The Old Playbook with a New Strongman

Call It What It Is

For years, describing Donald Trump as a fascist was dismissed as rhetorical excess, more provocation than analysis. That defense is no longer tenable. What matters is not if leaders embrace the label, but whether their actions reflect the mechanisms scholars have long identified as fascist. These features are numerous, but this essay will highlight some of the most striking and recent examples: dividing the public into “us” and “them,” redefining corruption as both accusation and cover for self-dealing, waging war on universities and expertise, and substituting propaganda and conspiracy for reality. By those criteria, the current administration’s conduct is not just illiberal or populist; it reflects, in crucial respects, the recognizable patterns of fascist politics.

In recent months, prominent Republicans and conservative commentators have argued that calling Trump or his administration “fascist” is itself responsible for political violence. The logic is revealing: the problem, they claim, is not authoritarian behavior but the naming of it. This attempt to stigmatize criticism underscores why clarity matters. The charge of fascism is not made lightly. It is grounded in observable practices of governance and rhetoric that scholars of fascism have long identified.

That tension is sharpened by the administration’s unprecedented move to brand Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. In September 2025, President Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization,” instructing federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations” tied to it, even though U.S. law has no established mechanism for classifying domestic groups as terrorist organizations, and Antifa is widely understood as a decentralized movement rather than a structured entity [1][22]. This maneuver is more than symbolic. It re-frames protest as terrorism, expands executive authority over dissent, and signals that resistance to the administration can itself be criminalized.

Rather than rhetorical overreach, these measures fit squarely within a historical trajectory political theorists have traced for more than a century. Drawing on Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works, we can see how Trump’s language and governance align with the classic dynamics of fascist politics [2]. The point is not name-calling but confronting reality, a step that makes meaningful resistance possible. One of the earliest and most reliable indicators of this politics is the assault on independent media, where critics are discredited, cultural voices are punished, and the space for dissent steadily shrinks.

Silencing Political Dissent

Among the many tactics associated with fascism, one of the most consistent is the effort to suppress independent voices. While not the only form of repression, attacks on journalists, critics, and cultural figures are especially revealing of how authoritarian power consolidates.

Since entering politics, Trump has routinely branded critical outlets as “fake news” and labeled journalists who challenge him as “the enemy of the American People” [3]. This steady drumbeat of delegitimization has eroded public trust in independent reporting and laid the groundwork for more direct assaults on cultural expression.

The most recent example came with the firing of Jimmy Kimmel, after sustained presidential attacks on his show and network. What looked like an entertainment dispute was in fact a calculated show of force. During a podcast interview, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr issued a thinly veiled threat toward ABC, remarking, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and adding that companies “can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” His comments implied that the FCC might target broadcast licenses held by ABC’s parent company, Disney, if the network failed to discipline or remove Kimmel for his criticism of the president [4]. The outcome silenced a critic and delivered a warning to others: dissenting cultural figures can lose their platforms at any moment if they refuse to conform.

As Stanley observes: “Fascist politics seeks to undermine the press. When journalists are treated as enemies of the people, when truth is called fake news, when reporters are vilified, the press cannot play its role of holding leaders accountable” [2]. The Kimmel episode was not an outlier but proof of how regulatory pressure, corporate leverage, and political intimidation can converge to enforce ideological conformity.

The pattern is unmistakable. Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin transformed independent broadcasters into loyalist propaganda outlets [23], while Viktor Orbán in Hungary dismantled regional journalism and replaced it with government-aligned voices [5]. In both cases, media control narrowed the range of acceptable discourse until criticism became nearly inaudible. The United States is now confronting its own version. By weakening independent outlets while using state power to pressure corporations, the administration has shown that freedom of expression endures only at its discretion.

Us vs Them

At the heart of fascism lies division. Stanley identifies this as “the most telling symptom of fascist politics: the division of society into an ‘us’ and a ‘them’” [2]. Every tactic reinforces this distinction, reshaping ideology and policy to privilege the dominant group at the expense of minorities.

In Nazi Germany, Jews were defined as parasitic outsiders undermining Aryan purity. In Mussolini’s Italy, enemies included socialists, Jews, and foreign influences that threatened the nation’s “greatness” [6]. Contemporary democracies show similar cleavages. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has crafted policies explicitly dividing the nation along ethnic and religious lines, claiming that Christian identity is under siege from Muslim migrants [7].

Trump has embraced the same framing with growing intensity. In a 2024 Fox News interview, he doubled down on describing migrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that directly echoes Hitler. He has referred to migrants as “vermin,” “animals,” and, at times, denied their humanity altogether: “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases. They’re not people, in my opinion.” He has further claimed that America is being flooded with “long-term murderers” released from foreign prisons, “insane asylums on steroids,” and “terrorists pouring in at levels we have never seen before,” despite the lack of evidence for such claims [8]. This language paints immigrants not merely as outsiders but as contaminants, criminals, and existential dangers to the nation’s survival.

