsberg found that the “Trumpism” page included several sources that contradicted what was being written.

An article from 2016 in american scientist by psychology professors Stephen Reicher and Alexander Haslam was cited in the article as supporting the claim that Trumpism is a political movement, although the article itself was primarily critical of media commentators who portrayed Trump supporters as Nazis, racists ​and fascists.

The talk page on the “Trumpism” article had a lot of complaints from fellow editors.

“All 5 sources supporting the use of ‘authoritarianism’ in the introduction are op-eds that fail to make a clear correlation between Trump’s policies or supporters and authoritarianism,” wrote one. “I think publishers are playing a little fast and loose here. Do we really want to claim here on Wikipedia that the ideology of Donald Trump and his supporters is authoritarian? It seems so far removed from reality and I wonder if we’re saying that in bad faith here.”

“This is incredibly misleading and does not represent what Trumpism is at all. For example, Trump supporters are in favor of LEGAL immigration. That doesn’t make them “anti-immigration,” another editor wrote. How (in) any way is he authoritarian? Trump supporters fully support the constitution – it’s a total lie,” another editor wrote.

“This article is simply false. There is no other way to put it. It’s not what Trump supporters think. It’s what the far left labels Trump supporters. Wow – I have never seen such misinformation,” they continued.

On the “Trumpism” page, an editor who did more than half of the edits removed contributions from other editors who presented a more neutral angle, Rindsberg found.

The contribution, “Some historians have argued that (characterizing Trump as a fascist) is an inaccurate use of the term, pointing out that while there are parallels, there are also important differences,” was replaced with a sentence that said many scholars reject the “populist” . ” to instead see Trumpism “as a new form of fascism,” citing far-left academics such as Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Cornel West.

While anyone with an account can edit Wikipedia, some high-interest articles are blocked avert “vandalism.”

Although commonly used interchangeably, Nazism and fascism were two different phenomena. (Fascists and Nazis went so far as to wage a civil war in Austria in 1934.) Fascism, while notoriously difficult to define, is primarily characterized by totalitarian government, the military mobilization of the entire society, the organization of the economy in state-run “corporations” and ultranationalism. Although it is mostly cited as beginning in Italy under Benito Mussolini, fascist governments were also formed in Slovakia, Hungary, Vichy France, Greece, Belgium, and Austria throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The last clearly fascist government collapsed in 1945, and the ideology has failed to take significant root anywhere since then.

After World War II, it was primarily used as an insult. Author George Orwell noted the phenomenon in a 1944 essay entitled “What is Fascism?”

“It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless,” he wrote. “In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, social credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s shows, youth hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I don’t know what else.”

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In the final weeks of the 2024 election cycle, the Harris campaign and Democrats explicitly sought to portray Trump as a fascist, drawing comparisons with the former president and Hitler.

Republicans and some Democrats condemned the rhetoric as a possible incitement to violence following the two assassination attempts against Trump.