Yes, Trump really is a fascist

Yes, 45th/47th POTUS Donald J. Trump is a fascist on an objective basis, something to be explained führer – er, further – below, but even more broadly than the grotesque homunculus currently dwelling in the White House, it’s time to come right out and admit it: America is the philosophical birthplace of modern fascism, spawning multiple fascist movements and electing at least one fascist as U.S. President prior to Trump.

Speaking with a friend recently made me realize that one could argue that the United States of America has long favored key aspects of a fascist society, perhaps just ebbing and flowing in the extremity of that fascism. For instance, it’s worth acknowledging that the early Nazis in Germany actually modeled some of their most gruesome policies on examples from the United States, including:

The State of Indiana, who enacted the first instance of eugenics-based compulsory sterilization in history into law in 1907.
The American South, who pioneered the apartheid Jim Crow legal system which Nazis mirrored in their laws targeting Jews and other minorities.
America’s national legacy of genocide in the name of Manifest Destiny, providing inspiration for the Third Reich’s goals of claiming “breathing room” for the German people by exterminating the existing folks on adjacent lands.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was arguably a fascist himself and implemented policies which not only inspired Hitler but some which were inspired by him.

It may be more accurate, then, to label Trump as the first openly fascist President: although he and his cronies may not like the term itself, they seem far more willing to admit to all of the individual behaviors which define a fascist regime than any prior U.S. Presidential Administration.

That same friend referenced above, a MAGA enthusiast, also loves to dodge questions about Glorious Leader’s affinity for fascism by asking the bad faith question, “well what is fascism, anyway?” Therefore, I intend to use my desire to provide him with a point-by-point rebuttal as an excuse to provide the wider public with a breakdown as to why Donald J. Trump is, objectively, a fascist.

To do so, I will be using The 14 Characteristics of Fascism as defined in Dr. Lawrence Britt’s article Fascism anyone? in the Spring 2003 issue of Free Inquiry magazine to organize my proof points of the Trump Administration’s fascistic behavior.

Unlike other modern political ideologies like Communism, which have prescriptive designs laid out by a central founder like Karl Marx from which one can draw direct parallels to the corresponding modern belief system, fascism requires more of a descriptive assessment: although the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and other fascists resembled one another in many key respects, there is no such singular belief system shared across their regimes (other than a shared desire for absolute power among the leaders themselves). Instead, then, one must study the activities and attributes of these prior fascist regimes and compare them to the activities and attributes by modern regimes, assessing them against a sort of “fascism checklist” – in this case using one which Dr. Britt has already defined for this purpose.

Furthermore, although I could theoretically go back to Drumpf‘s first term or his horrendous sideline commentary during Genocide Joe’s term, I have made an attempt to only reference occurrences within the past year (since approximately October 2024) to emphasize the continuing relevancy and urgency of this assessment.

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Make America Great Again, or MAGA, is a rather perfect encapsulation of this attribute – despite, as I alluded to above, it being debatable that America ever truly was great in any of the ways we all might hope it to be – in that Trump is constantly harking back to American times of yore when we Americans supposedly sat atop a global throne in a misery free utopia.

However, there are also more recent, tangible, and stupid examples to point to among the Trump Administration’s actions since his inauguration in January 2025:

Trump’s asinine renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America via an Executive Order with a name that would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.
In fact, that same Executive Order contained another renaming mandate, that of the reversion of Mount Denali’s name to Mount McKinley, taking the opportunity to highlight President McKinley’s assassination and that he “gave his life” for the country (an allusion to the regime’s obsessions with both crime and punishment and national security, to be discussed later).
Trump’s hilariously underwhelming $250 million birthday parade through Washington DC for himself which he thinly veiled as a celebration of the military, but raw nationalism was certainly the cover story.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

The Trump administration entered office in January with an altogether new level of malice and animosity towards four particular groups already fighting for recognition of equal rights:

Immigrants, both documented and undocumented

His Executive Order on January 20, 2025 – “Protecting The American People Against Invasion” – really sets the tone for his administration’s opinion of immigration, generally, positioning it as an “invasion” rather than a peaceful migration of free peoples, many of whom are fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries. Using such terminology is both inherently adversarial and dehumanizing.
In an unprecedented ramp-up of a paramilitary force effectively under White House control, Drumpf railroaded the One Big Beautiful Bill through Congress, stripping millions of Medicare and Medicaid coverage while simultaneously providing $45 billion to a Gestapo-esque agency that should have never existed in a supposedly “free country” such as ours, anyway.
Although his numbers pale in comparison to Obama’s deportation numbers (those stylish suits just made the fascism go down a little smoother, you know?), Trump has managed to be a whole lot more savage and inhumane with his deportation methods – such as leaving a toddler unattended in the backseat of a car after snatching his parents – something which should be self-evident to any human being with a conscience, but apparently eludes many Americans.

