By Grant Morrison | Staff Writer
What is a fascist?
The term has flown around the last few years and increasingly so in recent weeks. Both presidential candidates have described the other as being a fascist. But what does the word actually mean?
“There is no universal definition of fascism, but there are common characteristics to fascist movements,” Baylor history professor Ricardo Álvarez-Pimentel said. “The common denominator to all fascist movements is this belief in national rebirth, through ultranationalism expressed in populist terms.”
National rebirth has been a theme of former president Donald Trump’s campaigns since his first escalator ride nearly 10 years ago. Promising to make America great again, he called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
According to Trump, immigrants are not just a harm to the economy or public safety. Instead, “they’re poisoning the blood of our country.” He told Hugh Hewitt that some people are genetically predisposed to murder, and immigrants commit crimes because “it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
These phrases aren’t original to Trump. Rather, they have distinct historical context. The belief that there is such a thing as blood purity or a hierarchy of genetics in humans is a eugenic attitude.
“This idea that someone’s race determines specific aspects of their character, their health, their desirability as a citizen [is fascist],” Álvarez-Pimentel said. “This was the basis of the Nuremberg laws in Nazi Germany, where there’s this idea that Jewish blood is contaminating the German race.”
Trump said that Haitian immigrants “probably have AIDS,” and his running mate J.D. Vance claimed that legal migrants in Springfield, Ohio caused a spike in HIV cases. Public health officials in Ohio deny this being the case.
Recently, Trump has turned his aggressive rhetoric toward American citizens whom he considers enemies.
When asked by Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo if he expected a peaceful Election Day, he said:
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy within, not even the people that are coming in…. we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think it should be very easily handled by if necessary, by the national guard, and if really necessary, by the military… the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries… I got along great with all—I handled them.”
“What worries me is the ‘enemy within stuff,’ to the extent that it’s not focused on the illegal immigrants, but it’s focused on his political opposition,” Baylor political science professor Benjamin Kleinerman said. “There’s no place for that in America. This has come up as a theme often enough that it’s certainly a concern.”
The concept of “an enemy within” is a central tenet of fascism. Political discourse is the fundamental basis of democracy, including discourse one might disagree with. Criticism of power is protected by the First Amendment and is how a dialogue surrounding the future of a country ought to take place.
Trump doesn’t seem to agree.
In response to criticism of the Supreme Court, he said “these people should be put in jail, the way they talk about our judges and justices.” He re-posted an image of Congresswoman Liz Cheney on Truth Social with the caption “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
Another fascist characteristic of Trump is his denial of and disdain for democracy. He continues to claim victory in 2020 and portrays the “stolen” election as a crisis of democracy when in fact, no stealing took place.
“The idea that we had a fraudulent election in 2020 is an example of a manufactured crisis,” Álvarez-Pimentel said. “If you fabricate some sort of domestic crisis and you blame your political opponents… you are creating justification to go after those people whenever it is that you deem fit.”
Trump, if re-elected, has explicitly stated his desire to go after his opposition. He told Glenn Beck that he has “no choice” but to “lock people up.” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for 34 counts of civil fraud, “should be arrested and punished accordingly,” as should the judge who presided over the case.
Many of Trump’s former staff, including White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, think these claims should be taken seriously.
“I absolutely think he will follow up on those threats,” Grisham said. “I just know that once he’s in office with no guardrails, no reason to worry about reelection, and only the most fervent, loyal people surrounding him, he will absolutely make sure his enemies pay for what he perceives to be their crimes.”
Kleinerman said “the term fascist describes a political movement on the right involving concentrating power in one leader, who would rule in an authoritarian way, at the expense of some other group that was taken out of the political sphere.”
Trump has touted this concentration of power since his first nomination eight years ago.
“I alone can fix it,” Trump told the RNC in 2016. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023, he said, “I am your voice. Today I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
As Álvarez-Pimentel noted, the idea of an “enemy within” creates a permission structure for said retribution. When the former president says that if he loses “the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that,” how should we react? When he tells his rallies, “now if I don’t get elected… it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” should we hand-wave this away as just another “Trumpism?”
The last major plank of fascism is the dehumanization of certain groups in society. When he pledges to root out “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our own country,” he is using the same word used by Hitler and Mussolini used to describe their enemies.
If the evidence of Trump’s fascism is as overwhelming as it appears, then America is left with a complicated reality: in the next week, tens of millions of Americans will vote for him.
It will be for a variety of reasons: they believe he will fix the economy, repair the border, lower grocery and gas prices. There’s a chance they don’t realize the extent of his platform and rhetoric. I do not believe — rather, I desperately hope — that most of these Americans don’t believe in the fascist ideals that Trump espouses. But they’ll still be voting for those ideals.
This isn’t an election between conservatism versus progressivism. It’s between fascism and liberalism — the small “L” liberalism on which this country was founded, and the principles that it entails.
The principle that all humans are created equal, not that some are animals. The right to free speech, including the right to criticize power. The idea that we are a nation of immigrants and outsiders who came to a new land and fought for their freedom from tyranny, not that immigrants poison the blood of our nation with their “bad genes.”
When you cast your vote, consider the ramifications. Are you comfortable with a president who refers to American citizens as vermin? Do you feel safe knowing the man in charge proudly hopes to jail his adversaries? If Trump goes through with his promise to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history, will history be kind to the role that you played?
