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Donald Trump and fascism

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Badbluebus (talk | contribs) at 16:05, 7 November 2024 (The way his words were presented here was indeed wrong. Per the CNN source, the full sentence was "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler". I'm inserting that instead.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

There has been significant academic and political debate over whether Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and 47th President-elect of the United States, should be considered a fascist. Critics of Trump have drawn comparisons between him and fascist leaders over authoritarian actions and rhetoric, while others have accused critics of using the term as an insult rather than making legitimate comparisons.

An old woman holding a white paper sign mounted on a stick. The sign has hand-written text reading "FASCIST TRUMP".
A protestor with a sign describing Donald Trump as a fascist.
A bar graph labeled with the text "Who's a Fascist? Results among registered voters." The graph shows that 44% of respondents describe only Donald Trump as a fascist, 18% describe only Kamala Harris as a fascist, 5% describe both as fascists, and 32% consider neither to be fascists.
An October 2024 poll held by ABC News and Ipsos indicated that of the candidates in the 2024 United States presidential election, 49% of registered voters[a] consider Trump to be a fascist.[1]

During his 2024 presidential campaign, a growing number of scholars, historians, commentators, politicians, former Trump officials, and generals have described Trump as a fascist.[b] According to an October 2024 poll held by ABC News and Ipsos, 49% of American registered voters see Donald Trump as a fascist,[a] defined in the poll as "a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents".[1]

Background

Further information: Fascism in North America § Donald Trump and fascism

Donald Trump is an American businessman and politician who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.[2] He lost in the 2020 United States presidential election to Joe Biden, and defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election.[3]

Fascism is an ideological term which refers to a broad set of aspirations and influences that emerged in the early 20th century, exemplified by the European dictators Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Francisco Franco; and include elements of nationalism, enforcement of social hierarchies, hatred towards social minority groups, opposition to liberalism, the cult of personality, racism, and the love of militaristic symbols.[4][5] According to the anti-fascist and socialist writer George Orwell, the term fascist is oftentimes rendered meaningless in common parlance by its frequent use as an insult.[6]

Since Trump was elected to office in 2016, many academics have compared Trump's politics to fascism. Several have pointed out that contrasts exist between historical fascism and Trump's politics, although none have stated that no similarities exist between the two. Many also suggested that "fascist elements" have operated within and around Trump's movement. Following the January 6 attack, some voices within the academic community felt that things had changed and that Trump's politics and connections with fascism deserved greater scrutiny.[7][8]

Comparisons

Anti-democratic sentiment and illiberalism

Further information: Trumpism § Parallels with fascism and trend towards illiberal democracy
See also: Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign § Authoritarian and antidemocratic statements

During his 2016 campaign, Trump made it apparent that he would not accept the results of the 2016 United States presidential election if he did not win, preemptively claiming that he could only lose due to electoral fraud.[9] Following his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election, Trump and other Republicans tried to overturn the results, making widespread false claims of fraud.[10] Due to these false claims, in addition to the January 6 United States Capitol attack that Trump allegedly incited, political opponents have labeled Trump as a "threat to democracy".[11][12]

Journalist Patrick Cockburn stated that Trump's politics risk turning the United States into an illiberal democracy similar to Turkey, Hungary, or Russia.[13] According to civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborne and political theorist William E. Connolly, Trump's rhetoric employs tropes similar to those used by fascists in Germany[14] to persuade citizens (at first a minority) to give up democracy, by using a barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, personal invective, threats, xenophobia, national-security scares, religious bigotry, white racism, exploitation of economic insecurity, and a never-ending search for scapegoats.[15] Some research has highlighted Trump's connections to neoliberalism and has argued that his policies represent an intensification of such policies as part of a "fascist creep" on American politics.[8]

During his 2024 campaign, Trump has made numerous authoritarian and antidemocratic statements.[16] Trump's previous comments, such as suggesting he can "terminate" the Constitution to reverse his election loss,[17][18] his claim that he would only be a dictator on "day one" of his presidency and not after,[c] his promise to use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies,[21] and his plan to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military in Democratic cities and states,[22][23] have raised concerns over Trump's rhetoric.[24]

Trump has stated that he would deploy the military on American soil to fight "the enemy from within", which he describes as "radical left lunatics" and Democratic politicians such as Adam Schiff.[24] His political rhetoric since 2016 has been based on a us vs them framework, with the in-group being defined as "real Americans" and the rival, out-groups including Muslims, leftists, intellectuals and immigrants. He has repeatedly encouraged weaponized chants at his rallies, including calls to imprison 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and has promoted the conspiracy theory that Jewish philanthropist George Soros was responsible for a large influx of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States.[25][26]

Trump has repeatedly voiced support for outlawing political dissent and criticism he considers misleading or challenges his claims to power.[27][28] After General Mark Milley said that Trump would start persecuting his political oponents if he won the 2024 presidential election, Trump suggested that Milley should be executed for treason, with Republican representative Paul Gosar further stating that, in a better society, "sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung". Retired general Barry McCaffrey said, regarding Trump's statements, that "what we are seeing is a parallel to the 1930s in Nazi Germany".[29][30][31] Trump's formal policy plan for a second term, Agenda 47, has been characterized as fascist.[32][33][34]

Violent incidents

January 6 attack and Beer Hall Putsch

 
The January 6 United States Capitol attack has been compared to the Beer Hall Putsch by some academics.

