Fascism: A Word That Matters Here and Now

Words matter in life generally and politics particularly. They are the medium of thought, the means of sensemaking, the vehicle of communication and persuasion. They shape us collectively and individually.

Words, political scientist Francis Beer writes, are “the defining framework for political authority” and “a primary means of motivating political actors.” Our physical and verbal worlds are interconnected and “inseparable,” thus “the political importance of language”: political rhetoric carries and constructs meaning that shapes conduct.

Verbal action “operates parallel to” nonverbal action in multiple ways, Beer notes, formulating and conveying perception, memory, history, story, myth, and message, differentiating friend from foe, articulating preferences, describing trends, developing plans, policies, and strategies, expressing feelings, structuring motives, and constructing identities, interests, and hierarchical relations. In these ways, words matter for citizens, not just political leaders.

Language is structured and structuring, settled and dynamic. It enables us to stabilize and communicate meaning but also to reflect thoughtfully on the key terms of our discourse, to describe, critique, destabilize, revise, and apply them productively as circumstances warrant. As linguistics professor Sally McConnell-Ginet illustrates in Words Matter: Meaning and Power (Cornell University Press, 2020), words are politically potent means of domination but also cooperation, of oppression but also resistance, because their significance can be unsettled and reassigned. Thus, we might come to see their application in new and unexpected ways.

The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.

The word "fascism" is a case in point. A label we are not accustomed to associating with American governance, it is increasingly featured in critiques of the Trump administration’s authoritarianism as a way of both describing and rallying resistance to Trump’s escalating overreach and oppression.

A conventional definition of fascism, drawn from the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition), is “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”; the same entry defines fascism succinctly as “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.” (A Fascista refers to “a member of an Italian political organization under Mussolini governing Italy 1922–1943 according to the principles of fascism.”)

Benito Mussolini is the embodiment of fascism in our collective memory along with Adolph Hitler, Germany’s more brutal Nazi Führer, and to a lesser extent the Japanese militarists allied with Germany and Italy in World War II. The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.

Yet the seeds of fascism sprouted in US soil during the years leading up to World War II. One notorious example of American Nazi proclivity occurred on February 20, 1939, when over 20,000 people attended a Madison Square Garden rally sponsored by the pro-Hitler German American Bund, one of several pro-Nazi organizations in the US. Film footage of the event was compiled in 2017 by documentarian Marshall Curry “as a cautionary tale to Americans.”

The Bund, as Sarah Kate Kramer recounted in 2019 on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” was “one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology, and American patriotism.”

At the Madison Square Garden rally, swastikas were on full display complete with a 30-foot tall portrait of George Washington (modeling him as America’s first fascist), US and Nazi flags, Nazi arm bands and salutes, martial drummers and music, the American national anthem, a German-accented pledge of allegiance, and a “vigilante police force dressed in the style of Hitler’s SS troops.” Speakers called for a return of the country to the rule of true American white gentiles. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund’s leader, opened his speech with the call to “Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it!”

New Yorkers, numbering 100,000, protested the event; the US government took steps to suppress the Bund after the rally; and the Bund met its demise with Germany’s declaration of war on the US. Yet, as Kramer concludes, “the white supremacist ideology they championed remains.” Indeed, the 1939 Bund rally has been cited as precedent for the violent August, 2017 “Unite the Right” white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Nazi outburst in pre-war Depression years grew out of a history of American authoritarianism. The Bund rally in Madison Square Garden is one of the country’s own fascistic precedents.

Trump was President in 2017 when the Charlottesville rally occurred, a rally that turned violent and that the Virginia state police declared unlawful. It consisted of neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, and far-right militias. Some carried weapons, some chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, some carried Confederate battle flags. Violence occurred when the protesting marchers engaged counter protesters. A white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter protesters, killing one woman and injuring 35 other people. Trump condemned “the display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides” and subsequently said there were “very fine people on both sides” and “blame on both sides,” suggesting an equivalency between the two sides for which he was roundly criticized. (See “Unite the Right Rally” on Wikipedia for a detailed account of the rally.)

There has been no hedging by Trump since he took office for a second term on January 20, 2025. He stated during his campaign that he intended to be a dictator on Day 1, an intention that has extended in quick order from Day 1 forward. An onslaught of executive power overwhelming Constitutional checks and balances and assaulting democratic principles was immediately recognized by critics as the work of an authoritarian and increasingly is seen as fascistic.

The difference between authoritarianism and fascism is largely a matter of degree. An authoritarian expects blind submission and a concentration of power unhampered by responsibility to a people who are allowed only restricted political freedoms. A fascist is an extreme right-wing authoritarian with totalitarian propensities, pursuing total control over the state while propagandizing a racist brand of nationalism and viciously suppressing dissent. Acting as a right-wing populist, the fascist demagogue claims to “represent” the people and actively mobilizes their sometimes-violent support.

As Robert Longley recently put the matter of fascism:

The foundation of fascism is a combination of ultranationalism—an extreme devotion to one’s nation over all others—along with a widely held belief among the people that the nation must and will be somehow saved or “reborn.” Rather than working for concrete solutions to economic, political, and social problems, fascist rulers divert the people’s focus while winning public support by elevating the idea of a need for a national rebirth into a virtual religion. To this end, fascists encourage the growth of cults of national unity and racial purity.

Further, Longley and others report, fascist (or neo-fascist) dictators typically extol militarism and promote military readiness, assert dominance over other countries, undertake aggressive military actions, engage in territorial conquest and expansion, suppress domestic opposition (with police and military force, propaganda, and/or mass violence), attack universities, advance state-controlled corporate capitalism with protectionist policies such as tariffs, aim for national self-sufficiency, portray themselves as defenders of traditional Christian family values, manipulate elections to remain in power, and cultivate a cult of personality in which the dictator symbolically embodies the nation.

By this account, Trump—followed by his MAGA cult—is no less than an aspirational neo-fascist pursuing policies that closely resemble fascism. Some experts have maintained that he is better described as an authoritarian; other experts, including Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, have fled to Canada in the belief that the US is becoming a fascist dictatorship. Serena Dash, writing for the Fordham Political Review, concluded that “after the first month of Trump’s second term, no doubt should remain of whether or not the ‘fascist’ label applies.” It does.

The fascistic trajectory of Trump’s rule is manifested in his actions since Day 1. Some glaring examples include military occupation of cities governed by elected Democrats; deployment of masked ICE agents by the massively funded Immigration Enforcement and Customs agency and its growing prison system; defying court orders; attacking universities to undermine academic freedom, dictate curriculum, and bar student protests; aggressive gerrymandering and other election maneuvering to retain power; repressing news media for unfavorable news coverage, editorials, and programing; targeting critics for federal prosecution; imposing his will on key industries in the private sector, including keeping track of which corporations are loyal to him and therefore candidates for tax and regulatory benefits and exclusion from federal lawsuits; enriching himself at the public’s expense; and so on.

Fascism is no longer a word relevant only to other countries and applicable to a threat from abroad. As Serena Dash observes:

The discourse around Donald Trump being a fascist is not just an academic exercise; it is essential for recognizing and addressing the potential dangers he poses to democratic institutions and social equality and knowing how to combat it. The utility of using a term like “fascism” is that it has successfully been thwarted and fought before.