People of color, regardless of citizenship

One of the most troubling aspects of ICE’s enforcement actions under Trump II has been the wanton disregard for actual citizenship, frequently disregarding legitimate documentation and imprisoning American citizens with impunity (and without any form of accountability whatsoever) – and sadly, SCOTUS has tacitly approved of this gross violation of American’s 4th Amendment rights.
Although one could excuse some of these violations as collateral damage from the xenophobia of imbecilic agents, some of the administration’s positioning has moved to other ethnic groups, more explicitly targeting Black America in their calls for “remigration” (a racist dogwhistle which refers to expelling former slaves back to Africa) and bringing back Jim Crow-era racist public talking points, such as incessant references to increased crime rates in black communities and riots supposedly fomented by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Transgender persons

Although it is generally never productive to compare the suffering of different groups, it is worth acknowledging that never before have so few people (as a percentage of the total population) faced such disproportionate hatred from the regime, as evidenced by the literal handful of transgender athletes in the NCAA who nonetheless apparently justified countless hours of Congress’ time debating the merits of their continued existence. Drumpf sycophants like Josh Hawley who use such scenarios as an opportunity for grandstanding are some of the most despicable people in our Federal government, today.
Immediately upon taking office, Drumpf issued an Executive Order explicitly declaring that there are only two genders and that it is not possible for a person to change their gender, in turn empowering a resurgence of bigotry now enabled by a regime antagonistic towards personal ownership and self-determination.

Women

Covered extensively in the Rampant Sexism section, later.

Unfortunately, this sort of consistent dehumanization of various groups naturally leads to treating them as enemies and/or scapegoats, as the general population is far more likely to support using violence against these people if they become thoroughly convinced that they are truly less than human.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

If you were to listen to the Trump Administration, apparently all social ills can apparently be traced back to one or more categories of out groups that these folks conveniently never seemed to like, anyway:

Undocumented persons living in America who we can deport to return to the American utopia that their collective arrival has since ruined.
Transgender folks carrying some sort of intangible “woke mind virus” (despite the very tangible brain worms in a Cabinet Secretary, which are apparently acceptable by comparison) who we must… “remove from public society”, which sounds rather genocidal to me, to regain our paradise lost.
More recently, the nebulous “organization” which Trump and his cronies refer to as “Antifa” despite there being no such formal organization in this or any reality.
Increasingly, under the guidance of “Weird” Stephen Miller (as Trump refers to him), messaging from various U.S. government agencies and departments has been increasingly generalizing all immigrants – and even native-born citizens who happen to not be white – as inherently criminal and dangerous.

It’s worth remembering that Franklin D. Roosevelt found his internal enemy in the form of Japanese-Americans who he unjustly imprisoned for years with the Japanese Internment Act (and that Roosevelt, personally, was deeply racist against the Japanese and Asians more broadly).

Supremacy of the Military

This one is kind of hilarious under the Drumpf regime, because as much as Drumpf and his cronies like Hegseth attempt to constantly sing the praises of the military – particularly in the context of defining a new MAGA-approved standard of American masculinity – Drumpf simply cannot hide his overwhelming disdain for the military and its members:

Probably most famously was the spat that Drumpf’s team initiated at Arlington National Cemetery, arguably the most hallowed ground in America, by insisting on taking photos and video, something which the military considers deeply disrespectful; although his intent was creating more propaganda, he was simply too stupid to realize that disrespecting Arlington would set him back further than any gains from any propaganda produced.
Sending troops into U.S. cities, in violation of posse comitatus, where they are mocked and protested has been incredibly demoralizing for soldiers.
Following the Epstein-induced government shut-down, active duty soldiers have been photographed waiting in long food bank lines given the resulting suspension of their pay.

Trump’s gaffes and disdain for the military aside, has administration has nonetheless done some things since January which echo of Mussolini- and Hitler-esque reverence for the military:

Renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
Blowing up boats of supposed drug traffickers in international waters then posting triumphant videos of the carnage on social media.
One could argue that his Summer military parade in DC was another example of this phenomenon, but judging by videos like this one I am doubtful that the event actually demonstrated the supremacy of the U.S. military quite to the extent the administration might have hoped.
Asserting the precedent set when Obama decided to start assassinating U.S. citizens via drone strikes, Trump is now completely sidestepping any questions as to the legality of his extrajudicial killings of supposed Venezuelan drug dealers, saying “We’re just going to kill people.”