The attack on the United States Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, has been compared by some academics to the Beer Hall Putsch,[35] a failed coup attempt in Germany by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler against the Weimar government in 1923.[36]

Anatomy of Fascism author Robert Paxton, a political scientist and historian specializing in the study of fascism, previously denied that Trump should be labeled a fascist but changed his views following the January 6 attack.[9][37]

Storming of Michigan state capitol

See also: April 30 storming of the Michigan State Capitol

On April 30, 2020, less than a year prior to the January 6 attack and two weeks after Trump published social media posts urging his supporters to "liberate" the state of Michigan from COVID-19 policies, hundreds of Trump supporters, including militia members, gathered around the Michigan state capitol to prevent a public health measure from coming into effect. About 100 protesters entered the capitol, where they displayed nooses and carried confederate flags, as well as signs that read "Tyrants Get the Rope". During the incident, Trump endorsed the protesters and urged governor Gretchen Whitmer to negotiate with them, tweeting that "These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal the protesters". The protesters successfully convinced Republican state senators to kill the measure.[38][39][40][41]

American Journal of Public Health editor Alfredo Morabia cited the Michigan attacks, the plot to kidnap Whitmer and other incidents of disruption by armed political groups as build ups to the January 6 attacks.[39]

Dehumanization and racism

Further information: Racial views of Donald Trump and Rhetoric of Donald Trump § Violence and dehumanization
See also: Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign § Violent and dehumanizing statements

Trump's embrace of far-right extremism[42][43] and several statements and actions have been accused of echoing fascism, Nazi rhetoric, far-right ideology, antisemitism, and white supremacy.[44][45][46] In 2018, Dr. Mike Cole, Emeritus Professor in Education and Equality at Bishop Grosseteste University (UK)[47] stated that Trump's racist and fascistic rhetoric and accompanying agenda targeted at people of color in the US and elsewhere, and his use of Twitter promoted a public pedagogy of hate to add legitimacy to fascism. Cole highlighted neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin's connections to the alt-right to claim it is a new (neo-) fascist movement, but with links to older fringe white supremacist movements, rather than just a component of right-wing conservatism.[48] Mattias Gardell has argued that Trump's "key fascist vision of national rebirth" featured "banal nationalism, Americanism, nativism, white supremacy, manifest destiny, and racialized discourse and practice". Gardell argues that while most Trump voters were not fascist, his rhetoric featured a return to "fascist elements" of political nostalgia and that a "heterogenous milieu of white nationalists, radical traditionalists, alt-right identitarians, conspiracy exposers, militias, neo-confederates, and sovereign citizens" were knowingly catered to by Trump, which related to an important "affective dimension which fascism frequently caters to".[49]

Trump's comments comparing his political enemies to "vermin" who will be "rooted out" have been compared by several historians to fascistic rhetoric made by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.[50][51][52] During a rally in 2023, Trump stated:[53]

In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible; they'll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and to destroy the American Dream.

The comments were compared to comments made by Nazi politician Wilhelm Kube in February 1933 in a Nazi propaganda publication where he stated, "The Jews, like vermin, form a line from Potsdamerplatz until Anhalter Banhof ... The only way to smoke out the vermin is to expel them." They were also compared to Oswald Mosley's British fascists referring to Jews as "rats and vermin from the gutters of Whitechapel" and a 1934 Hitler interview where he stated "I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!"[53]

Responding to critics, Trump's campaign later said that "their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House", which was also criticized for echoing the rhetoric of authoritarian leaders, along with Trump's statement that "the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within."[54][55] According to The New York Times, scholars are undecided about whether Trump's more fascist-sounding language is to antagonize the left, an evolution in his beliefs, or the "dropping of a veil."[56]

Since the fall of 2023,[57] Trump has repeatedly used racial hygiene rhetoric by stating that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country", which has been compared to language echoing that of white supremacists and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.[58] He has also claimed that immigrants are genetically predisposed to commit crimes and have "bad genes",[59][46] which Politico reported is "what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology."[46] Other fascistic comments include statements that immigrants are the "enemy from within" who are ruining the "fabric" of the country.[46] Trump has stated that immigrants are "not people",[60] "not humans",[61] and "animals".[62] At rallies, Trump has stated that undocumented immigrants will "rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill" American citizens,[63] that they are "stone-cold killers", "monsters", "vile animals", "savages", and "predators" that will "walk into your kitchen, they'll cut your throat"[64] and "grab young girls and slice them up right in front of their parents".[63]

On October 27, 2024, Trump held a rally in Madison Square Garden that featured speakers making various racist and dehumanizing remarks, including Tony Hinchcliffe's statement that Puerto Rico was an "island of garbage".[65][66] The event drew comparisons from media and politicians to the 1939 Nazi rally that took place in the same location.[67]

Internment camps

 
A migrant detention camp in 2019.

Donald Trump used internment camps as president, and proposed to do so on a larger scale if elected again. The Cambridge University Press book, Fascism in America: Past and Present, dedicated a chapter to examining "Concentration Camps in Trump's America".[68]

The Trump administration family separation policy was compared to the use of internment camps by previous fascist regimes. In 2018, Trump instituted a "zero tolerance" policy which mandated the criminal prosecution of all adults who were accused of violating immigration laws by immigration authorities.[69][70][71] This policy directly led to the large-scale,[72][73] forcible separation of children and parents arriving at the United States-Mexico border,[74] including those who were seeking asylum from violence in their home countries.[75] Parents were arrested and put into criminal detention, while their children were taken away, classified as unaccompanied alien minors, to be put into child immigrant detention centers.[71][76]

Even though Trump signed an executive order which ostensibly ended the family separation component of his administration's migrant detentions in June 2018, it continued under alternative justifications into 2019.[77]

