Thread by @rcbregman

Yes, this is fascism.

For years, historians and experts were cautious about using the f-word to describe today's events. But that hesitation is gone now. 🧵

This thread is a summary of this brilliant piece by my former colleague Rosan Smits. It went viral in the Netherlands—and you can read the English translation now -->
decorrespondent.nl/16177/this-is-…

Let's start with the experts. Robert Paxton, the world’s foremost scholar of fascism, long resisted calling Trump a fascist. But after January 6th, he changed his mind.

“It’s the real thing. It really is,” Paxton told The New York Times in the fall of 2024.

In May, three prominent scholars of fascism announced that they are leaving the country, saying:

'The lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later.'

nytimes.com/2025/05/14/opi…

Many non-experts still don't want to use the f-word to describe what's happening.

But as Smits writes: 'Fascism thrives by playing down what was previously seen as extremist. And once that happens, any warnings get dismissed as overly alarmist.'

Of course, this isn’t 1930s Europe, so no swastikas and brownshirts.

This is fascism in the 21st century: detention camps in El Salvador, a media strategy that combines memes with manhunts, and a president who openly says: “I don’t know” if the Constitution still applies to him.

When we think of fascism, we tend to picture how it ended—its most extreme and visible horrors.

But Germans and Italians in the 1920s and ’30s didn’t yet know how their story would end. They were living through the early chapters, not the final one.

To recognize fascism as a broader phenomenon, we shouldn’t focus solely on its most extreme expressions.

Instead, experts say, we should ask *what function fascism serves for politicians operating within a democracy*.

Fascism serves a strategic purpose. It channels political grievance—often shared by members of a dominant group—and redirects it toward a perceived enemy, especially during moments of crisis or social breakdown. This resembles right-wing populism: 'fascism light'.

But where populists test the limits of democracy, fascists go further. They rewrite the rules, seize unchecked power, and crush their opponents—by force if necessary.

What drives this strategy isn’t a coherent ideology, but raw emotion.

It's also important to understand that fascism doesn’t announce itself with a military coup. Instead, it uses elections, institutions and legal loopholes.

And it relies on one thing above all: the belief that “this won’t escalate.” Until it does.

Fascists rarely rise alone. As Paxton notes, established elites usually legitimize them—treating them as just another political actor.

Traditional conservatives may even align with them, not out of shared ideology, but shared enemies (especially the Left).

It seems logical: the fascist won an election, the people have spoken. But that’s the trap. Fascists us (the language of) democracy to dismantle democracy itself.

Their goal isn’t a four-year term—it’s absolute power.

So how do we recognize fascism—not as metaphor, but as mechanism?

Well, not by comparing every potential autocrat to Hitler. But by identifying the function fascism serves—and the tools it uses.

In his book 'How Fascism Works', Jason Stanley identifies ten crucial tools:

1) Every fascist movement begins by invoking a glorious past. Hitler dreamed of a Third Rich, Mussolini promised a return to Roman glory, Trump promises to “Make America Great Again”.

2) Fascists always use propaganda to demonize their enemies. It blames them for national decline—foreigners, journalists, academics, LGBTQ+ people, the “elite.”

3) Fascists undermine independent voices: reporters, professors and artists. That’s why Trump has defunded public media, attacked universities, and opened White House access to loyal influencers instead of independent journalists.

4) Fascism attacks truth itself. Trump told over 30,000 lies in his first term alone. He claimed his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. That schools were performing sex surgeries. That migrants eat American pets.

The aim isn’t persuasion. It’s disorientation.

5) Fascism builds a new social hierarchy. Undocumented immigrants are shackled and deported without trial. Trans people are banned from public life. Pregnant women are rewarded for producing more “real Americans.”

6) Fascism casts the dominant group as the true victim. Trump insists the system is rigged—against him, against his followers, against “real” Americans.

7) In fascist ideology, gender roles are rigid: men lead and women reproduce. Trump echoes this tradition: attacking gender studies, banning words like “equality,” offering medals to women with more 'American' children.

8) Fascism always elevates “hardworking citizens” over so-called freeloaders. Trump valorizes miners and soldiers. He fires 121,000 civil servants. He mocks disability and cuts aid.

(Behind the rhetoric, the economic structure doesn’t change. Hence the massive tax cuts for the rich.)

9) Fascism pits rural against urban. Cities symbolize degeneracy, while rural life stands for tradition, purity, strength. Trump has for years railed against cities as hotbeds for crime and moral decay.

10) Fascists turn the state into a weapon. The Trump administartion has sanctioned law firms, arrested judges, and sent immigrants to off-the-books prisons.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump posted.

Now, what's crucial to remember is that it's not just Trump.

Fascism always relies on collaboration:

Republicans could have expelled him. They didn’t.
Congress could have barred him. It didn’t.

Trump governs by executive order, he defies court rulings, he hints at an unconstitutional third term. His new campaign merch says: Trump 2028.

This is a stress test of American democracy—and the institutions are breaking.

What happens next?

Historian Robert Paxton warns that fascist regimes do not necessarily settle into stable autocracy. They can spiral. They can radicalize. They can consume themselves, but only after they’ve consumed everything else.

So what do we do? For one, we stop treating fascists like ordinary politicians. We stop waiting for the “real” crisis.

The crisis is here, fascism is here.

If this all sounds too alarmist, good. That means it’s not too late, Smits concludes.

Fascism doesn’t look like it did in the 1930s. It looks like now.

Again; read the full piece here: decorrespondent.nl/16177/this-is-…