Rampant Sexism

Given we are talking about a gross goblin of a man who won his first election despite a bombshell audio recording spouting unbelievably misogynistic rhetoric, it should come as no surprise that Drumpf is a man defined by his deep antipathy towards the opposite sex. It is also worth noting that, given a court has established that he is indeed a rapist, I can say as much right here without any fear of legal retribution for slander or libel – because it’s true. That said, although Drumpf has a lifetime of crimes towards women to answer for, he really has not perpetrated many new crimes in this area over the past year – unless, of course, you count his attempts to stymie disclosure and justice for Epstein victims because of his own implication in the affair.

It should likewise be no surprise that his administration is filled to the brim with both incels and pick-mes, all of whom are seemingly in a competition to demonstrate the deplorable depths of misogyny to which they are willing to descend in the name of the MAGA movement.

Probably chief among the misogynist sycophants is Elon Musk, who, despite requiring multiple gender affirming surgeries to reaffirm his own masculinity, seemingly goes out of his way to demonstrate the depths of his animosity towards women for his legion of slobbering fanboy goons. Probably the most grievous example of this in 2025 was the revelation that he was having children with both a conservative influencer and a Starlink executive within weeks of one another, something which screams of both his weird brand of natalism and more generic, run-of-the-mill misogyny.

Among the pick-mes in Drumpf’s corner, I would be remiss if I did not make mention of the horrifying bog witch known as Laura Loomer and her continuous attacks on women, including multiple congresswomen over the years (not to mention her non-stop racist, anti-semitic, Zionist, and generally dehumanizing posts).

Controlled Mass Media

Although I would argue that Drumpf and his team had the American mass media in their pockets well before the November 2024 election, 2025 took things to an altogether new height of fascist collusion when U.S. billionaire and avowed Zionist Larry Ellison purchased both TikTok and CBS News, whose changes to the latter, in particular, have been welcomed with praise by Trump, himself.

Now, Larry Ellison’s newly merged media conglomerate CBS/Skyfall is already signaling their intention to place a bid for CNN’s parent company, which would only further consolidate the regime echo chamber that the American mainstream media has become. Again, a reminder that Ellison is purportedly doing all of this on behalf of both the Israeli government and his son.

It is now all but obvious as to why television networks airing American news label it as entertainment and/or propaganda: American mass media, at-large, has become a wholly-controlled tool of the regime.

Obsession with National Security

Although traditionally it has been (and continues to be) the Democratic Party that Drumpf calls out most consistently as a threat to national security, the supposedly very manly and brave Drumpf is constantly inventing new bogeymen and crying about how only he is doing anything about them.

Most recently the supposed threat is the nonexistent organization “Antifa”, which Drumpf and his lackeys claim are behind a sophisticated nationwide network of anti-government protests – completely overlooking the alternate reason which Occam’s Razor might point to, which is that Americans nationwide are getting pretty fed up with his oligarchic nonsense that is driving our costs of living through the roof.

Most consistently, however, it is the nebulous concept of “wokeness” that Drumpf and his ilk rage against most frequently as a national security threat writ-large, one which is then weaponized against two particular out groups during this administration: immigrants and transgender persons. Despite representing a disproportionately small percentage of the U.S. population, and an even smaller proportionate share of those committing crimes in the U.S., Drumpf and his cronies have made an entire political strategy out of convincing poor whites that they have been disenfranchised and made less prosperous because of immigrants and transgender persons (and, to a lesser extent, women and native-born Americans of color).

Sadly, whatever bogeyman he manages to conjure up, no matter how close to home it may hit for his MAGA faithful, time has shown that they will follow and believe him regardless of the ways in which his actions and policies actually hurt them on a day-to-day basis – namely because of the fear he manages to maintain in his supporters’ hearts regarding these otherwise harmless out groups and the intense sense of belonging those supporters otherwise derive as MAGA cultists.

Religion and Government are Intertwined

Despite the fact that Trump is a serial philanderer, displays zero “Fruits of the Holy Spirit” in his public behavior, and has admittedly never set foot in a church as an adult for a worship service, somehow he maintains a choke-hold over Evangelical Christianity in American, most of whom have embraced him unconditionally to an extent that would make The Antichrist jealous.