By the end of 2018, the number of children being held had swelled to a high of nearly 15,000,[78][79] which by August 2019 had been reduced to less than 9,000.[80] In 2019, many experts, including Andrea Pitzer, the author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, have acknowledged the designation of the detention centers as "concentration camps"[81] particularly given that the centers, previously cited by Texas officials for more than 150 health violations[82] and reported deaths in custody,[83] reflect a record typical of the history of deliberate substandard healthcare and nutrition in concentration camps.[84] There has been significant disagreement as to whether or not to label these facilities "concentration camps."[85][86][87]

In 2023, Current Affairs profiled how Trump in his 2024 campaign likewise pledged to build internment camps, warning that Trump's plan was to "build huge camps and put millions of people in them without any semblance of due process", which might include political opponents and critics.[88]

Connections to self-identified fascists

In the 2016 United States presidential election, Trump was supported by multiple self-described Nazi or fascist groups, including the National Socialist Movement and Ku Klux Klan. These groups engaged in voter intimidation by monitoring polling locations in 2016, claiming to have done so both "informally" and "through the Trump campaign".[89] In 2016, Trump was endorsed by self-identified Nazis such as David Duke,[90] alt-right activist Richard Spencer and Nazi activist Andrew Anglin. Trump disavowed Duke in August 2015, refused to disavow him in a January 2016 interview, and wrote a tweet disavowing the former KKK leader shortly afterwards. Trump has shared social media content linked to neo-Nazi websites, refused to condemn antisemitic attacks on Jewish journalists, and, after winning the election, appointed Steve Bannon, an admirer of Mussolini, as his chief of staff. During the Charlottesville protests in Virginia, Trump stated that there were good people on both sides.[91][92] Duke endorsed Trump once again during the 2020 presidential election[93] and criticized him in 2024.[94] In September 2024, CNN reported that Mark Robinson, whom Trump endorsed in the 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial election, had previously identified himself as a "Black Nazi".[95]

Stormfront founder Don Black supported Donald Trump for, he said, fighting against white demoralization and building a long-term movement that would outlast him. Trump was described by alt-right activist and millionaire donor William Regnery II as someone who helped white nationalism go "from being conversation you could hold in a bathroom, to the front parlor". American Nazi Party chairman Rocky Suhayda said that Trump provided a "real opportunity" for his cause. White Nationalist Jared Taylor supported Trump for "talking about policies that would slow the dispossession of whites" and said that "all of his policies, at least those pertaining to immigration, align very nicely with the sorts of things we’ve been saying for many year".[96]

Anglin, who founded The Daily Stormer, had multiple pro-Trump articles published on his website and said that "virtually every Alt-Right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign". In November 2016, Spencer shouted "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" during a speech at a National Policy Institute convention. By November 2017, and throughout 2018, many alt-right activists expressed disappointment at Trump after he started supporting Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Jews in Israel. Trump's decision to remove Bannon from the National Security Council also impacted their impression about him.[96]

Following Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election, Blood Tribe leader Christopher Pohlhaus celebrated by thanking Trump that "cheaper gas will make it easier to spread White Power across the whole country". Far-right activist Lauren Witzke thanked "men, especially white men, who turned out in force to put women back in their place". Turning Point USA ambassador Evan Kilgore said in his 100,000-followers X account: "Women, back to the kitchen; Abortions, illegal; Gays, back in the closet; Interracial marriage, banned; Illegals, pack your bags; trannies, back to the asylums; Jesus, back in our schools".[97]

In 1990, Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's former wife, stated that he kept a copy of My New Order, a collection of speeches written by Adolf Hitler, by his bedside.[98] John F. Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, stated in October 2024 that Trump spoke positively of Hitler during his tenure as president, including by saying that "Hitler did some good things" such as rebuilding the economy.[99][100][101] Kelly also stated that Trump had told him that he desired military generals similar to the generals who served Hitler.[100][102][103]

Invocations of the comparison

See also: Hiring and personnel concerns about Donald Trump and Second American Revolution

Invocations before the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack

 
Double face, Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler by Peter Klashorst, 2016.

Trump was described as a fascist by philosophers such as Judith Butler,[104] and Noam Chomsky.[105] In 2017, Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder published On Tyranny, warning about the danger signs of fascism in the Trump era.[106] Political theorist William E. Connolly analyzed Trump's rhetorical appeal to the working class, exploring its affinities with fascist rhetoric.[107] In her 2018 book Fascism: A Warning, former US Secretary of State and then Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service Madeleine Albright referenced Donald Trump several times; she refused to directly define Trump as a fascist, while comparing his rhetoric and methods with fascist leaders, and characterizing him as the first modern antidemocratic U.S. president.[108] In 2018, American-Canadian cultural critic Henry Giroux wrote an essay linking the subjects of fascism, right-wing populism, Trump, white nationalism, education, and politics.[109] In 2018, Ewan McGaughey in British Journal of American Legal Studies denied that Trump's movement was truly fascist as it was "too hostile to insider welfare", and instead highlighted the Supreme Court's decisions in Citizen's United and Buckley v. Valeo as an assault on democracy and long-term trend towards fascism. McGaughey stated the Court's decisions led to the election of Trump but that Trump's politics were too weak to be fascist, instead calling them "fascism-lite".[110] In How Fascism Works (2018), Jason Stanley wrote that Trump employed "fascist techniques to excite his base and erode liberal democratic institutions"[91]

 
In 2017, JD Vance said that "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon... or that he’s America's Hitler"[111]