Recent actions in the United States show how this rhetoric translates into policy. The president declared a national emergency at the border and invoked the Alien Enemies Act to fast-track deportations, bypassing normal due process [9]. Immigration and Customs Enforcement escalated its tactics, conducting mass workplace raids and arresting individuals who appeared at immigration court hearings while following the legal process [10] [11]. These maneuvers cast immigrants and minorities as mortal threats, reinforcing a divide in which “we” are the lawful and deserving, and “they” are the dangerous outsiders to be controlled or expelled.

Division is not incidental. It is the foundation that allows fascist rhetoric to turn resentment into a justification for authoritarian rule.

The Trap of Corruption

Another hallmark of fascist politics is its paradoxical relationship to corruption. Stanley notes that “fascist movements have always promised to drain the swamp, loudly decrying corruption while constructing systems of graft far worse than what they replaced” [2].

The Nazis equated democracy itself with corruption, insisting that Weimar politicians were decadent and self-serving, while constructing a regime where graft became the organizing principle. As historian Richard Grunberger observed, the scandals of Weimar seemed trivial compared to the vast corruption of the Third Reich [6].

Trump has exploited the same paradox. He brands opponents as the face of corruption while turning government into an engine of self-dealing. In early 2025, the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. According to Reuters, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed the dismissal not because of evidentiary weakness but because the case was said to interfere with Adams’s ability to assist with the administration’s immigration priorities. Several prosecutors resigned in protest, warning that prosecutorial independence was being traded for political leverage [12]. What should have been a straightforward corruption case became political currency, with leniency traded for loyalty.

At the same time, Trump’s meme-coin venture, the “$TRUMP” coin, drew scrutiny after reports that major purchasers were offered the chance to dine with the president. The coin generated substantial profits for Trump and his family affiliates, blurring the line between fundraising, access, and personal enrichment [13]. Unlike traditional political donations, crypto transactions can be routed through shell accounts, making it difficult to trace the true source of funds. That opacity opens the door to anonymous domestic contributions and, potentially, to foreign influence [14]. Access to influence is now something that could be bought outright, outside the safeguards of campaign finance law.

“Drain the Swamp” became not a promise of reform but camouflage for corruption. By branding his enemies as the nation’s betrayers, Trump excused his own abuses and recast graft as loyalty. In fascist politics, corruption is redefined not as the abuse of power but as the impurity of those outside the ruling circle. The result is a system where the leader embodies corruption while claiming to eradicate it.

Anti-Intellectualism and the War on Expertise

Attacks on knowledge and expertise are recurring features of fascist movements. Hitler understood propaganda as necessarily simplistic: it should reduce politics to a handful of slogans repeated until they stick [2]. Trump’s rhetoric mirrors this reliance on reduction, boiling policy and scandal alike into chants such as “No New Wars,” “Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” and “Clean Coal.” These are not explanations but incantations, designed to flatten complexity, discredit expertise, and make slogans more persuasive than reason.

As Stanley puts it: “By attacking journalists and experts as corrupt, elitist, or out of touch, fascist politics seeks to leave citizens with no independent authority to turn to, only the leader’s voice” [2]. Once such slogans take hold, institutions that preserve nuance, including universities, scholars, and independent media, are redefined as obstacles to be discredited or dismantled.

The Nazis achieved this by brute force: book burnings, expulsions of nonconforming professors, and the subordination of universities to party ideology [6]. Independent thought was branded sedition, and education itself was repurposed as an instrument of racial and political conformity.

Modern strongmen seek the same outcome by subtler means. In 2025, the Trump administration escalated its campaign against higher education by conditioning federal funding on compliance with new restrictions. Public universities were told they would lose access to federal research grants and student loan programs unless they dismantled so-called DEI programs [15]. State legislatures, emboldened by federal rhetoric, have moved to tighten oversight of universities, creating new offices to investigate curricula and granting governing boards greater power over hiring and course approval [16]. The message to students and professors is unmistakable: higher education is being reshaped to serve political power, and inquiry that contradicts the ruling ideology risks punishment.

Propaganda, Conspiracy, and the State of Unreality

Propaganda is not the only weapon in the fascist arsenal, but it is indispensable. After World War I, German nationalists insisted their army had not been defeated on the battlefield but “stabbed in the back” (Dolchstoßlegende) by Jews, Marxists, and liberal politicians. This myth redirected anger from reality to supposed internal enemies and became what Stanley calls a “myth of national betrayal” [2].

