When Is it Fascism?
“I can see you have no idea what a fascist regime is.”
“I can see you have no idea what a fascist regime is,” a FB friend said to me, when I called Trump a fascist. He’s well-educated, a scholar and a libertarian or at least libertarian-leaning.
But then another friend, on his own page, wrote, “I know - its rude to call him fascist when he says openly fascist things repeatedly.” Maybe this friend has no idea what a fascist regime is, either? Except he’s also a scholar, an expert in Germany and in genocide. I think I know something about fascism, but he surely knows a lot about it.
So which is it? Is it on-brand to call Trump a fascist, or is it obviously wildly inaccurate? Let’s start by looking at how fascism has been define, and then put Trump beside the definitions and see if there’s any fit.
What if Fascism is Not an “Ism”?
There is no single universal definition of fascism. Historian Ian Kershaw rued that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." But this is not a unique problem. All concepts are notoriously tricky to nail down. Socialism, with its numerous historical threads, also does not admit of one universal definition. And while democracy And while political scientist Robert Dahl’s five-criteria operationalization of democracy has iconic status within the discipline, it’s not without its dissenters. As theorist Walter Bryce Gallie argued, some concepts are “essentially contested concepts.” Disputes about the meaning of these concepts are "perfectly genuine, [and] although not resolvable by argument of any kind, are nevertheless sustained by perfectly respectable arguments and evidence.”
For fascism, part of the definitional problem may be that in some respects it’s not really an ideology. It doesn’t have the kind of quasi-philosophical core that ideologies have. Fascism scholar Robert Paxton agrees. In “The Five Stages of Fascism,”
“fascism does not rest on formal philosophical positions with claims to universal validity.
Elsewhere, Paxton has written,
Fascists even glory in their contempt for thought and reason. . . .
It seems doubtful that some common intellectual position can be the defining character of movements that valued action above thought, the instincts of the blood above reason, duty to the community above intellectual freedom, and national particularism above any kind of universal value. Is fascism an “ism” at all?
So fascism may not actually an “ism.” Then we have to look at what fascism does, and how it presents itself. My own nutshell description of fascism - which only makes sense after we dig into it deeper - is that it is may simply be a violent mytho-romantic urge to power.
Grappling with the Identity of Fascism
Despite the difficulties of definition, we can consider the various fascisms and look for commonalities. I’m going to run through a set of descriptions and definitions here, so we’re looking at the same thing.
Paxton has a formal definition of fascism, which I’ll get to in a moment, but I want to start with his informal description, because I think it’s very powerful.
“[F]ascism is a kind of authoritarian nationalism, that is distinct from the old conservative forms like dictatorship, in that it wants mass support, it wants an enthusiastic crowd. . . . We’d had all sorts of forms of dictatorship and conservative authoritarianism who wanted to keep the crowd silent. But fascism wanted to generate enthusiasm. And I think that’s the core of it, it’s authoritarian nationalism, with an enthusiastic mass base.
Before moving on, I ask you to pause and consider Trump in that context. Is he nationalistic? Does he have an authoritarian personality or authoritarian tendencies? Does he want an enthusiastic mass base? I think the answers to each of those questions is an obvious yes. That’s not dispositive evidence he’s a fascist, but it’s strongly suggestive, and I think establishes the plausibility of digging deeper. A superficial “of course he’s not a fascist” response is already negated.
Let’s move on to the more formal definitions now, beginning with Paxton.
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
Note that Paxton is not focusing here on fascist leaders themselves. His perspective is that fascism is organic, not leader led, that it “is an authentic mass popular enthusiasm, and not merely a clever manipulation of populist emotions by a reactionary Right . . .” But the fascist leader is one who can ride that wave of popular enthusiasm, becoming the focus of it.
Italian historian Emilio Gentile describes fascism as:
“revolutionary, anti-liberal, and anti-Marxist, organized in a militia party with a totalitarian conception of politics and the state, an activist and anti-theoretical ideology, with a mythical, virilistic and anti-hedonistic foundation, sacralized as a secular religion, which affirms the absolute primacy of the nation, understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organized in a corporate state, with a bellicose vocation to the politics of greatness, power, and conquest aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization.”
Pithier definitions come from British historian and political theorist Robert Griffin and British political scientist Roger Eatwell.
“a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism."
“an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on a holistic-national radical Third Way."
Finally, here is Umberto Eco’s set of characteristics commonly, although not universally, found in fascism. Notice that his list also indicates the lack of a philosophical core in fascism, describing it more by how it operates functionally.
Drawing from all these, I offer the following synthetic definition.
Fascism is an illiberal, selectively populist, and authoritarian nationalist movement with a preoccupation with national decline, humiliation and victimization by enemies of the people, which necessitates a national rebirth through internal purification to restore a mythic past, achieving by heroic action a nation-centered politics of greatness, power, and conquest.