After Trump called for a Muslim travel ban in late 2015, he was described as a fascist by some Democratic and Republican figures, including Conservative activists Max Boot, Robert Kagan, Bret Stephens, John Noonan, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, and Libertarian politician Gary Johnson. Republican former governor Christine Todd Whitman referred to Trump's 2015 calls for the travel ban as "the kind of rhetoric that allowed Hitler to move forward".[91] JD Vance said in 2017 that he saw Trump as either a politician like Richard Nixon or "America's Hitler", also calling him "reprehensible". Despite this, he went on to run alongside Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign.[112][113]

Anne Frank's stepsister Eva Schloss said in the 2016 that Trump was "acting like another Hitler".[91] In 2020, American journalist Rich Benjamin stated that Trump's political movement is "shot through with fascism".[114] Professor Nicholas de Genova described Trump as the leader of a "white supremacist fascist movement" and examined Trump's birtherism, racist rhetoric, voter fraud falsehoods, anti-immigration policies, terrorist and white supremacist events that happened during his presidency, plus Republican capitulation to Trumpism, signaling the whole as the birth of a civil war ethos, in which "everything is permitted."[115]

Invocations after the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack

Following the January 6 Capitol attack, Robert Paxton, who had initially resisted calling Trump a fascist, announced that the label now seemed necessary. Mattias Gardell argued that Trump's MAGA campaign centered fascist visions of a national rebirth and that Hitler and Mussolini were also dismissed as "egomaniacs, big-mouths, and buffoons" by commentators at the time. David Renton has said that figures such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Mosley became fascists over time and that January 6 served as a warning to America about how vulnerable it is to authoritarianism. Maria Bucur has argued that the "surfacing of fascist sympathies" were facilitated by Trump. Brian Hughes has called for further study of Trumpism and Trump's fascist merits through Lacanian terms, arguing that Trump "not only meets the criteria of charismatic strongman" but "he exceeds them".[116]

Ruth Wodak has said that while Trump's rhetoric applies "salient discursive practices of fascism", it is not useful to lose oneself in "terminological debates", and instead encouraged greater study on Trumpism's socio-political, historical and situative contexts, along with the ideological positions of his close advisors such as Steve Bannon. Raul Cârstocea argues that Trump has "adopted fascist ideological or stylistic trappings without embracing fascism’s revolutionary impetus" and that whether or not Trump is a fascist is less relevant, as "Trump did radicalize the Republican Party considerably and he did mobilize actual fascists to seek a violent overthrow of the establishment" and that Trump may or may not represent a "2.0 version of analogue fascism for our digital post-fascist present".[117]

In Fascism in America, a book published after the January 6 attacks, Ruth Ben-Ghiat stated that "Trump can be called a fascist because he differed from any previous American president in having the explicit goal of destroying democracy at home, disengaging America from democratic international networks, and allying with the autocrats he admires, like Putin".[26] Ben-Ghiat further stated that she "started writing about Trump in 2015 because everything about him seemed familiar to me as someone who had studied fascism for decades: the rallies, the attacks on the press, the lying, the loyalty oaths, the declarations of violent intent, the need to dominate and humiliate".[118]

Invocations during the 2024 presidential campaign

Further information: Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign § Authoritarian and antidemocratic statements

Comparisons between Trump and fascism drawn by mainstream media increased substantially in 2023 and 2024,[119] and during his 2024 presidential campaign, a growing number of scholars, historians, commentators, politicians, former Trump officials, and generals described Trump as a fascist.[b]

 
 
Former Trump staff members John F. Kelly (left) and Mark Milley (right) have both described Trump as a fascist.
Voice of America coverage of comparisons drawn between Trump and fascism by former Trump staff.[120]

Trump was described as a fascist in October 2024 by John F. Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff during his presidential tenure. Referring to the definition of fascism as a far-right authoritarian ideology with elements of ultranationalism and a dictatorial leader, Kelly stated that Trump "certainly" meets the definition of a fascist,[99][121] making it the first time a president has been called a fascist by a former hand-picked top adviser.[122] Following the statements by Kelly, Karine Jean-Pierre stated that United States President Joe Biden agreed with the assertion that Trump is a fascist.[123] Kamala Harris, Biden's vice president and Trump's opponent in the 2024 election, also stated that she considers Trump to be a fascist.[124][125] Thirteen former Trump officials signed an open letter agreeing with Kelly's statements.[126] Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense under Trump, also agreed with Kelly, saying Trump meets the definition of a fascist and has fascist instincts.[127]

Additionally, Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described Trump as "fascist to the core".[128]

Cornel West has described Trump as a fascist.[129] Professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has openly defined Trump as a fascist.[130][131][132] The Economist said it was reasonable to describe Trump as a modern iteration of fascism.[133] Howard French agrees that Trump is a fascist but wonders whether it is the best message for Democrats to win the 2024 election.[134] Peter Baker described Trump as the president who most aggressively discredited democracy at home while embracing autocrats abroad.[122]

Criticism of the comparison

International Critical Thought stated in 2017 that the Trump's administration was not hegemonic nor fascist, but that it signaled the rise of a right-wing nationalist movement.[135] Benjamin R. Teitelbaum has stated he "unequivocally reject[s] using the term" fascist to describe Trump on epistemological and pedagogical grounds, viewing it as "an end of inquiry".[136] In a Guardian column, Jan Werner-Müller argued, that rejecting the label can be done while acknowledging the alleged dangers Trump creates to democracy.[137] Geoff Boucher, writing for The Conversation, argues Trump represents instead a 'new authoritarianism' that relies on administration instead of paramilitaries to subvert democracy,[138] a definition seconded by The Herald.[139] Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, a historian at Wesleyan University, in an interview with Historian Joshua Zeitz, stated while she thought Trump had an authoritarian and illiberal vision, she was unsure if Trump was a fascist, but that by "not framing him this way, it does not at all mean that he is not a threat".[140] Jacob Sullum argues in Reason that Trump's reckless (and in his view, disqualifying) authoritarian impulses are guided only by self-interest and that he is not ideological enough to be labeled a fascist.[141] Roger Griffin also argued that Trump displayed some but not all traits of fascism, and that his actions on January 6 were not those of a fascist leader but of an "ochlocrat".[142]

Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, some Republicans including vice presidential nominee JD Vance,[9] Stephen Miller,[143] and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.[144] argued that comparing Trump to fascism or Nazism could incite violence.[12][144] Susan Benesch, founding director of the Dangerous Speech Project, has called such comparisons "a pot calling the kettle black", and noted that Trump's continued use of inflammatory rhetoric against Democrats has not stopped.[145][146] In response to John F. Kelly and Mark Milley calling Trump a fascist, Vance dismissed their claims and characterized them both as "disgruntled former employees".[120]

Historian Richard J. Evans has rejected comparisons to fascism. In 2018 he wrote a negative review of both Albright and Synder's books as having a "vague and confused" view of what defines fascism.[147][148]

In 2020 Vox magazine contacted a group expert on fascism to for their view with most rejecting the comparison. Historian Stanley G. Payne said over the accusation of fascism:

This inquiry made a little sense four years ago, when Trump was still an unknown quantity, but now he has a record. Well — that’s pretty thin gruel. Nothing much to work with here. The Democrats won the first election under Trump [the 2018 midterms], and I’m not aware of anything negative happening. Straining at gnats doesn’t really get us anywhere. Mostly these are just silly public remarks. Hitler’s place in history is not based on his remarks, nor for any temporary detention cages. Please do not trivialize. That indicates absence of an argument.[149]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b From a poll of 2,392 registered voters; including 44% that describe "only Trump" as fascist and 5% that describe both Trump and Harris as fascists.
  2. ^ a b Attributed to multiple references:
    • Homans 2024: "No major American presidential candidate has talked like he now does at his rallies—not Richard Nixon, not George Wallace, not even Donald Trump himself."
    • Bender & Gold 2023
    • Lehmann 2023
    • Basu 2023
    • Cassidy 2023
    • Lutz 2023
    • Browning 2023
    • Kim & Ibssa 2023
    • Ward 2024: "It's a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology."
    • Applebaum 2024: "In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. ... The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the 'bloodbath' that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn't win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics. But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics."
    • Rubin 2024
    • Brooks 2024: "Trump, however, has also used the term fascist to describe Harris as he has doubled down on his insults against Harris and ratcheted up the intensity of his own rhetoric against political opponents. 'She's a marxist, communist, fascist, socialist,' Trump said at a rally in Arizona in September. Johnson and McConnell made no mention of Trump's rhetoric in their statement, keeping the focus on their political rival."
  3. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[19][20]

