[adastra22]

I assume that you read the link I provided. It's structured as a 10-point list. The 10 points of comparison are:

1. a mythic past and national rebirth 2. victimhood and humiliation 3. hierarchy and dehumanization 4. contempt for weakness 5. the cult of action 6. the leader as savior 7. the purification of institutions 8. propaganda and the assault on truth 9. the merger of state and corporate power 10. violence and terror

It's not stretching things in the slightest to say that MAGA and Trump fit these to a T, certainly post-1/6 if not before. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we shouldn't be too timid about using the word "duck." Do China under Xi and India under Modi also fit the bill? Maybe. I don't think they check 10/10 boxes perfectly though.

I know we're running up against HN rules, so I'm trying to keep this meta and not object-level. I'm not debating whether any of this is defensible or good or bad policy or whatever. Just whether we should use the term.

The first Trump administration was arguably Caesarism. The second has proven to be an entirely different character. Just picking on one thread that is more on-topic for HN: the merger of state and corporate power (#9 on the list above) is a defining economic characteristic of fascism that we are only now seeing this term, with direct acquisition of large stakes in Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundaries, various rare-earth metals companies, and Westinghouse. OpenAI is in negotiations to do this, and even before concluding a deal the government has already been weaponized against their chief competitor, Anthropic.

Other things have progressed (regressed?) significantly in this second term against the above metrics. Unlike the first term, which mostly rode out the instability, we saw in 2025 far reaching restructuring of the civil service. And trans oppression and scapegoating, for example, is seriously reaching levels comparable to Nazi jew hatred and victimhood. As someone who lost my European relatives to the holocaust, I do not make that comparison lightly.

Seeing as ICE is currently building / converting hundreds of new detention centers all over the country, it is reasonable to be worried.

[Saline9515]

The definition you are using is far too broad, so you get a barnum effect where every authoritarian political movement could be shoehorned as "fascist". Ask real fascists what they think of Kash Patel.

[adastra22]

Benito Mussolini, who first used the term fasci in its modern meaning to describe his party and movement, was not a racist. A cultural nationalist, yes, but he thought the nazi biological race ideology was bullshit and openly said so. The racial discrimination laws were only enacted after he went to Munich, hat-in-hand.

Yeah, anyone who openly calls themselves a fascist are probably white supremacist nazis, and I presume would take a dim view of Kash Patel for that reason alone. But genetics-driven racism (as opposed to cultural nationalism) was never a core tenant of fascism. Fascism requires an us-vs-them othering world view, but it doesn't have to be race-based.

[Saline9515]

Us-vs-them worldview is I think a very common thing in the world. Was the Soviet Union fascist? Is India fascist due to its extreme antagonization of Pakistan (and vis-versa).

What you say about Mussolini is false by the way and Italy enforced strict racial discrimination in Ethiopia. Political racism was commonplace everywhere at the time and is not very specific to Fascism. Unless 1930´s USA was a fascist country, which I doubt.

[NuclearPM]

https://www.rachelmaddow.com/prequel-by-rachel-maddow/

Rachel Maddow’s ULTRA and PREQUEL podcast series may change your mind on that last claim.

[Saline9515]

The existence of a fascist movement in the country doesn't make it fascist. France had a similar movement at the same time and wasn't fascist, for example.

[NuclearPM]

It was a few years later.

Let’s not talk about fascism until we’re already fucked? Is that your strategy?