The Recrudescence of Fascism
No need to split hairs—Trump’s a fascist
Donald Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
That’s not some left-wing activist or ivory tower academic talking—it’s Trump’s own former White House chief of staff, the retired four-star Marine Corps general John Kelly.
And it’s not just Kelly: former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Army general Mark Milley, described the former president as “fascist to the core.” Milley would know, having served as chairman when Trump mounted his failed coup attempt on January 6, 2021. Other Trump administration officials have noted the ex-president’s autocratic tendencies and proclivities; former secretary of defense Mark Esper, for instance, recently said Trump “certainly has those inclinations” toward fascism.
In short, these two retired generals have given us all permission to state the obvious: Trump is a fascist, running on an overtly fascist platform.
It’s far too easy to emphasize the many differences and downplay the similarities between Trump and the fascist political movements of interwar Europe, to claim that it can’t be fascism unless it happened in Italy or Germany between the world wars. But this hair-splitting mentality blinds us to what we see happening before our own eyes: the recrudescence of fascism in a postmodern, twenty-first century guise.
In the introduction to his new book Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich, the historian Richard Evans—author of the definitive three-volume history of Nazi Germany—explicitly asserts that studying fascism’s past can help us better comprehend our own present political predicament. Understanding why Hitler, the Nazis, and “otherwise normal people” launched, supported, or acquiesced to the bloodiest and most destructive war in human history has, he writes, “gained new urgency and importance” with the recent rise of “a class of unscrupulous populist politicians” around the globe. Delving into “the perverted morality that made and sustained the Nazi regime,” Evans argues, we can “perhaps learn some lessons for the troubled era in which we live.”
Fascism, in other words, is not merely a historical phenomenon but a present-day one as well —and it’s not hard to see why Trump has earned the epithet.
As the historian Robert O. Paxton notes, fascism is a matter of “subterranean emotions and passions” more than anything else. Deep and intense resentment over a community’s unjust present lot, an obsession with revenge and retribution against internal enemies believed responsible for this perceived national decline, a resort to criminality and especially violence to win or keep power, and a cult of personality that subordinates the nation’s interests to the will of a single leader all characterize a fascist political movement. Such policies and programs as may emanate from a fascist movement exist mainly to express this “nebula of attitudes.”
Alternatively, the description Evans provides for Hitler’s turgid manifesto Mein Kampf serves just as well as a succinct definition of fascism and its animating impulses: “an overpowering spirit of hatred and resentment, a murderous extremism, a ruthless disregard for ordinary human decency, and a cynical contempt for the conventions of political life.”
And Trump stands for little else beyond resentment and retribution. He has campaigned on three main issues, all of them falling easily under the classic fascist rubric in either motive or effect: high tariffs, mass deportation of millions of immigrants, and the use of either violence or the legal system to subjugate and silence political rivals. Tariffs, for instance, amount to a way for Trump to claim vengeance against trading partners—America’s long-standing allies in Europe and Asia in particular—that have supposedly swindled the United States. They’re also a way to bully or punish companies he sees as opposed to him and his will, all while eliminating the income tax and turning back the clock to the 1890s—the time Trump apparently sees as America’s golden age.
Far more disturbing and depraved are Trump’s stated plans for mass deportation of tens of millions of immigrants—both those who arrived in the country illegally and naturalized American citizens alike. (Indeed, Trump set up a task force to strip Americans of their citizenship in his previous term, and his ghoulish factotum Stephen Miller has promised a “turbocharged” effort in a second Trump term.) As he made clear during a Wisconsin rally, Trump’s impulses on this score remain classically fascist:
You gotta get these people back where they came from. You have no choice. You’re going to lose your culture, you’re going to lose your country, you’re going to have crime the likes of which nobody has ever seen before… If Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole.
Executing such a massive operation would almost certainly require an unprecedented use of law enforcement and, in all probability, the United States military. As the historian Timothy Snyder recently put it:
Such a huge mission will effectively redefine the purpose of law enforcement: the principle is no longer to make all people feel safe, but to make some people unsafe. And of course the diversion of law enforcement resources to deportation means that crimes will not be investigated or prosecuted. So some people will be radically less safe, but everyone regardless of [citizenship or immigration] status will in fact be less safe.
Mass deportation on this scale, Snyder notes, will also require “an army of informers” that inexorably leads to a nationwide culture of denunciation—all to extirpate a group of human beings Trump calls “vermin” and says is “poisoning the blood” of the country. For Trump and his acolytes, it’s irrelevant that uprooting so many people from the United States would wreck the national economy and cost the federal government tens of billions of dollars; the irrationality and stupidity of such monstrous plans are simply beside the point.
Trump’s mass deportation scheme would involve an enormous amount of coercion and violence against otherwise law-abiding individuals who have lived in the United States for decades, as well as many Americans whose citizenship not even Trump or his minions could call into question. What’s more, Trump has repeatedly promised to use violence, coercion, and intimidation against his domestic political rivals and opponents—those who Trump calls “the enemy within.” As the attempted coup of January 6 demonstrated, this is no idle threat; Trump has proven more than willing, able, and indeed eager to use violence to acquire and remain in power even after losing at the ballot box. (He characterizes those convicted of crimes on January 6 as “hostages” and “political prisoners.”) Indeed, Trump explicitly named Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, both Democrats from California, as domestic enemies worthy of retribution if and when he regains the White House. Not for nothing have polling places in states like Arizona and Georgia beefed up their election day security, deploying armed guards and drones to keep election deniers from disrupting the proceedings on November 5.
What’s more, Trump also has vowed to jail his political rivals—from former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on down to ordinary campaign workers and, indeed, voters. As the husband of Harris campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon posted, “I’d very much prefer my wife not to be imprisoned simply for working against Donald Trump.” Moreover, Trump has declared that a number of Democrats—including Vice President Harris herself—should not be allowed to run for office.
No wonder Trump envies autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—they’re able to do to their domestic political opponents what he would very much like to do to his own rivals.
Finally, like his fascist forebears, Trump has established a cult of personality that conflates his own narcissism and megalomania—and pecuniary interests—with the broader national interest. (It’s easy to see parallels with what Evans calls Hitler’s “vanity and narcissism” and “arrogance and overconfidence.”) He repeatedly portraysAmerica as a dystopian hellscape, all available evidence to the contrary, solely because he does not hold power; he proclaims that he alone can fix things. Then there’s Trump’s vulgar racism, as seen in his constant denigration of former president Barack Obama (“I don’t happen to think he’s a good speaker”) and Vice President Harris (“She’s a stupid person”) as well as his lifelong obsession with “good” and “bad” genes.
Trump doesn’t represent the only or even the first American political movement that can plausibly be deemed fascist. The Second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, Charles Lindbergh and the original America First movement that opposed entry into World War II, and George Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign could all quite reasonably be described as “fascist” in one sense or another. But Trump is the first to have actually seized control of a major American political party and held the reins of power in the United States—and the first major party nominee to have run on an openly fascist platform.
For almost a decade, Trump has blighted American public life. His elevation to the presidency would further debase and mutilate American politics and public life in horrific ways, perhaps permanently. So many Americans have proven willing to accept Trump’s deviance from the norm, none more so than a political press that seems alternately inured to Trump or eager to be entertained by him. Only now, as the 2024 presidential campaign reaches its end, have some in the political media noticed that they as an industry have held Trump to no standard whatsoever.
It's disturbing and distressing to contemplate the possibility that Trump may return to power after running on an explicitly fascist program. We can choose to avoid this bleak fate if we so desire—but we can’t plead ignorance and say we weren’t warned if we don’t.