A comparable narrative has taken hold in contemporary American politics. Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was “stolen” converts an electoral loss into a betrayal narrative. By advancing the conspiracy that Democrats, local election officials, and even his own vice president had rigged the outcome, he reframed defeat as treachery. [17]. The “stolen election” lie created exactly the “state of unreality” Stanley warns against, where conspiracy displaces reality.

The consequences were not abstract. On January 6th, 2021, thousands stormed the U.S. Capitol and delayed the certification of the election for the first time in history. [17] What began as propaganda metastasized into insurrection, and the myth continues to justify new restrictions on voting, purges of election officials, and expanded executive authority.

By September 2024, the Associated Press reported that most Republicans trusted Trump more than official election results, a striking measure of how the “stolen election” narrative replaced institutional authority with personal loyalty [18]. This erosion of trust in audits, courts, and administrators has become a lasting feature of American politics.

Just as the stab-in-the-back myth undermined Weimar democracy, the “stolen election” narrative teaches citizens to distrust elections, courts, and legislatures.

The Allure of a Simplified Struggle

The pull of fascist politics is powerful because it simplifies human existence. As Stanley observes:“Fascist politics works by providing a sense of certainty and belonging through the identification of enemies” [2]. It gives us a “them” whose supposed laziness or corruption validates our own virtue. It elevates leaders who offer certainty in chaotic times, even if that certainty comes at the cost of truth and democracy.

But the danger of fascism lies precisely in this appeal. When propaganda replaces reality, when myths become governing principles, when division defines citizenship, democracy collapses into authoritarian rule.

What is most disheartening is that this account is necessarily incomplete. Trump’s authoritarianism has corroded democratic life on every front: defying courts, purging the Justice Department, and branding judges who block him as “crooked.” He has staged deportations as political theater, blurred law enforcement with persecution, and moved to silence independent media while declaring “We are the federal law” [19].

Most alarming, he has turned the power of the state against his own citizens—deploying troops in Washington, threatening to occupy other cities, and redefining “criminal” to excuse his allies while criminalizing protest and dissent. This is not law and order; it is autocratic rule, reshaping American democracy in the likeness of the strongman he so desperately seeks to be [20].

Still, authoritarian power is never absolute. When citizens refuse to accept intimidation as normal, even small victories can force institutions to hold the line. Public pressure recently compelled Disney to reinstate Jimmy Kimmel after his politically motivated removal [21]. That reversal did more than restore a late-night host; it demonstrated that organized outrage can still bend institutions against authoritarian encroachment, proving that citizens, by refusing to normalize intimidation, can defend the fragile space for dissent.

To call it what it is does not cheapen the word. It clarifies the stakes. The old playbook is being used again, this time by a new strongman. The question is not if history will repeat, but whether we will recognize its rhymes in time—and whether we will summon the courage to resist them.

Sources

[1] The White House — https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/designating-antifa-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization/

[2] Jason Stanley — How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Random House, 2018).

[3] New York Times — https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html

[4] The Atlantic — https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/carr-fcc-licenses-kimmel/684341/

[5] The Associated Press — https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/how-hungarys-orban-uses-control-of-the-media-to-escape-scrutiny-and-keep-the-public-in-the-dark/

[6] Richard Grunberger — The 12-year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (Holt,1971).

[7] Politico - https://www.politico.eu/article/orban-migrants-threaten-christian-europe-identity-refugees-asylum-crisis/

[8] New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-migrants.html

[9] Politico — https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/28/trump-immigration-100days-due-process-00307435

[10] New York Times — https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/ice-la-protest-arrests.html?searchResultPosition=7

[11] New York Times — https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/politics/ice-courthouse-arrests.html?searchResultPosition=12

[12] Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/us/three-prosecutors-corruption-case-against-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-resign-according-2025-04-22/

[13] Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/us/buyers-trump-meme-coin-pay-millions-win-dinner-with-president-trump-2025-05-12/

[14] International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance — https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/cryptocurrrencies-and-political-finance.pdf

[15] NPR — https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5300992/the-department-of-education-has-given-schools-a-deadline-to-eliminate-dei-programs

[16] Texas Tribune — https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/13/texas-universities-governing-boards-hiring-curricula-faculty-senates/

[17] The January 6 Select Committee — The January 6th Report: Findings from the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Random House, 2023)

[18] Associated Press — https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/ap-norc-usafacts-poll-republicans-are-more-likely-to-trust-trump-than-official-election-results/?

[19] The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/mar/22/trump-administration-authoritarianism?

[20] The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/trump-dc-crime/683836/

[21] NPR — https://www.npr.org/2025/09/22/nx-s1-5550330/jimmy-kimmel-back-suspended-disney-trump

[22] New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-antifa-order-terrorism.html?searchResultPosition=1

[23] New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/21/world/europe/russia-rt-social-media.html