Is Trump A Fascist?
The answer tells us a lot.
Is Donald Trump a fascist? Yes, he is. But just calling him fascist is reductive. The word has lost its meaning in political discourse, particularly in America. It is now a functionally useless label. Instead, we need to understand why Trump is a fascist, how that has enabled him to rise to power, and what this means for the next four years. Only then can we ensure the future is bright.
Let’s start at the beginning. What is fascism? Well, it is hard to define.
Firstly, many confuse fascism with despotism, or being a dictator. This is why some people will point to Trump winning the 2024 election as evidence that he is not fascist. But fascism isn’t despotic from the get-go. Mussolini, who started the first explicitly fascist party in 1921, clearly demonstrates this point. He won the Italian 1924 general election by a wide margin through voter intimidation. Once in power, he disbanded democracy and became a dictator. His fascism preceded his despotism.
Even though fascism is over a century old, we have yet to get a solid definition. Unlike other political movements, fascism isn’t defined by a set of morals or political goals. In fact, many widely accepted political movements, such as populism, share political stances with fascists. This is why many dictionary definitions of fascism are useless.
In reality, fascism isn’t a pure political ideology. Instead, it more closely resembles a technique of manipulating culture to accumulate power, which devolves into a corrupt political ideology. This means fascist movements differ pretty dramatically from culture to culture. That being said, because all cultures share common ideological underpinnings, all fascists share common behaviours that underscore their veiled doctrine, and political philosophers have used these to define and identify them.
One of the best and most succinct of these definitions comes from Yale Professor of Philosophy Jason Stanley. In his 2018 book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Stanley states that fascism is a “cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists, minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation.” He further strengthened the definition by stating that a “[fascist] leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.”
Trump perfectly meets this definition in rhetoric, action, and past-implemented policy. I’m sure you can think of a thousand instances when he displayed these behaviours. But nonetheless, let’s quickly jog your memory with some recent examples.
Trump has claimed that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” along with spouting a whole host of false, racist, and eugenic claims about immigrants. One of the most prominent of these is his version of the “Great Replacement” theory, which falsely claims Democrats are letting in hordes of illegal immigrants to flood the polls with blue ballots and swing elections in their favour. On top of this, he has called Kamala Harris Marxist, along with pretty much every single one of his political rivals, despite none of them having any communist rhetoric, policies, or history. He even called those within his administration, such as General Milley, whose job it was to hold him to account and moderate him, a traitor. One of Trump’s central 2024 campaign policies was that he would use the military to rapidly deport up to 20 million immigrants, just under 3% of the current population, to solve the false crisis he has invented.
So, Trump applies the othering and self-positioning techniques described by Stanley. These are incredibly effective, as they take advantage of a nation’s struggles in the face of a multitude of interconnected, complex issues and obfuscate them with basic scapegoats. It also paints Trump as the only one able to tackle this make-believe threat, as even his former allies have apparently failed, and only he can take the extreme actions needed. Together, this creates a simple myth for his followers to nuclease around.
But you can only grow a following if they continue to believe these lies, which takes an entire ecosystem of people and organisations to reinforce. Trump has this in spades, from Elon Musk pushing pro-Trump misinformation on X to media figures like Tucker Carlson using laughably terrible logic and lousy journalistic integrity to act as Trump’s mouthpiece. This has spurred a small army of devotees to parrot these false talking points in every method of social interaction, further deepening the echo chambers in our modern world.
In other words, Trump not only has the cult described by Stanley but possibly the most potent cult on the face of the planet today. This means Trump perfectly fits a well-respected modern definition of fascism.
However, other definitions go further, like Stanley G. Payne’s, which insists these movements must have “fascist goals,” such as creating a nationalistic dictatorship. As such, fascist movements push to give their leader “absolute power” and subvert or dismantle democratic processes through force and manipulation, all in the name of saving the nation. Trump and his supporters have enacted every one of these. The judges he appointed to the Supreme Court have given him wide-reaching presidential immunity, effectively giving him unbridled power and a position above the law. They did this to protect him from being prosecuted for inciting a violent coup, which was his final push to overthrow the 2020 election in the name of “protecting the nation” from an evil cabal trying to subvert his victory, which he demonstrably lost.
As such, Trump is undeniably fascist. It doesn’t matter that he was elected into power. It doesn’t matter that he has a track record of not fully delivering on his extreme rhetoric. How he has gained power and increased his individual power is textbook fascism.
Okay, so why does this matter? Americans aren’t stupid. The vast majority of Trump’s voters know he has used lies and manipulation to gain power, yet they voted for him anyway. They obviously want this, so does it matter that Trump is fascist?
Yes. Yes, it does.
Calling him a fascist enables us to push past his lies and unveil his true intentions. Only then can we see how horrific his leadership can be and how we can stop this downward spiral.
Trump’s flavour of fascism is based on American ultra-conservatism and America’s culture of the individual.
American ultra-conservatives aim to deepen the status quo, and Trump’s political movement heavily leaned on this. As a result, Trump’s victory, despite his unpopularity, shows how scared and hurt the American people are. They are voting to try and keep what they have left in the face of change.
However, what Trump offers isn’t the status quo; it’s merely presented as it. Instead, he actually pushes the opposite, a dramatic shift away from regulated, fair democracy and towards unmitigated individual power over the majority.
Unbridled individualism over the collective is a core part of American culture. Almost every cultural touchstone of the country, from art to movies and even social structures, enforces this concept. Its founders used it to legitimise breaking away from the British Empire and adopting democracy. It was used to justify the genocide of the native population and the barbaric use of slaves. In modern times, it has been used to push America’s growing wealth disparity and economic exploitation over much of the world.
Trump is a twisted, extreme caricature of this concept and has been for decades. His entire raison d’être is openly attaining personal enrichment at any cost to the collective. His pushing for unrestricted presidential immunity, his failed attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, and even Project 2025 all aim to give him concentrated executive power and reach near dictator status. Indeed, some are worried Trump will be able to dismantle or totally subvert American democracy and become a genuine dictator.
In many cultures, this would be detestable. But to many Americans, these actions make Trump seem to embody a warped version of the “American Dream.” That is how he can sell his extreme shift to authoritarianism as deepening the status quo, appealing to American conservatives and those fearing for the future.
But what will Trump do with this unrestricted power? Will he help the people he claims to care for? No. That would require him to completely change his ideology and morals. Instead, he will continue to hoard more power and riches at the cost of everyone else, as he always has done. Because, at the end of the day, that is why Trump is in politics and a fascist, as it gives him power and wealth like no business can.
This is why it matters that we call him a fascist.
Fascism is a dead end. The falsehoods of its foundation will eventually crumble, taking the nation down with it. History is painfully clear on that. Calling Trump a fascist highlights this. It describes how Trump is on a dogged, manipulative mission to enrich himself at the cost of every other American’s wealth and freedom. But it also highlights how to stop this horrific future from coming true. People only support fascists when they are deeply hurting and feel they have no other option. If Trump’s political rivals make them feel heard, understood, and helped, then all of this will disappear, and America can heal.