If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance, not political in form — test-fitting an imprecise definition. The fact it also reaches a firm conclusion (spoiler alert right there in the title) is depoliticized by allowing for malleable application. A benchmark article I will now go share elsewhere.
What’s left to talk about? How to react. How it ends. Where we likely go from there. Where we should go.
I am glad that atleast some journalists writes about this in the US+West. In India, there is little to no resistance, contemporary culture is flooded, institutions are tamed, media houses are strong armed or bought entirely and there is no one on the streets fighting the tyranny.
It's not just Trump. Look at how even the weak Republican pushback is framed. They have no moral objection to his actions, only for the risk of blowback.
See Ted Cruz's remarks on Jimmy Kimmel: "[W]hen it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it."
Or Brett Kavanaugh on Lisa Cook: that Trump shouldn't dismiss her because "what goes around comes around [...] if there's a Democrat president".
This is the moderate Republican position: no concern for the harm caused to people on the political left, only concern that they on the right might not get away with it. The MAGA position is, as this article shows, much worse.
I am so terribly disturbed by the ICE shootings (and killings). There is no justification for them. This is supposed to be a nation of laws and the rights of those shot (to say nothing of those abducted and harassed, beaten, or removed without due process) has been so grossly violated that it's hard to believe.
My heart aches for the countless victims of this band of fascists in the executive branch.
> So the United States, once the world’s exemplary liberal democracy, is now a hybrid state combining a fascist leader and a liberal Constitution; but no, it has not fallen to fascism. And it will not.
I read through every comment in this thread and no one seems to be addressing that the people voted for this. They'll probably vote for it again in the midterms and/or 2028. You're despairing over a democratic outcome. What do you actually propose that would fix this? Disenfranchise half the country? Outlaw things people are voting for to happen? Any criticism needs to address how we democratically counter this regime, how this makes sense when this is the voted upon regime, or perhaps make an argument for why democracy has failed.
My perspective is that a scale has tipped, a critical mass of people decided they want this sort of thing, and they got it. It wasn't rigged, it wasn't fraudulent, it was a democratic election. Critique democracy itself, or the criticism is incoherent. Make an argument for why a government should be disallowed from doing things that the voters want it to do.
> But there is still no state management of the economy here (as there was to a degree in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy). Trump is content to aid business by reducing government protections of the environment and of workers … and his economic policy is mainly just to let businessmen do what they want.
Well, we can check that one off the list with 2024 hindsight.
>He’s never actually done a Putin and tried to make himself a permanent president, let alone suggest any coherent plan for overthrowing the constitutional system. And I don’t even think that’s in his mind
And another one bites the dust.
Note that all the scholars who get very technical on what they want to call Fascist all compare him to Marcos, Erdogan, Milosovic. That's still not a good review.
“For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action.”
The left was right too early. Whereas I, the enlightened centrist was right and just the right time.
The Trump administration has gone so far down the path of fascism and crime that I'm convinced they don't simply want to be in power indefinitely -- they need it. Otherwise, the moment a law-abiding president gets elected, there will be criminal charges against all involved. And there's no statute of limitations for murder.
I believe this country will need massive investigations and criminal trials to heal. I am concerned with what happens in between, but this is reality as I see it.
I actually think that there is an amalgam of ideologies here (I know, so very fascist of them). Trump is more of a monarchist. A lot of the people supporting him are outright fascists. Some are plain idiots.
Them winning absolute control over the country would be a disaster for their movement though. They'd turn to internal fighting, the entropy of victory and all that. And they don't seem terribly competent with governance, it would probably turn off a lot of smart people, so the country would lose a lot of its capabilities.
EDIT: Also, there are funny things going on with the political submissions. I think there is active interference going on, they get flagged almost immediately. This got flagged and unflagged in the space of a couple minutes, so thanks to the mod team they are letting it up, I think there is important conversation to be had here.
The most scaring and amazing thing is not Trump himself, but all the people (suddenly) supporting him and being silent (including too many Democrats) in order to keep their position or for for opportunistic purposes. And destroying democracy along the way. Just like all the secret police agents in Iran or the henchmen of Hitler. CEO's of bigtech. Crypto-libertarians. Too many people are sucking up to wannabe dictators when the moment is there
Everyone's paying a lot of attention to how bad Trump is, or the midterms. My question is, what happens in 2028? How much of current policy is something the majority of Republican voters (let alone the American people) or the political class actually want and would do without Trump to lead them? How much is only being implemented due to Trump's choices, political style and cult of personality? (Assuming Constitutional safeguards remain strong enough that Trump can't find a way to remain in power past his current term; if Trump is still President in 2029, the system's seriously broken down and all bets are off.)
Will the US say "Wait a minute, things went too far, now that he's gone we need more checks and balances before another President tries to repeat what just happened" like when they added term limits to the Constitution after FDR, or some of the post-Watergate limits imposed on the Presidency?
Or will Trump's redefinition of government power become normalized, like the redefinition of government power that happened with the Patriot Act, TSA security theater, NSA spying on US citizens, etc. after 9/11 that was justified as anti-terrorism? Those policies were never unwound even though the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and there have been no more attacks on that scale.
