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Truth, Politics and Power: An Inauguration Special

In this hour-long special timed for Inauguration Week, Host Neal Conan delves into one of the most provocative questions being asked about our next President.  Is it fair to compare Trumpism to Fascism?

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November's election featured a political style new to most Americans - not just bluster and populist demagoguery, but a campaign centered on xenophobia and racism, a candidate who encouraged violence by his supporters at raucous rallies, bullied his opponents and the media and presented himself as the last hope to restore America's lost greatness. "I am your voice," Donald J Trump said, "Only I can fix it." Beyond the spin and exaggeration common to all politicians, Trump also fabricated his own set of "facts" on issues from immigration to voter fraud to national security that he repeated, no matter how many times he was called out by his opponents and independent fact checkers.

While Donald Trump and his supporters ridicule the comparison to fascism, critics on the right and left find troubling parallels. "Truth, Politics and Power" will examine the similarities and differences between the facists of the 1930s and '40s and the 45th President of the United States.  It features extended conversations with two distinguished scholars: Volker Ullrich, author of the brilliantly reviewed new biography "Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939," and historian Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of, among many others, "Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century."

Over 36 years with National Public Radio, Neal Conan worked as a correspondent based in New York, Washington, and London; covered wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; Olympic Games in Lake Placid and Sarajevo; and a presidential impeachment. He served, at various times, as editor, producer, and executive producer of All Things Considered and may be best known as the long-time host of Talk of the Nation. Now a macadamia nut farmer on Hawaiʻi Island, his "Pacific News Minute" can be heard on HPR Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
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