When critics of Donald Trump assert that he is a “threat to democracy” and a “fascist,” his defenders often respond by scoffing. The implication is that the fascist claim is too extreme to be taken seriously. I agree that fascist is an extreme assertion — not to be made lightly.* But that doesn’t make it untrue. Extreme claims are sometimes deserved. This is one such case — as I have argued before.

Trump’s defenders (when they aren’t completely lying) typically offer two more specific arguments against labelling Trump as a fascist. Let’s take a closer look at each one — and see why each is wrong.

Things will be different (and worse) this time

The first argument is: “We survived Trump’s first term as President without our country succumbing to autocracy. Why should we think things would be different this time?”

Here’s why:

1. Yes, we survived the four years of Trump but not unscathed. There was (to cite just a few of the most salient examples) Charlottesville, the botched pandemic response, the separation of children from their parents at the border, the Muslim ban, hush money payments leading to a felony conviction, and two impeachments with the latter one centered on Trump’s actual attempt to overthrow our democracy — culminating in the violent insurrection on January 6.
2. Trump attempted to do much more damage than he accomplished. Among other things, he wanted the military to shoot George Floyd protesters in Washington in 2020. He was restrained by the military leaders and the people who worked for him…who now describe Trump as both a threat to democracy…and incompetent (yes, you can be both!). The problem going forward is that these people would not return to power with him — if he is re-elected. He will instead be surrounded by lackeys who will be eager to carry out his threats unrestrained.
3. Trump himself is worse now than he was four years ago. His threats are more dire and more explicit. At the same time, his cognitive abilities are markedly diminished. He can speak both of the “enemy within” and Hannibal Lector. Trump is telling us he intends to behave as a fascist. We should believe him.

In other words, the first Trump administration was not nearly the joy ride his defenders would like to claim. And there’s every reason to believe a second administration will be far worse.

The level of support for Trump is not a shield against claims of fascism

The second argument is: “Trump cannot be a fascist because half the country is supporting him.” How could so many people, so the argument goes, support someone if he was that dangerous?

Beyond the obvious circular fallacious reasoning of this statement — and beyond the excellent rebuttals offered in a New York magazine article — I would add one more: In 1933, Germany held its “last free and fair elections before the Nazis seized power the following year.” The Nazi party, with Hitler at its head, got 33% of the vote: over 11,700,000 people. While not a majority (because several parties were competing), the Nazis got a greater percentage of the vote than any other party. And it quickly led to Hitler’s complete takeover of the country. You know the rest.

So yes, it’s definitely possible to both be a fascist and have huge popular support. And yes, Trump can remain a threat to democracy even if his initial attempts at autocracy failed.

Addendum

* Trump is somehow held to a different standard. He uses the term with no sense of caution at all. He has accused Harris of being a “fascist” (and a “Communist”) — obviously with no evidence — so many times that people don’t even take notice anymore. This is just another example of Trump’s typical propensity for projection: accusing others of that which you yourself are guilty. That’s also how, with the deepest of irony and hypocrisy, GOP Congressional leaders can criticize Harris for her singular use of the term, with no reference to Trump’s much more frequent and baseless usage.

Trump is a fascist.

Period. Full stop.

That what John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving Chief of Staff, said. As if that wasn’t enough, Kelly added that Trump often spoke positively of Hitler and wished our generals were more like Hitler’s.

“Trump is a total fascist.”

That’s what retired General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Trump administration, said. For good measure, he added that the former president “is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

In case you’re wondering, a fascist is someone who: “exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

Trump is viewed as a fascist because these are the ideals he aspires to, as repeatedly evidenced by his own words and actions — most recently with his comments referring to people such as Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as the “enemy within” and promising he would punish them if he is elected.

Other members of the former President’s staff have chimed in to support Kelly’s and Millley’s assessments. These are not partisan attacks. These are heart-felt beliefs from people who worked with Trump and knew him best.

Trump’s defenders, as per usual, are trying to gaslight the country — telling them that Trump didn’t really say what he clearly said. It’s not working.

Vice President Harris has picked up this baton and is now running with it — stating that Trump is indeed a fascist.

This is shaping up to be her closing argument.

There is debate as to whether or not this is the best strategy. I believe it is definitely the right way to go.* However, it requires more than just name-calling. You have back it up with convincing evidence that Trump is truly the danger to this country that the label implies. I obviously believe you can.

Trump stands exposed. And Americans have a clear choice. Either you vote against Trump because you are against electing a fascist as President, no matter what your other policy preferences might be — or you’re okay with, and perhaps even prefer, the leader of our country be a fascist. Harris is correct to frame the stark choice this way.

Shockingly, given the lunacy of Trump supporters, I expect most of them will go with the latter. But surely there must be enough sane voters left to hand victory to Harris. If I am wrong, then I despair for the future of this country.

Addenda

* I don’t mean to suggest that the economy is irrelevant to how people vote. It obviously isn’t. As this New York Times article makes clear, many working class voters continue to view it as the decisive factor:

“Working people worry much more about payday than they do Jan. 6. Fair enough: But why turn to a lying, abusive billionaire to help them solve their economic problems? Their explanation is simple. Times were good when Trump was president.”

