How to Diagnose Fascism

In a recent Atlantic editorial, Jonathan Rauch declared that the latest actions by the Trump Administration now signal that the regime is indeed “fascist.”

In this compelling piece, Rauch details his initial hesitancy to call Trump and his movement fascist. Like many others, he takes issue with the lenient application of the term as an insult against conservative political positions. He also notes that fascism is a notoriously difficult ideology to define – is it a political religion? A tributary of neo-conservatism? What about hyper-nationalism?

While Rauch’s piece was well-written, it is also rather reactionary. Not because Rauch yields to admitting “Yes, It’s Fascism,” but because it strikes me as shortsighted to only accept this reality in light of the two most recent ICE murders.

“Yes, It’s Fascism” is a response that needed to be offered the second a multi-millionaire, real estate “mogul,” who racially denigrated the sitting President, descended the escalator of the eponymous Trump Tower to purify America of “aliens” and “radical leftists.” That was June of 2015. Within an hour, Donald Trump had repeated lies of birtherism and famously claimed that Mexico deliberately sent “rapists” into the country.

“Yes, It’s Fascism” should have been, at the minimum, evident after the President’s own General, John Kelly, likened him to a fascist during his first term.

Rauch’s piece was a reminder of the mental block that many Americans hold towards “fascism” as a foreign phenomenon. Simply put, we are taught to believe that “It can’t happen here.”

Shortly after Rauch’s article was published, I read Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, which fictitiously (but prophetically) depicts the growth of fascism within the American system. While the nation descends into fascism, a lone Vermont newspaper editor (Doremus Jessup) warns his family and friends and is met with the eerily familiar response, “Oh Doremus, it can’t happen here!” These words are repeated to Doremus as the nation embarks on a mass imprisonment and deportation scheme with the consolidation of power around President Buzz Windrip and his new gestapo-police the “Minute Men” (who comically dressed as Civil War re-enactors).

Lewis’s novel is mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand the trajectory of American politics. More troubling, it reads like a running list of missed “red flags” over the last decade. After concluding the book, I began to wonder if part of the problem is that we cannot escape the trap of thinking about “fascism” as a historical relic. Maybe the word “fascism” dredges up images and comparisons that are hard to reconcile in today’s world without a clear understanding of the indicators of fascist politics?

Much like the tireless efforts of the titular character Doremus, let’s ring the warning bells to fascism’s advance. This starts by recognizing what fascism is, and how it is presently operating. MAGA fascism is most apparent when one steps back to note the symptoms of “fascism” across time and space. Rather than providing a complicated or incomplete definition, the famed Italian philosopher and critic Umberto Eco offered fourteen characteristics of reference for identifying and defining fascist movements. A child of fascist Italy himself, Eco’s observations are rooted in both academic knowledge and lived experience, offering us an ideal starting point.

1. “The cult of tradition” – Or the infatuation with traditionalism. Traditional values; traditional structures of power; traditional gender dynamics; traditional world views; etc. This is “syncretistic,” meaning that fascism rewrites the genealogy of their political movement, and reimagine unrelated figures or events as forbearers of traditional culture (e.g., the Nazi fascination with Hellenistic and Indo-Arian cultures)

2. “The rejection of modernism” – This is the rejection of modern social structures, ideas, and relations. The rejection of LGBTQ+ persons, interracial relationships, or integration all fit the bill. In addition, it’s a rejection of critical historical evaluations.

3. “The cult of action for action’s sake”- This is the pursuit of action (political restrictions, vigilantism, state violence, or unwarranted expansion) before previous reflection. As Eco writes, “thinking is a form of emasculation,” therefore reflection and introspection are perilous endeavors. Eco quotes the infamous Nazi leader Hermann Göring, who reportedly claimed, “When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun.”

4. “Disagreement is treason” – As Eco notes, no fascist movement can withstand criticism. Indeed, to criticize is to partake in an act of treason.

5. “Fear of difference” – Fascism is not only threatened by disagreement, but also by any permutation of difference. Eco tells us that a manufactured and heavily regulated “consensus” is the basis of fascist movement. The “first appeal” of any fascist is to stoke fear against those different “intruders.”

6. “Appeal to a frustrated middle class” – Fascism thrives where middle-class anxiety is at its strongest. It appeals to both those who feel as if their middle-class status is in jeopardy and those who imagine they ever were middle-class.

7. “Obsession with a plot” – Eco writes that since the only ones who can “provide an identity to a nation are its enemies” fascism capitalizes on the myth of a nefarious plot to overthrow the nation by its enemies. The plot must come from the inside (as was the case in Nazi Germany’s attack on the Jews) but most benefit those outside the nation.

