The debate over whether Trump is ‘fascist’ misses the point

Is Donald Trump a fascist or isn’t he? His critics say he is, his supporters say he isn’t. There’s no surprise in that.

A recent commentary by "Liberal Fascism" author Jonah Goldberg captures the nub of the problem: “For every voter who wants Trump to be a ‘fascist’ … there are probably dozens, or hundreds, or, most likely, tens of thousands of Trump voters who think it’s unfair to call him an authoritarian, never mind a fascist. Why? Because they don’t think he is one and don’t want him to be one.”

As described by Goldberg, the debate can only wind up in a dead end. I think so-and-so is a fascist (or democrat, liberal, communist, conservative); you don’t. And that’s that.

Is there no way to resolve this disagreement? Are we doomed to talk past each other? Yes, but only if the term remains an undefined epithet. After all, how can we say that someone is a fascist if we don’t know what fascism is?

Perhaps academics who have studied fascism can help. Here are a few of their definitions:

Hans Buchheim: “The essence of fascism is rebellion against freedom.”

Adrian Lyttleton: “Fascism, reduced to its essentials, is the ideology of permanent conflict.”

Michael Mann: “Fascism is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.”

Stanley G. Payne: “Fascism may be defined as a form of revolutionary ultra-nationalism for national rebirth that is based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, positively values violence as end as well as means and tends to normalize war and/or the military virtues.”

Robert O. Paxton: “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity.”

Roger Scruton: “Fascism is characterized by the following features ... nationalism; hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to the values of the liberal enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and admiration for his special qualities; a respect for collective organization, and a love of the symbols associated with it, such as uniforms, parades, and army discipline.”

Non-academic readers may be forgiven for finding much of this verbiage unhelpful. Is fascism an ideology, a rebellion, a form of nationalism, a movement, a behavior or a regime? Can these different definitions be reconciled? Do they have anything in common, a core perhaps?

Clearly, fascism is a form of authoritarianism. We can agree on that. And as Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany attest, fascism always features a charismatic leader with a cult of personality. We can agree on that too.

Everything else isn’t typical only of fascism. Fascism may have a variety of ideological obsessions about nationalism, freedom and conflict, but non-fascists and antifascists do too. Communists also rebel against freedom, as do religious fundamentalists. American liberals have been accused of extreme elitism. Scouts love uniforms. And who doesn’t love a parade?

In my own academic work, I have defined fascism minimally as “a popular, fully authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leader.” And I’ve also argued that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is obviously an authoritarian dictatorship led by a charismatic leader with a personality cult and may therefore legitimately be termed fascist. My claims have not gone unchallenged, but a growing number of Russians and Westerners find the term accurate and useful.

May we also argue that Trump is a fascist? Well, we know he’s charismatic and enjoys genuine popular support. He’s also constructed a personality cult that emphasizes his hypermasculinity and genius. So, he meets the criteria for half the definition. But does he also support a fully authoritarian form of rule? Do his supporters?

Many of his statements and their actions suggest that the answer is yes. On the other hand, his behavior in his first term of office suggests that he mostly plays by the democratic rules of the game. Will he play by those rules in his second term, or will his rhetoric get the upper hand?

The only way to answer that question is to keep looking closely at Trump’s behavior. Fortunately, a variety of Western think tanks assess degrees of freedom and democracy in the world. Their metrics amount to a checklist that enables us to track movement toward or from democratic institutions. We would do well to apply them rigorously to the second Trump administration. Is it weakening democratic institutions or is it strengthening them?

At present, we can point to worrying authoritarian inclinations, trends and tendencies, but we should resist calling Trump a fascist. That said, the direction his rhetoric and behavior have recently taken is toward, and not from, authoritarianism and charismatic leadership. Things may change if he and his colleagues decide to abandon attempts to centralize power in his hands or if America’s democratic institutions prove too strong to resist his assaults.

In the final analysis, the term is less important for policymakers and citizens than the components that constitute it. Let academics duke it out over abstruse definitions. If we can agree that authoritarianism headed by a charismatic leader with a personality cult is dangerous for democracy, then it matters little whether we call that kind of political system "fascist" or "shmacist."

All that matters is that Trump’s second term fall short of completing the definitional checklist.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”