There’s certainly discussion, mostly in academic circles, around if the current administration could be called “fascist”, vs fascism being too specific of a label to properly define or encompass the actions of this administration, but by most measures, this administration is a fascist one.
You could argue that maybe he’s too stupid to hold an actual coherent ideology, so he’s not a fascist, but his actions are just similar, or that because we still have the rule of law, he doesn’t have the same unilateral powers that fascists throughout history have held, but at the end of the day it’s more semantics than it is actually getting to a good definition that makes the most sense.
He tried to overturn a free and fair election, he regularly pins people’s problems on marginalized outgroups to deflect blame from his administration and its wealthy supporters, he’s drastically expanding the surveillance state and cracking down on free speech, he’s consolidating executive power with the goal of becoming a dictator, he’s filling the streets with armed thugs to carry out his will against innocent people, actively suppressing both individual AND collective rights for the supposed good of the country, and is actively putting people in camps.
Maybe there aren’t camps that are explicitly “you go here and we exterminate you” yet, maybe he hasn’t been capable of fully jailing every single person who even slightly disagrees with him, and maybe he hasn’t ethnically cleansed an entire population yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a fascist, especially when he continually moves further and further in that direction every day.
He’s fundamentally against democracy, wants to be a dictator, punishes those who oppose him with militaristic force and government surveillance, and continues to contribute towards the displacement and spread of violent rhetoric towards ethnic groups, all while destroying the lives of everyday people for the benefit of his wealthy allies. That is a fascist.
There’s certainly discussion, mostly in academic circles, around if the current administration could be called “fascist”, vs fascism being too specific of a label to properly define or encompass the actions of this administration, but by most measures, this administration is a fascist one.
You could argue that maybe he’s too stupid to hold an actual coherent ideology, so he’s not a fascist, but his actions are just similar, or that because we still have the rule of law, he doesn’t have the same unilateral powers that fascists throughout history have held, but at the end of the day it’s more semantics than it is actually getting to a good definition that makes the most sense.
He tried to overturn a free and fair election, he regularly pins people’s problems on marginalized outgroups to deflect blame from his administration and its wealthy supporters, he’s drastically expanding the surveillance state and cracking down on free speech, he’s consolidating executive power with the goal of becoming a dictator, he’s filling the streets with armed thugs to carry out his will against innocent people, actively suppressing both individual AND collective rights for the supposed good of the country, and is actively putting people in camps.
Maybe there aren’t camps that are explicitly “you go here and we exterminate you” yet, maybe he hasn’t been capable of fully jailing every single person who even slightly disagrees with him, and maybe he hasn’t ethnically cleansed an entire population yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a fascist, especially when he continually moves further and further in that direction every day.
He’s fundamentally against democracy, wants to be a dictator, punishes those who oppose him with militaristic force and government surveillance, and continues to contribute towards the displacement and spread of violent rhetoric towards ethnic groups, all while destroying the lives of everyday people for the benefit of his wealthy allies. That is a fascist.