How the War on Terror Created the Age of Trump (W/ Matt Kennard) | The Chris Hedges Report
5/28/202646 min
In the United States, but also around the world, fascism is on the rise again, similar to what occurred in Germany and Italy after World War I. Its foot soldiers in the US include right wing extremists who enter the military, where they are welcomed and encouraged, for empowerment and training. The current Trump administration, includes Christian Nationalists, such as Pete Hegseth who heads the Pentagon, and openly supports fascist and Zionist leaders — Javier Milei in Argentina, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, to name a few.
To understand the rise of neo-Nazis in the US military and law enforcement, Chris Hedges speaks with British investigative journalist Matt Kennard. For his new book, “Irregular Army,” Kennard interviewed hard-right veterans who were open about enlisting to gain the skills they need to wage RaHoWa, a Racial Holy War, at home.
The book demonstrates that the War on Terror gave rise to the Trump presidency. He cites the repressive powers granted to the state under the Patriot Act, the rise of the Imperial Presidency, the loosening of restrictions on qualifications for military recruitment, the cover up of atrocities committed by military members in Afghanistan and Iraq and the epidemic of PTSD as factors that allowed White Supremacy and racism to flourish in the United States government and military brass.
Hedges asks if an even more extremist body politic could develop. Kennard’s response is that many alarm bells are ringing: “I think that we’re on a slippery slope and things have been normalized now that we wouldn’t have even believed could be normalized a long time ago.” The fact that those in power do not have a cohesive strategy provides a ray of hope, but if we are to develop strategies to stop the rise of fascism, we must first understand the social and political factors that underlie it.
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First 90 secondsChris Hedges· Host0:00
[gentle music] The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan saw the United States military straining to meet recruitment quotas, jettison past restrictions, including felony convictions, membership in neo-Nazi groups, learning disabilities, psychiatric conditions, mental health concerns, or even racist tattoos. It has raised its minimum enlistment age from 35 to 42. The induction of right-wing extremists into the military has emboldened and empowered, not to mention trained, these extremists who ideol- whose ideology of white supremacy and race war is embraced by the current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who has several symbols and words that identify right-wing extremists tattooed on his body. Hegseth is also at the same time forcing out tens of thousands of women, Blacks, and transgender people from the military. These extremist groups have powerful allies in the Trump administration. The White House unveiled a new counterterrorism strategy that will now target narco terrorists, Islamic terrorists, and what the Trump administration calls violent left-wing extremists. The far right is noticeably absent from its list, although a 2024 report by the Center for Strategic and International