That synthetic definition can certainly be quibbled with. I don’t present it as the ultimate summation of fascism. But I think it’s workable and fairly representative of the joint insights of scholars of fascism. Next, I will line Trump and the Trumpian political movement up against this synthetic definition and some elements of the other definitions that do not explicitly appear in the synthetic one
So Are Trump and Trumpism Fascist?
Admittedly, the term fascist can shed more heat than light. It is overused as a pejorative, to the point that Paxton himself, while agreeing that Trump is fascist, thinks saying so is more of an impediment to argument than an aid. If so, my very effort here may be misguided, not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s unhelpful. Part of the problem here is that “fascist” has become such a common pejorative that we have a “boy who cried wolf” problem. We know there are wolves out there, but we haven’t seen a real one in a while, and nobody believes the boy anymore. Another part of the problem may be that people conflate fascism with Nazi death camps, but not all fascisms have had death camps, and even the Nazis didn’t have death camps until well on into their reign. So while death camps might be dispositive for the presence of fascism, the lack of death camps is not dispositive against the presence of fascism.
Despite the potential for not doing any good, I do think we need to keep publicly rebutting those who hand-wave away any concerns about American fascism, and remain in self-monitoring for fascism mode. Because if, as Paxton says, fascism is an “authentic mass popular enthusiasm,” then it presents a perpetual danger - the wolf may not be at the sheep yet, but it is out there somewhere and could come around without warning. If not Trump, then some other leader may come along to lead it. It just needs a figure with the right type of political charisma, as described by Max Weber, whom “soulless” followers can see as their political messiah. Functionally, given fascism’s lack of ideology, the leader doesn’t even have to believe in anything himself. He only needs to be able to effectively give expression to the mass enthusiasm.
I briefly mentioned that Robert Paxton thinks Trump is a fascist. This is notable not only because Paxton is a leading scholar of fascism, but because throughout the first Trump presidency he resisted labeling him a fascist. He’s not the boy who cried wolf. But January 6, 2021, changed his mind.
Trump's incitement of the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 removes my objection to the fascist label. His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.
Let me pause for a moment to say this. I know many people reject the claim that Trump incited violence that day, and my perspective is that if you believe that, you are either naive or self-deceptive. Some cling to the argument that Trump used the word “peacefully” in his Jan. 6 speech. But he’s a master of having it both ways when he speaks, so that he always has some deniability, and he’s a master at manipulating the emotions of crowds. His use of the word “peacefully” came early in his speech, while the rest of the speech emphasized that the election had been stolen, that his followers needed to show strength, that they needed to march to the capitol, and that they had to “fight like hell” or face the direst consequences.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
He said this knowing that some in the crowd had weapons. He said, “They’re not here to hurt me,” demonstrating an awareness that they might be there to hurt someone else. Simply put, I cannot take seriously the claim that he did not incite the crowd, if not explicitly to violence, knowingly in the direction of violence. Paxton is right to call it incitement, and he’s right that it’s a red line.
Comparing Trump to Our Definition(s) of Fascism
Selective populism/nationalism: Trump is clearly populist, appealing to supporters through an open antagonism toward a perceived elite. Although he’s gained support from Blacks and Hispanics, his core is that frustrated, mostly White, mostly Christian-identifying middle class. It’s not restricted to Whites, making it ethnically less exclusive than Naziism, but it is distinctly anti-Muslim, and any non-conforming minorities are clearly defined as not being real Americans.
A preoccupation with national decline: The essential Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again,” says it all. “Again” signals that we have been great but no longer are. Trump has even unironically used the exact phrase, “we are a nation in decline” and he has called the U.S. a “failing nation.”
Humiliation and victimization: Trump has repeatedly invoked the idea that the world is laughing at America, and that America has been victimized by the establishment, by China, by Mexico, by Canada, and by Panama. The victimization theme was prominent in his 2nd inaugural address.
“we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.”
“Our sovereignty will be reclaimed.”
“We have been treated very badly . . .”
“our nation has suffered greatly. . .”
Combined with Trump’s perpetual complaints about unfairness, it’s fair to say that a sense of victimization is one of the most consistent characteristics of his politics.
An enemy of the people: In fascism, the enemy is usually internal, inside the country but not properly a part of the “real” people that make up the nation. Trump has explicitly referenced “enemies from within.”