References

  1. ^ a b Langer, Gary; Sparks, Steven (October 25, 2024). "Half of Americans see Donald Trump as a fascist: POLL". ABC News. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  2. ^ Panton, Kenneth J. (August 23, 2022). "Trump, Donald John". Historical Dictionary of the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-2420-8.
  3. ^ "Presidential Election Results Map: Trump Wins". The New York Times. November 5, 2024. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
  4. ^ Blackburn, Simon (2016). "fascism". A Dictionary of Philosophy (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-873530-4. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  5. ^ Illing, Sean (January 29, 2021). "American fascism isn't going away". Vox. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  6. ^ Orwell, George (1944). "What is Fascism?". Tribune. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  7. ^ Jackson 2021, pp. 1–2.
  8. ^ a b Maher, Henry (2023). "Neoliberal fascism? Fascist trends in early neoliberal thought and echoes in the present". Contemporary Political Theory. 23 (3): 392–410. doi:10.1057/s41296-023-00657-x. ISSN 1470-8914.
  9. ^ a b c Runciman 2024.
  10. ^ Miller, Zeke; Long, Colleen; Eeggert, David (November 21, 2020). "Trump tries to leverage power of office to subvert Biden win". AP News. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  11. ^ Acemoglu, Daron (August 30, 2024). "The Trump Threat to Democracy Has Only Grown". Project Syndicate. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  12. ^ a b Chait 2024.
  13. ^ Cockburn, Patrick (November 4, 2020). "Trump's bid to stop the count risks turning America into an 'illiberal democracy' like Turkey". The Independent. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  14. ^ Connolly, William E. (2017). Aspirational fascism: the struggle for multifaceted democracy under Trumpism. Forerunners. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-5179-0512-5.
  15. ^ Neuborne, Burt (2019). When at Times the Mob is Swayed: A Citizen's Guide to Defending Our Republic. New Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-62097-358-5.
  16. ^ Colvin & Barrow 2023; Bender & Gold 2023; Stone 2023; Baker 2023
  17. ^ Ibrahim, Nur (December 5, 2022). "Did Trump Say Election Fraud Allows for 'Termination' of US Constitution?". Snopes. Archived from the original on May 31, 2023. Retrieved December 9, 2023. In sum, Trump posted on Truth Social that, what he believed to be, election fraud in the 2020 presidential election allows "for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." For that reason, we rated this claim "Correct Attribution."
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  19. ^ Ronaldi 2023; Graham 2023; Wren 2023
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  107. ^ Connolly, William E. (January 2017). "Trump, the Working Class, and Fascist Rhetoric". Theory and Event. 20 (1): 23–37. (...) My agenda today is to drill down into how the Trumpian politics of persuasion is joined to shock politics. First, to think more closely about the rhetorical power of the Trump phenomenon, second, to explore counter-rhetorical skills needed today and, third, to ask how to fold a larger section of the white working class once again into pluralizing, egalitarian movements that have largely forsaken them. Radicals, liberals and democrats have recently ceded large sections of that class to Trump. I treat it as axiomatic that counter movements of today must oppose exploitative race and class hierarchies with demands for sharp reductions in inequality, must counter the aggressive white territorial nationalism of Trump with the politics of pluralism and pluralization, and must counter the aggressive leadership principle that has been pursued (in different ways) by Trump, Putin, Hitler and Lenin with multi-tiered horizontal communications, charismatic democratic leadership, care for the earth, and concerted efforts to address class, race and gender hierarchies. (...) Perhaps we can gain preliminary bearings by listening to things Hitler said about the potent mixture he pursued of leadership, propaganda, and violence in Mein Kampf, a two-part book published in 1926 and 1927 when the Nazi movement was consolidating itself. I consult this text not because Trump is on a course that must end in death camps, or because the scapegoats he identifies are the same as those marked by Hitler, or because the institutional restraints against Trumpism are definitely as weak as those were against Hitlerism, or because Hitler launched a world war and Trump will necessarily lead us to a nuclear winter. The latter is indeed possible. But real differences between the two circumstances and drives must be kept in mind as we explore affinities in style and organization between them. (...)
  108. ^ Multiple sources:
    • Fattal 2018: "(...) Albright (...) acknowledged that fascism is hard to define. She pointed to a few signifiers: identification with a tribe or group and discrimination against those who aren't members; a lack of attention to democratic institutions; the use of propaganda and rallies where political opponents are vilified; and the encouragement of violence. (...) Goldberg pointed out that Albright indirectly references President Trump several times in her book; she mentions, for example, that one of Benito Mussolini's mottos was “drain the swamp."
      Goldberg asked Albright directly: Is Donald Trump a fascist? "He is not a fascist," she responded. “I do think he is the least democratic president of modern history." Trump, it seems, contributes to the petri dish: "His instincts are not democratic," Albright argued, pointing to his attacks on the press, "how he treats the judiciary," and his tendency to create "us-versus-them" divisions in his rhetoric. These are "tendencies that make me very nervous," she said. (...) Some readers of Albright's book had hoped she'd take a harder line in identifying the difference between a fascist and an almost-fascist. Asked by Goldberg what her “red line” is—at what point she'd turn to unequivocally calling someone a fascist—Albright gave a few metrics. She said that it depended on how much violence is involved, on the leader’s attempts to undermine democratic institutions, and on a sense the leader has that he or she is above the law. (That last one is a threat she suggested Americans should worry about, if Trump were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein or Special Counsel Robert Mueller.) (...)"
    • Wright 2018: "(...) The future of American politics is the subtext of Albright's book. "The elephant rampaging through these pages is, of course, Donald Trump," she writes. He won the Presidency "because he convinced enough voters in the right states that he was a teller of blunt truths, a masterful negotiator, and an effective champion of American interests. That he is none of those things should disturb our sleep, but there is a larger cause for unease. Trump is the first antidemocratic president in modern U.S. history."
      There are other worrying signs. The Economist's index—which factors in due process, individual freedoms, and space for civil society—reduced the United States' ranking from a full democracy to a "flawed democracy." In the early nineteen-sixties, more than seventy per cent of Americans told Pew researchers that they had faith in government "most of the time" or "just about always." In 2016, faith had sunk below twenty per cent. American politics is increasingly defined by contempt rather than a sense of common good.
      "We are becoming disconnected from the ideals that have long inspired and united us," Albright warns. "It doesn’t take much imagination to conceive of circumstances—another major recession, a corruption scandal, racial unrest, more terror incidents, assassination, a series of natural disasters, or a sudden plunge into an unexpected war—that might trigger a demand for answers that our Constitution, democracy's manual, is too slow to provide.""
    • Wagner 2018: "(...) Albright, who served during the administration of President Bill Clinton, appeared on the BBC's "Andrew Marr Show," where she was asked about her book "Fascism: A Warning" and whether she considers Trump to be a fascist.
      "I do not think he is a fascist," Albright said. "I do think he is the most undemocratic president in modern American history, and that troubles me." (...) "Fascism is hard to define, by the way," she told Marr, "but a fascist leader is somebody who identifies himself with one group, tribal of some kind, in order to really isolate and insulate the people that are disagreed with. Ultimately a fascist leader is somebody who uses violence to achieve what he wants."
      "So I do not think that Trump is a fascist leader," Albright continued, "but I think his attitude towards freedom of speech and the role of the media and his disregard for institutions worries me.""
    • Rawnsley 2018: "(...) She agrees that we ought to be careful not to casually throw around the F-word lest we drain the potency from what should be a powerful term. "I'm not calling Trump a fascist," she says. Yet she seems to be doing all but that when she puts him in the same company as historical fascists in a book that seeks to sound "an alarm bell" about a fascist revival.
      She frequently nudges the reader to make connections between the president of the United States and past dictatorships. She reminds us who first coined the Trumpian phrase "drain the swamp". It was drenare la palude in the original, Mussolini Italian. She quotes Hitler talking about the secret of his success: "I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me." Sound familiar?
