1/4 The debate among left-of-center academics and pundits about whether Trump represented a turn toward fascism has a well-worn contour. Some are pointing out that things that have happened in historical fascist episodes - jailing of opponents, shuttering the opposition press

2/4 have not occurred. This neglects the vast presence of an anti-truth movement in the public and some press venues, the toothlessness of the mainstream press, and the lack of any significant communist or even socialist opposition. Others point out that the foreign policy of

3/4 earlier administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have been as vicious as Trump's, so they see continuity. These critics seem unable to see the novel aspects of Trump's politics, stirring up street violence, using overt racist and xenophobic tropes, denying the

4/4 validity of the electoral process. These commentators, like most "thought leaders" seem unable to deal with, or even identify novelty. They simply see continuity of one sort or another. This is a lack of imagination. Watergate was ridiculed as a "second-rate break-in." You

5/ can conceive of contemporary "left" pundits making this claim. But as my teacher and colleague, the great ecologist Richard Levins, pointed out at the time, Nixon was the first to use national security state methods designed for "subversives" against mainstream party rivals.

6/7 I just note that recognizing and explaining novelty are among the most problematic questions in all fields. This leads many (most) commentators to deny its existence. Darwin, for example, made no attempt to account for phenotypic novelty by his theory of natural selection

7/7 but this hasn't stopped the majority of biologists, philosophers of biology, and the educated public to believe that "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (Dennett) or the "Blind Watchmaker" (Dawkins), i.e., natural selection of random variants, explains all features of living systems.