“I always say, we have two enemies,” Trump said, adding: “We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”
One of those enemies is “a radical and corrupt establishment [that] has extracted power and wealth from our citizens.” This establishment includes the federal bureaucracy, Democrats, the media (who he explicitly called “the enemy of the people”), and progressives (they’re not just politically misguided; they hate America and want to destroy it). The other enemy within is immigrants - specifically illegal immigrants, but politically that may just be the safe space to operate in. Trump has called immigrants rapists and murders, described them with militaristic rhetoric as an invasion, and deployed a classic fascist trope by saying that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
National rebirth to restore a mythic past: Making America great again is all about rebirth and restoration of past greatness. When was this past greatness? According to Trump,
“[I]f you really look at it, it was the turn of the century, that’s when we were a great, when we were really starting to go robust. . . . which was a pretty wild time for this country and pretty wild in terms of building that machine, that machine was really based on entrepreneurship etc, etc. And then I would say, yeah, prior to, I would say during the 1940s and the late ‘40s and ‘50s we started getting, we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war, we were pretty much doing what we had to do, yeah around that period.
While it’s true that at the turn of the century the U.S. was developing rapidly, and that after WWII it was for a moment the lone superpower and the rebuilder of the war-ravaged world, Trump’s vision is still one of a mythic past. The turn of the 20th century was a great period of industrialization and growing material wealth, but also a period of great socioeconomic dislocation, a period of political scandal, of anti-Catholicism, of Jim Crow, of women fighting for the right to vote and still having no guaranteed legal equality. And to top it all off, between 1880 and 1910, the immigrant population as a share of the population was higher than it is now.
The 1940s and ‘50s, are mythologized, too. Black Americans’ contributions to the war effort were snubbed by continued Jim Crow discrimination at the state level, by redlining for home loans required by the federal government, and by exclusion of Black veterans from educational funding via the G.I. Bill. This led, of course, to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, and the violent backlash by the white establishment.
Internal cleansing and purification: We will cleanse ourselves of wokeness, DEI, transgenderism, and other forms of weakness, as well as of the alleged hoard of murdering and raping immigrants.
Heroic action/cult of heroism: Trump loves the concept of heroism. He disdained John McCain for having been captured and has proposed a National Garden of American Heroes. He likes to portray himself as heroic, saying, “I, alone, can fix it,” and as being a target because he’s so consequential. There is a cottage industry of artistic portrayals of Trump as a hero. (And whether his critics want to admit it or not, his raised fist salute after nearly being shot did show courage, and the photo of it is iconically heroic - it was so perfect for enthralling his followers that liberals can probably be forgiven for not wanting to believe it wasn’t all scripted.)
A nation-centered politics of greatness, power, and conquest: National greatness is Trump’s most consistent message (challenged only by his complaints about unfairness). His reference to the 1940s and ‘50s explicitly references America’s international strength: “we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war. . .” Consider some selections from his inaugural speeches. First from 2017, the emphasis on nation-centeredness, total allegiance, and loyalty to the group.
“At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. . . .”
And from his 2025 speech.
“America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.”
“Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.”
“America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world.”
Based on Trump’s first term and some of the words of his 2025 inaugural address, a person might question the conquest element here. Indeed, through his first term his overt aversion to getting the U.S. involved in yet another war was one of his redeeming attributes. And in his inaugural address he did express a desire for peace.
“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but . . . perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”
Richard Nixon also spoke of being a peacemaker, of course, yet history has denied him what he called the greatest honor, the title of peacemaker. And Trump quickly undermined his earlier appearance of not being interested in conquest by demanding the return of the Panama Canal and ownership of Greenland and refusing to rule out the use of military force to achieve those objectives. He has also insisted he is serious in wanting to annex Canada, and he proposed an open act of ethnic cleansing to claim Gaza for the U.S. Even his silliness about renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America is a mild form of conquest and pursuit of national greatness.
The point I want to emphasize is not that Trump fits a few fascist elements, but that he fits all the elements of the definition. Any president will fit a few of these, and all are obliged to mupper phrases about American greatness, but none fit all the elements so fully as Trump. But let’s go further and look at some of the elements I didn’t put in my synthetic definition.
An enthusiastic mass base: Few presidents have been so enamored of their own crowd as Trump. The wildly enthusiastic, cultish, mass base is there, revealing the “authentic mass popular enthusiasm” characteristic of fascism, and Trump revels in it, and excels in manipulating and mobilizing the mass enthusiasm.
a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites: Trump, as a billionaire, is an elite (although despised by the behaviorally elite rich); Fox News pundits are members of the elite. Elon Musk is an elite. They may not be “traditional” elites (I would argue they are not), but fascism adapts itself to the country its in, and despite America’s old-money blueblood contingent, the US has never had the same kind of traditional elite as Europe.
Abandoning democratic liberties: Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results, the Jan 6. attack on Congress’s counting of the electoral votes, his state-government supporters’ attempts to more tightly constrain voting rights (and in Georgia, a Trump-supporting Republican faction that is not only trying to criminally try Secretary-of-State Brad Raffensperger for not helping Trump win the election but also calling for repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act), along with Trump’s attacks on freedom of the press (his relentless suing of media outlets to silence criticism), his call to give the police free reign for a day all signal his and his supporters’ contempt for democratic liberties. And don’t forget that Trump said he’d like to be dictator, at least for a day. That’s after he mused that perhaps like Xi in China, he should be made President for life. Don’t pretend these are just throwaway lines of no significance; they reveal the man’s desires.
