Trump's former chief of staff calls him a "fascist." What is Fascism?

Former President Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelly said this week that the former president “falls within the general definition” of a fascist. Vice President Kamala Harris agreed with that assessment when asked about it at a CNN town hall.

Many Americans may not know much about fascism, other than that it is reminiscent of the fascist movements led by dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy.

But what does it really mean for a leader to be a “fascist”?

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What is Fascism?

JKelly, a former Marine general who was Trump's White House chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, said in interviews with The New York Times that Trump is “certainly an authoritarian” who “prefers the dictatorial approach of government.”

“He definitely falls into the general definition of fascist,” Kelly said.

Kelly laid out a definition of fascism in the interview: “It is a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, violent suppression of opposition, and belief in a natural social hierarchy.” he said.

Although there are numerous different definitions, many experts agree that fascism is an extreme combination of nationalism and militarism, often accompanied by a cult of personality surrounding a leader.

The term “fascism” comes from the Italian word “fascio” – a bundle of sticks – and, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, means a group of people united and held tightly together.

Fascism uses racist rhetoric

Many fascist movements use a combination of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnocentric nationalism to create “in” and “out” groups in society and unite supporters against common enemies.

The most famous example is the German Nazi Party, which promoted the idea of a superior race of white, Germanic Christians. Minorities – Jews, Roma, gays, the disabled – were seen as poisoning or weakening society. According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, this rhetoric eventually led to the regime's systematic arrest and mass murder of millions of people, including more than six million European Jews.

“Fascist politics is about identifying enemies, targeting your own group (usually the majority group), and destroying the truth and replacing it with power,” says Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale University and author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics”. of us and them,” said in an interview with Vox.

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“cult of personality”

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, fascism often glorifies a leader at the center of the movement who is uniquely qualified to fix a broken government or system. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, fascist leaders, who are almost always male, often adopt a hypermasculine, macho presentation.

“These people are mass marketers. They pick up on what’s in the air,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian of fascism and NYU professor, told the New Yorker in an interview about Trump’s similarities to Mussolini.

Fascism promotes violence against political enemies

As an ideology on the far right side of the political spectrum, fascism often points to socialists, communists, or other left-wing movements as common political enemies. In many cases this leads to violence, whether by the state, the military or by supporters.

Mussolini, for example, “mixed 'legal' state repression with 'illegal' group violence,” said Michael R. Ebner, an associate professor of history at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and author of “Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy.” told the History Channel: “Police found reason to arrest and harass left-wing political opponents, while squads were able to carry out beatings and assassinations to silence other critics.”

Sometimes these common enemies are grouped – Spanish dictator Francisco Franco portrayed mass political violence perpetrated by his nationalist party during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s as a “holy war” against a “Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik” enemy, according to the Holocaust Museum.

The Austrian Home Guard movement sent volunteer militias to brutalize striking workers, while Mussolini banned unions and all “Marxist organizations,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Fascist leaders often resort to violent means to stamp out political dissent. Under Augusto Pinochet, Chile's 17-year dictator, at least 3,000 people were killed or disappeared while around 40,000 people were tortured during his campaign to eradicate communists and socialists.

“A state of siege is declared. Political parties are banned. Universities are closed. And a process of widespread arrests of political opponents begins,” Peter Siavelis, a professor of political science and international affairs at Wake Forest University, told NPR.

Fascist leaders strive for absolute power

Historically, fascist movements often arise in times of social, economic or political upheaval. They promise to relieve hardship in exchange for absolute power.

For example, according to the Vienna Holocaust Library, the Nazis built support as Germans suffered from the disastrous economic conditions of the Weimar Republic after World War I.

Fascist governments typically seek to consolidate their political power and remove all democratic controls on their power. According to the National WWII Museum, after becoming German chancellor, Hitler used his power to suspend civil liberties and authorize police to make warrantless arrests.

“Fascisms take their first steps in response to perceived failures of democracy,” wrote political scientist Robert Paxton in “The Five Stages of Fascism.”

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. You can reach her by email at [email protected]. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.