Although any rational person would recognize the apparent oxymoronic nature of Drumpf’s religiosity, he has managed to dupe much of mainstream American Christianity, including a cadre of televangelist types who now comprise his personal army of religious sycophants, some of whom earnestly consider him to be either “The” Messiah, or Messianic in some fashion, and who regularly put on displays of false piety for the cameras as they surround and place hands on him.

This also serves as an important mechanism for appeasing Drumpf’s Zionist compatriots like Netanyahu, as he can rally support for the Israeli State from otherwise ignorant Evangelical Christians in American, convincing them that funding billions of dollars of arms shipments to commit a genocide against the Palestinian people is somehow what Jesus would want. All this while Israel plans to launch the largest-ever digital geofencing campaign to track and advertise pro-Israeli propaganda to American Christians after they visit their places of worship, which includes a plan to put American pastors directly on their payroll to serve as Israeli propagandists.

Corporate Power is Protected

Since the inauguration in January, America’s billionaire elites have thrown in their collective lot with the administration in an attempt to curry favor with Trump, with the Big Tech billionaires making particular displays of their willingness to prostrate themselves before him. Just about any large company or brand you can think of has made some sort of contribution or flattering gesture towards Drumpf, something which I hope we can collectively make them regret for the remainder of our collective lives as consumers in this economy.

As someone who once had to fight back against an exploitative solar company, Trump’s ongoing destruction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is particularly infuriating to me. Not only was this an agency which actively performed one of the core justifiable roles of government – that of protecting its citizens from fraud and contract abuse – it actually yielded a net revenue to the Federal government of several billion dollars annually: so, unlike other government agencies, one cannot make a rational argument that the CFPB represents a “cost center” to be trimmed for waste. As a result, any reasonable American should view Drumpf’s irresponsible deconstruction of the CFPB as nothing more than tipping the scales towards big business at the expense of the average consumer.

In addition to all of the companies who sought favor by donating to Drump’s Inauguration Fund, he is now swapping political favors for donations to his Epstein Memorial Ballroom. Plus, there does not seem to be any coherent set of beliefs or principles driving his regulatory policies, he only really cares about regulatory policy when it becomes a viable tool for self-betterment – with one commentator noting that Drumpf’s failure to deregulate in a more holistic fashion, instead selectively picking winners and losers, “indicates that President Trump’s anti-government, but not pro-market, approach to policymaking is nihilistic and does not bode well for the nation’s material quality of life.”

In summary, if you are someone who voted for Trump because you believed he would be “good for the economy”, it is well past time to completely disabuse yourself of that illusion: he wishes to enact policy which benefits both him and his supporters at the expense of Americans, generally; his policy focus and actions have proven that he has no underlying desire to enact economic policy which benefits the average American, let alone any sort of ideologically driven passion for legitimate economic freedom.

Labor Power is Suppressed

The Economic Policy Institute compiled a detailed analysis of The 100 Ways Trump Hurt Workers in His First 100 Days, providing a far more informed accounting of his misdeed towards American workers than I ever could.

Here is just a small sampling of some of Drumpf’s most egregious anti-labor actions since taking office for his second term:

Terminated DOL grants that fight child labor and slavery.
His economic policies, generally, are robbing American workers of wealth and purchasing power.

Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

While Trump seems particularly perturbed by comedians in particular, getting Colbert cancelled as part of shady backroom dealings with Zionists like Larry Ellison (who now owns CBS News) as well as getting Jimmy Kimmel thrown off the air for a few days, he has a deep disdain for anything which might cast him in a poor light, which includes any show of intellectualism which could expose him has the low-IQ, borderline illiterate fraud that he is.

As a result, Trump has done everything possible to express his disdain for intellectuals and the arts, perhaps most pointedly with his behavior concerning the Kennedy Center, where he took the unprecedented step of taking over as Chairman in an effort to thwart dissent against him. He has since suggested renaming the Center in honor of his wife, which several folks have noted would be illegal – but when has that stopped him before?

Perhaps the most dangerous manifestation of this aspect of fascism in this Presidential Administration is its utter disdain for intellectuals in the form of medical experts, who Drumpf and his cronies have fired by the hundreds at the behest of a former heroine addict who lost a portion of his brain to a parasitic worm. Many Americans now worry whether they can trust the food they eat, the water they drink, the medicine keeping them alive, or the air they breathe, all because a failed New York city real estate mogul and casino owner and his lackeys view Public Health as an inherently wasteful endeavor.

Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Our current POTUS would have relished the opportunity to live as the actual Caligula if his delight over public, overly-punitive punishment is any indication of his similarity to the notoriously sadistic Roman Emperor. In order to understand such a depraved mindset, we need only look as far as the content that he reportedly views non-stop: Fox News.