Violence: Violence is always present in fascism. So far in the U.S. it has been minimal, but not absent. Trump encouraged violence against protestors at his rallies in 2016; he downplayed the violence of the Proud Boys; he incited his supporters to violence on Jan. 6; and he suggested giving the police a day of free reign to get violent without consequences against (alleged) lawbreakers. The threat of violence is ever-present in Trump’s speeches.
A Third Way: Fascism is adamantly opposed to socialism, but it is not necessarily in favor of free markets. The goal is normally to engage in some degree of national economic management toward the goal of national greatness and power. Trump’s tariff advocacy, desire to “bring back” manufacturing to the U.S. (manufacturing output is actually near all-time highs), and desire to avoid being “cheated” and “humiliated” by other countries are all of a piece.
Action for Action’s Sake: This goes with fascism’s lack of a philosophical core. What’s to think about when you’re not contemplatively theoretical, but see a clear enemy that needs to be defeated? And action appeals to a mass audience much more than thinking does (consider the relative appeal of action movies compared to thoughtful contemplative ones). While this is perhaps harder to specify in the current case, I’d say we’re particularly seeing it with the ill-named DOGE. It is, in Elon Musk’s favored phrase, moving fast and breaking things. Careful planning and analysis are not on the table, nor anything resembling a careful professional audit.
Disagreement is Treason: Check. Check. Check. Don’t tell me it's all tongue-in-cheek. After a while, the “every single outrageous thing is tongue-in-cheek” excuse wears thin.
Obsession with plot: If I have to dig up more links, I will, but essentially, Trump thinks those enemies without and within are all plotting against him and America. (Note: Some of these things are hard to dig up links for because news sources don’t always use these exact words, and search engines are so biased toward recent results that it can be hard to dredge up things Trump has said over the past decade.)
Contempt for the weak and machismo: Not exactly the same, but inextricably intertwined. Trump is a weak man; that’s why he blusters, to appear strong. He refuses to fully pay contractors, implicitly challenging them to try suing him (knowing they will face costs greater than the gains). He is cruel. He is contemptuous of women who challenge him, and despises transgender people.
Ultimately, there are very few characteristics identified with fascism that aren’t identified with Trump and his supporters. Newspeak? I don’t see that (and changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t count). Pacifism as trafficking with the enemy? Maybe so long as Trump doesn’t get us involved in a new war, but as soon as he does I expect this to be appear; it would be too off-brand if it didn’t. Anti-hedonism? I’m not sure I see that in Trump (a hedonist himself), although some of his Christian followers certainly have that perspective. But remember, fascism doesn’t require every element, and these are less than a handful that can be be argued as absent.
Fascism in the Most Innocent of Disguises
Let me close by returning to Eco. His description was of what he called Ur-fascism or eternal fascism. To Eco, fascism was not simply a 20th century phenomenon, but an eternal urge, and one we should keep our eyes open for
We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world.
Similarly, philosopher R. Kevin Wichowski-Hill wrote here,
[W]hile wearing Nazi regalia and celebrating Hitler by name were of course off the table . . . this self-scrutiny thing was not about that because no one waves a swastika flag without realizing they are doing so. So along with the self-scrutiny was the understanding that if anything similar were to happen, it would come in a different form. It would wrap itself in your flag, the "National" in National Socialism would be your nationalism, not German nationalism. And that meant that it would be difficult to identify clearly from the inside.
Or, as the old saying (falsely attributed to various people, but with no clear origin), when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. That’s not because the flag or cross are fascist symbols in themselves - it’s not an attack on Christianity at all - but because the fascists will find those symbols useful to attract people and obscure their intentions. The rise of Christian nationalism is all too evidentiary for the truth of this.
I have to wonder how much of the resistance to identifying Trump as a fascist, the insistence on saying “it’s not happening here,” stems from the belief, or desperate hope, that “it can’t happen here,” how much from the lack of stereotypical fascist imagery and attendant failure to recognize that American fascism will have homegrown America-appropriate imagery, and how much from a serious critical analysis of Trump and Trumpism. I haven’t seen the latter yet; I’ve only seen “nuh uh” and “enough of that, already” arguments, which aren’t really arguments at all.
Is there any reason to think fascism can’t happen in America? American exceptionalism, whatever it may actually consist of, does not extend to Americans being a uniquely different type of human, immune to the types of social anxieties on which fascists prey.
And if it can happen here, why isn’t Trumpism properly described as such?
If anyone wants to write a serious analysis explaining why Trumpism is not fascist, I’ll open up this blog to a guest post.