Whatever you think of Donald Trump, you probably did not expect to see the Nazi salute at his inauguration, performed by one of his closest allies.
Elon Musk has tried to sow the seeds of doubt about his thrust-of-the-arm. He has labelled criticism “pure media propaganda”, and shared images of Democrats with their arms raised to suggest that he’s been singled-out; but in the days following the gesture, as online controversy spiked, he failed to explicitly deny that it was a fascist salute.
The incident is just another chapter in a long-running debate about fascism in America, which took off after the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021. During last year’s election, both Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, and his Presidential opponent Kamala Harris, warned that Trump was a fascist.
Republican politicians complained that their remarks were “reckless” and said they could lead to violence, in reference to the assassination attempts against Trump in 2024. And it isn’t only Republicans who criticise the term ‘fascist’ being used. The English socialist George Orwell, for example, wrote that the word was thrown around so much it meant little more than ‘you’re a bully’.
The word ‘fascist’ is a slippery one. Many people define it differently, and given the legacy of the Nazis and the Holocaust, the days when far-right leaders would self-identify as fascists are probably gone for good.
In fact, comparisons with Hitler are sometimes used to defend Trump. When Kelly and Harris called Trump a fascist, Piers Morgan said it was “ridiculous… to compare Trump to the most genocidal monster the world has ever seen”. But Morgan is wrong to equate fascism with Nazism. While it’s true that Nazism was especially violent and fanatic, it would be a mistake to normalise fascists like Mussolini or Franco by framing them as more ‘acceptable’ than Hitler.
Using Hitler as a yardstick also downplays the danger of hateful rhetoric. The Holocaust was the end result of decades of the marginalisation and demonization of minorities. The average Nazi voter wasn’t choosing an evil tyrant to kill the Jews; they voted for a man who empathised with ‘their’ struggles, and who promised ‘them’ a better future.
There is good reason to believe that the leaders of a modern fascist movement would obscure or deny their true nature, rather than present themselves as ‘monsters’. This in itself doesn’t say whether Trump is a fascist. But it does show that we need to be clear about what the word means.
If we look for a dictionary definition of fascism, there are points of agreement. All sources say it prioritises the nation above the individual, who “exists to serve the nation”. All point out that fascism opposes liberal democracy, desires to crush opponents, and legitimises political violence.
But there are differences too. Some dictionaries label fascism a racist ideology – others suggest that a fascist movement could be nationalistic without being racist.
The question of what fascism is also depends on who is defining it. Traditional scholars emphasise power dynamics or political rhetoric to define fascism. Nick Griffin, for example, defines fascism as a revolutionary mass-movement which aims to bring about the “rebirth” of a nation which has become decadent, weak and threatened.
In contrast, anticapitalistic scholars argue that fascism is a kind of late-stage capitalism which occurs when liberal capitalism collapses into a crisis, and moneyed interests prefer a business-friendly revolution to a left-wing revolution. The socialist writer George Orwell, for example, wrote:
“Hitler stands for a centralised economy which robs the capitalist of most of his power but leaves the structure of society much as before. The State controls industry, but there are still rich and poor, masters and men. Therefore, as against genuine Socialism, the moneyed class have always been on his side… Hitler’s puppet government are not working men, but a gang of bankers, gaga generals and corrupt right-wing politicians”.
So is Trump a fascist?
If we look at the characteristics of fascism, Trump straddles the line, but it’s not clear that he crosses it.
Opposing liberal democracy: unclear. Trump denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election, appears to be implementing Project 2025, and Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (D.O.G.E) is not exactly legal. That said, he hasn’t tried to ban or suppress America’s opposition party, the Democrats.
Desiring to crush opponents: unclear. Trump likes to cast his opponents as enemies of the people. He famously talked about locking Hillary Clinton up, although he never actually tried to do so. He still often talks about imprisoning or physically attacking opponents, although, again, he hasn’t tried to do so.
Legitimising political violence: check. The Atlantic compiled a list of 40 of Trump’s violent remarks. In 2020, he suggested that the army should be used against Black Lives Matter protesters.
Nationalism (and racism): check. Trump is an ultranationalist – (no explanation needed). Trumpism is not as racist as Nazi Germany or Jim Crow America. In 2024, Trump led a broad voter coalition including many minorities. But his (limited) tolerance of some groups doesn’t deny the fact that he marginalises and vilifies others. Trump particularly dehumanises Muslims and transgender people. It’s not hard to see how this rhetoric escalates into persecution, with policies like his plan for ethnic-cleansing in Gaza.
Fascistic rhetoric: check. Trump embraces the idea of American national decline and moral decay. He wants to take ‘Americans’ on a project of national renewal – (this ‘American’ is an idea rather than a reality – it excludes Americans who are transgender or Muslim, who have left-wing or internationalist beliefs, and so on).
The support of moneyed interests: check. Orwell may have written about industrial capitalists, but his words still resonate in the age of tech billionaires. Zuckerberg, Musk and Co have either actively-embraced Trump, or passively backed down on policies which had previously clashed with Trumpism. Trump’s inauguration saw the world’s wealthiest people seated in front of his own cabinet.
You can definitely say that Trumpism shares many common features with fascism, and it certainly fits leftists’ idea of a ‘revolution’ of the powerful. Even while Trump has long cosied up to the super-rich, it’s interesting that his inaugural address draws from left-wing ideas:
“For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair”.
Trump is certainly also authoritarian. That said, when Vox interviewed a group of experts in 2020, they unanimously agreed that Trump presidency wasn’t fascistic.
This position was weakened by the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Still, Trump generally doesn’t try to lead a revolution or overthrow American democracy. For many scholars, this means he isn’t a fascist.
Does it matter whether Trump is a fascist?
When people call Trump a fascist, what they usually want to say is that he’s dangerous or evil. So why not simply call him dangerous or evil? The problem with calling your opponents fascists is they can claim plausible deniability. Instead of raising the alarm about the marginalisation of minorities or the erosion of democracy, you get an argument about name-calling.
Obsessing about fascism downplays the fact that hatred and violence can exist within a democracy. Democracies kept slaves, carried out forced-sterilisation, and enacted apartheid and segregation. Western countries were democracies when LGBT people were criminalised and left to die of AIDS in their thousands.
A black and white moral lens, between ‘good’ democracy and ‘bad’ fascism, is unhelpful. It risks normalising Trumpism, with all its division, so long as American elections continue as normal.
Harris tried to cast Trump as fundamentally different to her when she called him a fascist, but from the perspective of Palestinians, her administration was no less dangerous or violent. The Democrats use morality as a campaign tactic, but their compassion only lasts as long as it’s convenient and it rarely extends beyond America’s borders. Democrats supported mass-incarceration and kids in cages. Many senior Democrats are committed to militarism, whether or not the war the U.S. waged in Iraq, or the war it materially-supported in Gaza, were grounded in factual reality and international law.
If we genuinely care about political principles like tolerance, human rights or democratic freedoms, we should be prepared to condemn anyone who attacks them.