8. “Adversaries who are ‘too strong’ and paradoxically ‘too weak’” – Fascist movements require a paradoxical presentation of their enemies. They are at once “too strong” for our systems and society to hold at bay, and yet “too weak” to be self-sufficient and contributors to the nation.

9. “The presence of an eternal enemy” – Described as the mentality that “life is lived for a struggle,” fascism posits a state of continuous and permanent warfare. The movement is always under threat and therefore must be militarized (in mind and body) for a response.

10. “Popular Elitism” – Otherwise known as “mass elitism” this is the understanding that every true citizen is a part of the best people in the world. Members of the movement are then the best among the citizenry, and consequently the leader is the best individual alive (deified).

11. “Everybody is Educated to be a Hero” – If every member of the party is a member of the “elect few” then their life and death must be that of a hero. The movement becomes, in effect, a death cult that glorifies death (even in the most heinous manner) as an indicator of heroism or martyrdom.

12. “Machismo” – Eco writes that both a state of “permanent war” and an overriding sense of Heroism naturally feed into a hyper-masculine politics. Therefore, fascist movements imply disdain for women’s autonomy and challenges to gender/sexual norms. Conversely, the fascist abides by their own set of sexual rules.

13. “Selective populism” – Fascism is not genuinely interested in representing “the people” vs. an elite. Rather, fascism uses the language of populism to denigrate the structures of democracy that prevent fascism’s claim to absolute power. “The people” are conceived as a monolith, lacking human rights, individuality, or diversity, making them a “theoretical fiction” to be weaponized against dissent.

14. “Newspeak” or common vernacular – Finally, fascism presents itself in common language. It avoids directly identifying with historical movements, and instead uses idioms, phrases and slogans that could give the movement a modicum of deniability if called out.

    
    

To take on each of these individually would require an article well beyond the limitations of an editorial. Even so, as Eco himself contends, these characteristics are not definitive in every case of fascism. Rather, they are the connective threads which weave historical fascist movements together, from Mussolini’s Italy to Hitler’s Nazi Germany, to ensuing regimes like Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal. These are the contours of fascist prerogatives, and the ideological conditions in which it coagulates.

Using the President and Administration’s own language, as well as Eco’s diagnostic guidelines above, I present just a few examples of how fascism has manifested itself in American politics. These symptoms of fascism are observable and worse… contagious.

# 1, 2 and 4: On Fears of Critical Race Theory, American History and LGBTQ Acceptance

“For decades, the America-blaming left has been relentlessly pushing a vision of America that casts our history, culture, traditions, and founding documents in the most negative possible light. Yet in recent years, this deeply unnatural effort has progressed from telling children that their history is evil to telling Americans that they are evil.” – June 18, 2021, “A Plan to Get Divisive & Radical Theories Out of Our Schools” by Donald Trump

# 5, 7, and 14: On the Dangers of Ethnic, Racial, and National Difference

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They poison — mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just the three or four countries that we think about. But all over the world they’re coming into our country — from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country.” — Dec. 16, 2023, New Hampshire rally

#5, 7, 8, and 9: On the Democratic Enemy “from Within”

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics […] I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country, by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, the villages, they’re being inundated…” – Oct. 13, 2024, Interview on “Sunday Morning Futures”

#14: On Rhetoric of an Ethnically Pure Homeland

“One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American:” – Jan. 10, 2026, @USDOL Twitter

à “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” or “One people, one realm one leader” – Nazi Germany, 1938

In these above quotes – which are far from exhaustive – we can observe clear rhetorical and ideological similarities between MAGA and its fascist predecessors. From attacking political opposition, to demonizing ethno-religious “others,” to subverting confidence in the state, this administration is eroding (from within) the bulwarks against fascism that imperfectly safeguarded American democracy from falling to the likes of George Lincoln Rockwell, Charles Coughlin, William Dudley Pelley, and countless other fascist activists of the 20^th century. These are the same figures who inspired Lewis to pen his 1935 novel warning against American fascism.

Yet, just as Lewis cautioned, Trump’s movement normalized fascism by wrapping itself in a flag and parading itself through our churches. It found ‘Americanism’ – deeply divided along unresolved racial, religious, and economic disparities – to be a welcoming host and a suitable disguise, rather than a formidable foe.

His administration also succeeded at maneuvering their politics into the mainstream through a Machiavellian justification of the “means” (chaos, division, violence, discord, and institutional dismantling) justifying ‘mythical’ ends (a return to a “pure” nation). As a result, indifference and apathy have dangerously crept into our political repertoire. While many brave Americans took to the streets of Minneapolis in the snow and cold these past few months, larger numbers still sit by awaiting a midterm or general election to remedy the present situation.

Sinclair Lewis warned in his novel, “A country that tolerates evil means - evil manners, standards of ethics - for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end.” It is time then to accept that the means – or the “symptoms” – are also the inescapable ends of fascism.