I could argue that they are wrong to not worry about Jan. 6. If Trump truly becomes a dictator, they won’t see a return to the country they yearn for. And I could argue that Trump isn’t likely to lead the way to a better economy in any case (most economists worry much more about a coming Trump economy than a Harris one).

But evidence suggests this will likely fall on deaf ears. Which is my point. At this stage of the campaign, Harris is unlikely to gain many new votes with a sole emphasis on her already-stated economic plans. The voters interviewed in this article are so obviously committed to Trump that nothing Harris could say about the economy would change their vote. My cynical self suspects that many of these people would be in Trump’s camp even if they felt Harris would be better for the economy. They are his “base.”

So yes, Harris should continue making her economic case. But I firmly believe that the primary hope for shifting any remaining votes is to stress the danger to democracy that Trump poses.

Update: October 27: New York Times columnist Janelle Bouie agrees with our assessment here, writing: “To my mind, it is now the only story worth telling about the 2024 presidential election. It should be the only thing Americans talk about between now and Nov. 5. And every one of Trump’s allies and surrogates should have to answer the question of whether or not they agree that their boss is a “fascist to the core,” as Milley put it.“

The cover of the October AARP Bulletin, pictured above, highlights an article where the two Presidential candidates’ respond to questions on a variety of issues, as asked in phone interviews with each one. The AARP informs readers that the article was edited for “clarity and length” and there was no fact-checking.

Aside from the absence of fact-checking, it sounds innocent enough. Potentially useful even.

So…what’s wrong with this picture? Why am I objecting to this article?

Because the article is guilty of two all-too-common journalistic sins — especially relevant when dealing with Trump. It’s not the worst-case example of these sins, but it’s still worth calling out.

Sin #1 is sane-washing — selective editing and choosing of headlines, designed to make Trump’s words and actions seem much more sane than they actually are. And thereby allowing him to be perceived as a more rational and acceptable candidate than he actually is.

That’s why, in my admittedly biased view, I object to the entire idea of this article. By presenting Trump and Harris as co-equals, without comment, it elevates Trump to a level he does not deserve.

To be fair, the article does expose Trump’s utter shallowness and incompetence — by simply quoting him. For example, when asked “How would you ensure that Americans have access to affordable high-speed internet?,” Trump replied:

“We’ll build out our internet system. Biden has done nothing. He’s done very little on that, but we’re going to build out our internet system. It’s moving. We had it really going along good, and then a lot of it was stopped, but we’re going to be building out our internet system. They have to have access.”

Really? Compared to Harris’ much more specific and cogent answer, Trump’s reply was a nonsensical embarrassment. And that is typical of Trump. Whenever you really listen to what he says, you realize he has no concrete policies. At best, he has assertions, not backed up with details nor tethered to reality. A few examples (from other sources):

• At his lone debate with Harris, Trump conceded that, even after 8 years of promising to entirely trash Obamacare, he still has no specific plan for what he would do instead. He has only “the concept of a plan.”

• Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, when asked what he would do about the cost of child care, his response was so rambling and incoherent that it became fodder for satire.

• Finally, during an interview with Bloomberg, Trump was challenged to defend his proposal to dramatically raise tariffs (something widely panned as dangerous by almost all economists). His reply was “ignorant of basic economic principles, insisting that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.”

A brief aside: The subject of tariffs never appears in the AARP article. AARP might want a pass here because their questions were very tightly focused on issues especially affecting older Americans (e.g., Medicare, Social Security). Still, older people will not be immune to the economic consequences of tariffs. And it is the linchpin of Trump’s economic platform. It could well have been included.

So, yes, I object to how the article — beginning with the picture on the cover — creates the impression that that each candidate has legitimate positions for you to consider. In most other presidential races, this would be an entirely reasonable, even laudable, thing to do. Because both candidates would have legitimate positions. But not in this one.

This segues into sin #2: The normalization of Trump — treating him as if he is a “normal” Republican and “typical” candidate for President — thereby providing “permission” to select his name on the ballot.

This gets to the most egregious aspect of the AARP interview: the critical questions that the article never asked. Specifically, there were no questions about threats to democracy, no questions asked about the Big Lie or January 6th, no questions about the appropriateness of a convicted felon running for office, Trump is completely let off the hook here. While one could again argue that these questions were beyond the scope of the AARP interview, doing so entirely misses the point:

In this particular election, the differing positions of the two candidates should not be the determining factor — because it is fundamentally not an election about positions. Rather, it is an election about the characteristics of the candidates themselves.

It is an election that demands you consider how anyone could vote for a candidate — Trump — who is so completely unqualified and totally unworthy of any elected position, least of all POTUS. What does it matter where Trump stands on crime or inflation or whatever — when he is a criminal who tried to violently overturn an election?

It is also an election about the candidates’ mental competence. And Trump’s substantial cognitive decline has been clearly on display for the past several months — perhaps only now getting the recognition it deserves. How can you vote for a candidate who, regardless of his stated positions, has descended into the depths of vulgarity and lacks even a modicum of self-restraint — to the point that the word “dementia” is being increasingly used to describe his current condition?

I can almost understand how the AARP might have felt it would violate its “nonpartisan” stance to delve into these matters. But I cannot stress enough: To ignore these matters is to sidestep what must be the defining issue in determining our next President. And, if this sidestepping ultimately contributes to a Trump success in November, it will have contributed to a catastrophic outcome for the country.

October 22: Several revisions were made.