Specifically, Fox News dedicates a disproportionate amount of its programming time talking about horrific crimes and pining for greater punishment for those crimes, generally cherry-picking offenders from groups they otherwise dislike (namely immigrants and transgender persons) and painting an unrealistic picture of the reality of crime statistics in America, today. Although 2024 saw the largest single-year decrease in homicide rates in American history, something which Fox News has conspicuously provided little to no coverage on, both Drumpf and his favorite propaganda outlet would have you believe that every major city is currently in the midst non-stop violent riots – something which apparently caused him to order troops into Portland earlier this year.

In June Drumpf addressed a crowd and claimed to grant new powers of authority to police, ICE agents, and others present at protests, saying “if they spit, we hit”, implying that police and his personal Gestapo would be escalating their use of violent tactics to suppress protesters (and perhaps dissent, generally, in light of his recent indictment of fellow Democratic Congressional challenger, Kat Abughazaleh).

For those interested in learning more, The Trace compiled an exhaustive accounting of Drumpf’s Big Crime Lies.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

This is one attribute of fascism where the Trump Administration truly excels, putting fascists of yore to shame in terms of the sheer breadth and depth of the Administration’s rampant cronyism and corruption, not just for Drumpf himself, but the entirety of the extended Trump Klan.

Trump has been the benefit of a number of conspicuous legal settlements (which any reasonable person could view as thinly-veiled bribes from these organizations to remain in Dear Leader’s good graces):

A $16 million settlement from CBS News which could feasibly represent regulatory palm-greasing to allow the contemporaneous CBS/Skydance merger.
Facebook’s parent company Meta agreed to pay a whopping $25 million to settle Drumpf’s 2021 lawsuit for their suspension of his accounts following the January 6th riots.
Elongated Muskrat’s X (formerly Twitter) subsequently settled a similar lawsuit for $10 million.
Google recently agreed to pay $24.5 million to the Epstein Memorial Ballroom Fund as part settling a similar Trump lawsuit against YouTube.
Now, Trump is attempting to extract a full $230 million from the Department of Justice over supposed damages from being investigated Federally.

But this merely scratches the surface of one of Trump’s mechanisms of grift and extortion, as both he and his family have many other ways to extract money from his position:

According to a Reuters estimate, the Trump Organization gained approximately $802 million on cryptocurrency assets in just the first half of 2025, which is significant considering their traditional business operations only brought in $62 million during that same time period.
Although I am sure I could assemble quite an extensive list of his lesser grifts, now that the world’s most powerful conman has discovered the wealth transfer possibilities inherent in digital currency, talking about Chinese-made Bibles and other tchotchkes seems rather trivial by comparison.

Fraudulent Elections

Although Drumpf is a grossly untrustworthy person, generally, there are some aspects to his behavior where he is predictable to the extent of being almost principled in his unscrupulousness:

He always says what he is going to do, and while his supporters will say he’s exaggerating, he generally means every savage word.
He tends to spill the beans on the way the “sausage is made” in terms of backroom politics, recently admitting that he moved the U.S. Israeli embassy to Jerusalem because Miriam Adelson, a billionaire Zionist Trumper, visited him all the time at the White House and asked him to.
He always accuses his political enemies of those crimes he himself is committing.

It is this final adage which is most concerning, as Trump seems to love nothing more than to accuse anyone and everyone of voter fraud – which is a pretty strong indicator that he has been engaging in and/or planning to engage in voter fraud, himself.

While there has been some speculation that Drumpf and his cronies (e.g. namely Elon Musk, who himself was a previously undocumented immigrant to the U.S.) might have been responsible for tampering with the 2024 elections, particularly in Pennsylvania, there has been no concrete proof supporting such a claim.

Now, however, we face the very real prospect of open meddling in or even suspending the upcoming Midterm elections, perhaps enabled by his personal Gestapo, ICE, or by his army of MAGA cronies should he call them out into the streets to “monitor the polls,” much in the same way he ordered them into the streets marching towards the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The 2026 Midterm Elections, namely whether they occur or not, will serve as an important Bellwether as to whether we as Americans still have a functional democracy or are now in the midst of a de facto dictatorship.

I am only one of many making this assertion

I am not the first person to accuse Donald Trump of being a fascist, so if you would like to read similar arguments from different perspective and/or assess him against other similar “fascism checklists”, I would encourage you to peruse the additional reading options I have provided below.

Jordan Kleinsmith