SALT LAKE CITY -- Congressman Chris Stewart doesn't think Donald Trump is entirely like Benito Mussolini, but he's not backing off the comparison he first made a week ago.
"My response was to a very specific thing that Mr. Trump has said," Stewart said.
Mussolini created the Fascist Party in Italy in 1919, according to www.biography.com. He eventually made himself dictator prior to World War II.
The Mussolini-like statement: "...that he will order military members to target civilians, particularly the wives and children of terrorists. Well, we don't do that," Stewart said.
Note the first person plural "We" used by Stewart?
That's because Stewart served as an Air Force B-1 Bomber pilot.
Trump made the statement about targeting terrorist families on Fox News in January.
"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families," he said.
Stewart said the statement undercuts America's strength, which lies as much in moral authority as in firepower.
"That's the only way we can lead, and it's the only way we can be the example that we've been for more than 200 years from now," Stewart said.
The dictionary defines fascism as a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