It's true. This kind of authoritarian state violence is pretty reminiscent of fascism. Especially what looks like a gangland execution of a man who could only ever be described as exercising his 2A rights by carrying a firearm undrawn legally under his CCW. However, the list of things that have been called fascism are so long that I have to admit that my eyes initially glazed over the headline because many things have been described as fascism.
And yet we had elections in 2020. So whatever, it was clearly not authoritarian fascism because we had free elections that the authoritarian fascist was ousted in. So what I think I experienced there was semantic satiation with the word fascism.
EDIT: To clarify position vis a vis reply, I am simply saying that I have heard the word 'fascism' so much I don't really react with any sense when someone says it. It's like hearing 'rape' or 'spying' on Hacker News. I assume it means "I was shown a banner ad for toothpaste after searching for toothpaste". In other contexts those words have negative valence of great significance. In this context, I just glaze over.
Likewise, the word 'fascism' from a left-leaning outlet could be anything from the end of medicare subsidies to a drone strike on an Islamic fundamentalist general to charging fares on a train.
Just sharing how I feel about it. It does not have that emotional strength that it originally felt.
Yes, It's Fascism
(theatlantic.com)630 points by mickle00 25 January 2026 | 383 comments
Comments
What’s left to talk about? How to react. How it ends. Where we likely go from there. Where we should go.
I really worry for the people in the US, but I'm hopeful it's hegemony is ending.
Hopefully old man won’t be around that long
See Ted Cruz's remarks on Jimmy Kimmel: "[W]hen it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it."
Or Brett Kavanaugh on Lisa Cook: that Trump shouldn't dismiss her because "what goes around comes around [...] if there's a Democrat president".
This is the moderate Republican position: no concern for the harm caused to people on the political left, only concern that they on the right might not get away with it. The MAGA position is, as this article shows, much worse.
My heart aches for the countless victims of this band of fascists in the executive branch.
That's some optimism right there.
It's been translated in English as Ur-fascism and is available online for free at the anarchist library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci....
My perspective is that a scale has tipped, a critical mass of people decided they want this sort of thing, and they got it. It wasn't rigged, it wasn't fraudulent, it was a democratic election. Critique democracy itself, or the criticism is incoherent. Make an argument for why a government should be disallowed from doing things that the voters want it to do.
Like this VOX article surveying experts on fascism in 2015 and then revisiting in 2020:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21521958/what-is-fas...
> But there is still no state management of the economy here (as there was to a degree in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy). Trump is content to aid business by reducing government protections of the environment and of workers … and his economic policy is mainly just to let businessmen do what they want.
Well, we can check that one off the list with 2024 hindsight.
>He’s never actually done a Putin and tried to make himself a permanent president, let alone suggest any coherent plan for overthrowing the constitutional system. And I don’t even think that’s in his mind
And another one bites the dust.
Note that all the scholars who get very technical on what they want to call Fascist all compare him to Marcos, Erdogan, Milosovic. That's still not a good review.
The left was right too early. Whereas I, the enlightened centrist was right and just the right time.
I believe this country will need massive investigations and criminal trials to heal. I am concerned with what happens in between, but this is reality as I see it.
Them winning absolute control over the country would be a disaster for their movement though. They'd turn to internal fighting, the entropy of victory and all that. And they don't seem terribly competent with governance, it would probably turn off a lot of smart people, so the country would lose a lot of its capabilities.
EDIT: Also, there are funny things going on with the political submissions. I think there is active interference going on, they get flagged almost immediately. This got flagged and unflagged in the space of a couple minutes, so thanks to the mod team they are letting it up, I think there is important conversation to be had here.
Flagging this: that’s fascism.
Will the US say "Wait a minute, things went too far, now that he's gone we need more checks and balances before another President tries to repeat what just happened" like when they added term limits to the Constitution after FDR, or some of the post-Watergate limits imposed on the Presidency?
Or will Trump's redefinition of government power become normalized, like the redefinition of government power that happened with the Patriot Act, TSA security theater, NSA spying on US citizens, etc. after 9/11 that was justified as anti-terrorism? Those policies were never unwound even though the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and there have been no more attacks on that scale.
The only question now is will the people be able to stop the takeover before it’s too late.
The US was supposedly ruled by a fascist in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/books/review/jason-stanle...
There was also supposedly fascism coming in 2016: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/this-is-how-fascism-comes...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626...
And yet we had elections in 2020. So whatever, it was clearly not authoritarian fascism because we had free elections that the authoritarian fascist was ousted in. So what I think I experienced there was semantic satiation with the word fascism.
EDIT: To clarify position vis a vis reply, I am simply saying that I have heard the word 'fascism' so much I don't really react with any sense when someone says it. It's like hearing 'rape' or 'spying' on Hacker News. I assume it means "I was shown a banner ad for toothpaste after searching for toothpaste". In other contexts those words have negative valence of great significance. In this context, I just glaze over.
Likewise, the word 'fascism' from a left-leaning outlet could be anything from the end of medicare subsidies to a drone strike on an Islamic fundamentalist general to charging fares on a train.
Just sharing how I feel about it. It does not have that emotional strength that it originally felt.