      I suggest to her that the book struggles to offer a satisfactory definition of fascism. "Defining fascism is difficult," she responds. "First of all, I don't think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system."
      It is in his methods that Trump can be compared with, if not precisely likened to, the dictators of the 1930s. Fascists are typically masters of political theatre. They feed on and inflame grievances by setting "the people" against their "enemies". Fascists tell their supporters that there are simple fixes for complex problems. They present as national saviours and conflate themselves with the state. They seek to subvert, discredit and eliminate liberal institutions. She reminds us that they have often ascended to power through the ballot box and then undermined democracy from within. She is especially fond of a Mussolini quote about "plucking a chicken feather by feather" so that people will not notice the loss of their freedoms until it is too late.
      In her book, Trump is one nasty plucker. She labels him "the first anti-democratic president in modern US history". (...)"
    • Tennis 2018: "(...) "When I've gone around to talk to people they really do see that there is an elite group in the United States, that there are people that don't have jobs. And this is the part that really does worry me, if you have a leader who then blames it on somebody else, because part of the whole fascist aspect is you always have to find a scapegoat."
      In the United States, she added, President Trump portrays America as a victim, while scapegoating foreigners and immigrants. However, Albright would not call Donald Trump a fascist. Instead, she described him as the most un-democratic leader that the United States has ever seen. (...) [Includes link to video Fascism: A conversation with Madeleine Albright and Strobe Talbott, Friday Sep 07, 2018]"
  109. ^ Giroux, Henry A. (December 29, 2018). "Trump and the legacy of a menacing past". Cultural Studies. 33 (4): 711–739. doi:10.1080/09502386.2018.1557725. ABSTRACT: The inability to learn from the past takes on a new meaning as a growing number of authoritarian regimes emerge across the globe. This essay argues that central to understanding the rise of a fascist politics in the United States is the necessity to address the power of language and the intersection of the social media and the public spectacle as central elements in the rise of a formative culture that produces the ideologies and agents necessary for an American-style fascism. In this project, education is central to politics, which demands understanding and critically interrogating, in particular, the role of the conservative media in suppressing history, normalizing a discourse of racial hatred, and advancing the most poisonous elements of neoliberalism. The essay calls for a comprehensive notion of politics and education that draws from history, imagines a present that does not imitate the future, and employs a language of critique and hope in the service of building a new broad-based political formation. If fascism begins with language so does the possibility of a radical social imaginary in which to envision a democratic socialist order that both challenges the menacing momentum of a fascist politics and the savagery of neoliberal capitalism.
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  126. ^ "13 former Trump administration officials sign open letter backing up John Kelly's criticism of Trump". NBC News. October 25, 2024. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
  127. ^ "Mark Esper: Trump 'has those inclinations' toward fascism". Politico. October 23, 2024.
  128. ^ Cramer, Ruby (October 12, 2024). "Trump is 'fascist to the core,' Milley says in Woodward book". The Washington Post.
  129. ^ Cruz, Abby. "Cornel West claims there are 'crypto fascist elements' of Democratic Party and GOP is Trump-'hijacked' as he courts donors". ABC News. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  130. ^ Reich, Robert (June 17, 2023). "Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism". The Guardian. Retrieved November 3, 2024. (...) How do we describe what Trump wants for America?
    "Authoritarianism" isn't adequate. It is fascism. Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from – and more dangerous than – authoritarianism.
    To fight those ideas, it's necessary to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.
    Borrowing from the cultural theorist Umberto Eco, the historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, the political scientist Roger Griffin, and the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, I offer five elements that distinguish fascism from authoritarianism. (...)
  131. ^ Robert Reich, Donald Trump (August 8, 2023). Is Donald Trump a Fascist? (Internet video). Robert Reich. Retrieved November 3, 2024 – via YouTube.
  132. ^ Robert Reich, Donald Trump (March 19, 2024). How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook (Internet video). Robert Reich. Retrieved November 3, 2024 – via YouTube.
  133. ^ "Is Kamala Harris right to call Donald Trump a fascist?". The Economist. October 24, 2024. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  134. ^ French, Howard W. (October 30, 2024). "So, Is Trump Really a Fascist?". Foreign Policy. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  135. ^ Harris, Jerry; Davidson, Carl; Fletcher, Bill; Harris, Paul (December 14, 2017). "Trump and American Fascism". International Critical Thought. 7 (4): 476–492. doi:10.1080/21598282.2017.1357491. ABSTRACT: The election of Donald Trump reflects the rise of a Right-wing nationalist movement. Central to Trump's appeal has been his advocacy of anti-immigrant, racist, and misogynist ideas. At its core, his ruling power bloc consists of neo-liberal fundamentalists, the religious Right, and white nationalists. There are similarities between the new power bloc and fascism, and there are many who see Trump's administration as such. Nevertheless, the new president's authoritarian power bloc is neither hegemonic nor fascist, but such a definition can send oppositional strategy in the wrong direction.
  136. ^ Jackson 2021, p. 6.
  137. ^ Müller, Jan-Werner (October 29, 2024). "No, Trump is not a fascist. But that doesn't make him any less dangerous". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
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  139. ^ McGeoghegan, Mark (November 1, 2024). "Trump's no fascist, but he is just as dangerous to democracy". The Herald. Retrieved November 3, 2024. (...) The MAGA Republicans are what David Renton, historian of the British fascist and anti-fascist movements of the 1930s and 1940s, calls the New Authoritarians. Their politics start out looking like radical, but democratic right-wing populism. It is not until push comes to shove that they are revealed as anti-democratic extremists, as President Trump was when he encouraged the January 6 insurrection. (...) The New Authoritarians, however, hollow out democratic institutions from within. They pack the judiciary with loyalists, purge and disempower the legislature, undermine the integrity of elections, and transform the professional civil service into a personal, political vehicle. (...)
  140. ^ Zeitz, Joshua; Steinmetz-Jenkins, Daniel (October 29, 2024). "Trump and Fascism: A Pair of Historians Tackle the Big Question. The debate is more complicated than you think". Politico. Retrieved November 4, 2024. (...) This is where it's hard to parse, because the last thing the Democratic Party wants to do is to tell swing voters that they're potentially fascist. What they're trying to say is that the candidate is fascist, therefore don't vote for him. This is why it's risky, because it seems to be suggesting that maybe the people themselves who are voting for him are fascist, or if they are even thinking about voting for him, they are knowingly and willingly voting for a monster. And that can be alienating, I think, to voters. (...) I teach at a liberal arts school, everyone I know is terrified about what's happening. They do not want Donald Trump to be president of the United States. It's just how we go about managing to defeat him and the way that we do it, I think that is the issue. And as a historian who's trained in these areas, there's also a professional obligation. So I just want to make that point, that by not framing him this way, it does not at all mean that he is not a threat. (...)
  141. ^ Sullum, Jacob (October 30, 2024). "Trump is not thoughtful enough to be a fascist". Reason.com. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  142. ^ Jackson 2021, p. 15.
  143. ^ Samuels, Brett (September 16, 2024). "Anti-Trump rhetoric comes under scrutiny after golf course threat". The Hill. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  144. ^ a b Shabad 2024.
  145. ^ Hutzler, Alexandra (September 18, 2024). "Trump blames Democrats for heated environment despite his own inflammatory rhetoric". ABC News. Retrieved October 26, 2024.
  146. ^ Brooks 2024.
  147. ^ Evans, Richard J. (January 13, 2021). "Why Trump isn't a fascist". New Statesman. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
  148. ^ "Fascism and The Road to Unfreedom review – the warning from the 1930s".
  149. ^ "Is Trump a fascist? 8 experts weigh in".

