What is fascism? A look at Donald Trump’s term

Former President Donald Trump was recently called a “fascist” by his former chief of staff John Kelly, his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris and prominent historian Robert Paxton.

Kelly, a former four-star Marine general and Trump’s former chief of staff, called his old boss a “fascist” in a New York Times interview.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: it is a far-right, ultra-nationalist, authoritarian ideology and political movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forced suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy Kelly told The Times. .

“So certainly, in my experience, these are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of leading America,” he added.

But for scholars who have long studied fascism, defining fascism is not so simple.

“We’re not just debating whether or not Trump fits that definition; we disagree on that definition,” Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Columbia University’s Barnard College, told ABC News in an interview.

There is no academic consensus on the term, according to both Berman and Mark Bray, a political scientist at Rutgers University. That’s in part because fascists have historically not been bound by “rational coherence,” Bray said, pointing to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler whose political positions have they changed on several occasions.

For Berman, fascists are totalitarians aiming not just to control politics, but to reshape society and control the economy.

“These were inherently violent movements,” Berman said. “They didn’t just use violence as a means to gain power or to go out and conquer other parts of the world, they believed that violence was an end in itself. It had this sort of cleansing and empowering aspect that would again contribute to a kind of change in society, in the change of the individuals that make up society.”

RELATED: John Kelly comes out to Trump and says he fits the definition of “fascist”.

Fascism, according to Bray, is rooted in a desire “to return to an imagined past where natural hierarchies were respected, hierarchies around nationalism, gender or race, and aims to use mass popular politics to get there, with an emphasis on violence” rids society of its undesirable elements.

Among historians and political scientists, it’s a matter of debate whether they think Trump fits the bill.

In a New York Times interview published on October 23, Paxton said the January 6 Capitol uprising removed his reservations about calling Trump a fascist.

However, he said that focusing on the leader of a movement rather than the masses from which it grew is a mistake.

“The Trump phenomenon seems to have a much more solid social base” because Hitler and Mussolini were appointed rather than elected officials, Paxton told The Times. “Which neither Hitler nor Mussolini would have had.”

Bray believes there is a distinction between Trump and “Trumpism” as a political movement and the similarities to fascism.

“I would unequivocally call Trumpism a kind of 21st-century American fascism,” Bray said, arguing that Trump’s most ardent fans may see themselves as “victims who must push the limits of democratic politics … (using) redemptive violence to take their country or nation or their society back’.

Bray believes that Trump’s relationship with his supporters has radically affected his politics: “I think those initiatives become stronger and are more sincere from the grassroots of Trumpism at the state level, at the county level.”

Bray does not call Trump a fascist in the traditional sense, given that he does not embrace all the ideals of a historical fascist. For example, fascists have historically rejected free market capitalism, unlike Trump.

Instead, Bray calls Trump a “fascist” — “I think the term fascist suggests that he’s more of an ideologue of this than I think he really is,” Bray said.

Berman does not consider Trump a fascist, instead calling him “anti-democratic” and “authoritarian.” However, she added that this does not mean his encouragement of violence — such as his comments about using National Guard troops to go after “radical left-wing crazies” or his nativist rhetoric and plans to deport millions of immigrants without acts — do not align with fascist tendencies. .

The ongoing debate also questions whether it’s useful to use the term when discussing Trump and modern politics.

Berman argues that terms should “help you understand the phenomenon being described,” and the confusion and mystification surrounding the term has only clouded its impact.

“The reason I prefer to point out the anti-democratic and illiberal aspects of it is … it gives citizens something very concrete to focus on,” Berman said, pointing to specific Trump policies and plans. “It helps them understand what the danger is when you see someone as a fascist.”

Paxton agreed with that sentiment in his NYT interview, arguing that overuse dilutes the meaning — “I think there are ways to be more explicit about the specific danger that Trump is,” he said.

In an Oct. 23 town hall on CNN, Harris called Trump a “fascist” and said Kelly’s criticism of him was an effort to issue a “911 call to the American people.”

Later in the town hall, Harris called Trump a “fascist” while answering a question about Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza (which Harris called “innocent”) and voters choosing to stay home or protest votes against the war, arguing that many are not single-issue voters.

“But I also know that a lot of people who care about this issue also care about lower food prices,” Harris argued. “They also care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

On Truth Social, Trump criticized Harris for her comments, instead calling Harris a “threat to democracy. However, he falsely claimed that she referred to him as Hitler.

“Comrade Kamala Harris sees she’s losing and losing badly, especially after stealing Crooked Joe Biden’s Race, so now she’s ramping up her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler and whatever else comes her way. warped mind,” Trump said. “She is a threat to democracy and unfit to be President of the United States – And her polling shows it!”

ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for further comment.

ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.