Works cited

Further reading

  • "Once Top Advisers to Trump, They Now Call Him ‘Liar,’ ‘Fascist’ and ‘Unfit’" (Oct. 30, 2024) by New York Times
  • "Harris called Trump a 'fascist.' Experts debate what fascism is — and isn't" (October 29, 2024) by NPR
  • Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. (December 4, 2019). "An American Führer? Nazi Analogies and the Struggle to Explain Donald Trump". Central European History. 52 (4): 554–587. doi:10.1017/S0008938919000840. ABSTRACT: Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the US presidency in June 2015, journalists, scholars, and other commentators in the United States have attempted to explain his political success with the aid of historical analogies. In so doing, they have sparked a wider debate about whether the Nazi past helps to make sense of the US present. One group in the debate has contended that Trump's ascent bears a worrisome resemblance to interwar European fascism, especially the National Socialist movement of Adolf Hitler. By contrast, a second group has rejected this comparison and sought analogies for Trump in other historical figures from European and US history. This article surveys the course, and assesses the results, of the debate from its origins up to the present day. It shows that historians of Germany have played a prominent role in helping to make sense of Trump, but notes that their use of Nazi analogies may be distorting, rather than deepening, our understanding of contemporary political trends. By examining the merits and drawbacks of Nazi analogies in present-day popular discourse, the article recommends that scholars draw on both the German and American historical experience in order to best assess the United States's present political movement.
  • Robinson, William I. (March 2019). "Global Capitalist Crisis and Twenty-First Century Fascism: Beyond the Trump Hype". Science & Society. 83 (2): 155–183. doi:10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155. ABSTRACT: Global capitalism faces an organic crisis involving a structural dimension, that of overaccumulation and a political dimension of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule. Fascism, whether in 20th-century or 21st-century forms, is a particular response to capitalist crisis. Trumpism in the US, BREXIT in the UK, Bolsonarism in Brazil, the increasing influence of neo-fascist and authoritarian parties and movements around the world, represent far-right responses to the crisis of global capitalism. There are similarities but also important differences between fascist projects of the 20th and 21st centuries. The former involved the fusion of reactionary political power with national capital, whereas the latter involves the fusion of transnational capital with reactionary and repressive political power — an expression of the dictatorship of transnational capital. A fightback against the global police state and 21st-century fascism must involve broad anti-fascist alliances led by popular and working-class forces.
  • Colasacco, Brett (2018). "Before Trump: On Comparing Fascism and Trumpism". Journal for the Study of Radicalism. 12 (1): 27–53. doi:10.14321/jstudradi.12.1.0027. JSTOR 10.14321/jstudradi.12.1.0027. I have been contemplating a photograph of Donald J. Trump - businessman, bestselling author, and reality television star - shaking hands with Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the While House, one day after being declared president-elect of the United State. I fully confess that I was one of those who thought this image, and this moment, would never come: that Trump would not, could not, win the presidency. (...)
  • Love, Nancy S. (April 14, 2017). "Back to the Future: Trendy Fascism, the Trump Effect, and the Alt-Right". New Political Science. 39 (2): 263–268. doi:10.1080/07393148.2017.1301321. I started writing Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy following the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, and I finished it in 2015 shortly after Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In a police interview, Roof said that he wanted to start a race war and that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and racist skinheads were not doing enough. Fast forward to 2016. When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, many pollsters and pundits expressed surprise and, in some cases, also dismay. Pre-election polling proved stunningly inaccurate, and it increasingly appears that the alt-right contributed significantly to Trump's victory. (...)
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