What Does Fascism Mean?

(c) 2025 by Barton Paul Levenson

The Definition

In a New York Review of Science Fiction article ("The Ideology of Robert A. Heinlein," 1998), I defined fascism by five characteristics, citing writings on the subject by political scientists (Brooker 1995, De Grand 1982, Griffin 1991, Hoyt 1994, Scruton 1982). In general, it's not quite fascism if all five criteria aren't met. There are plenty of authoritarian regimes which don't check all the fascism bullet points. But if a government meets all five, yes, it is fascist.

1. The Leader Principle. The leader is always right because he's the leader. The leader has ultimate authority in all spheres, executive, legislative, and judicial.
2. Militarism. The regime wants to take over other countries. Soldiers are praised, but conditions in armies are not necessarily good.
3. Elitism. An in-group is defended as better than others, and an out-group is targeted.
4. Consequentialist ethics. Anything done by the regime is justified. Actions are right if they succeed, wrong if they don't succeed. There is no other criterion.
5. Contempt for democracy and democratic principles. Majorities may win an initial election, but after that, the regime is there to stay, however much opposition it may have.

Example #1. Germany under Hitler

1. The Leader Principle. "The leader principle (Führerprinzip) was National Socialism's highly publicized and pervasive authority principle. It sought an end to collective (committees and parliaments) and role-governed (bureaucratic) forms of authority and to have them replaced by a personal form of authority... [Brooker, 1995, p. 39].
2. Militarism. "For the good of the German people, we must wish for a war every 15 or 20 years. An army whose sole purpose is to preserve peace leads only to playing at soldiers--compare Sweden and Switzerland." [Hitler 1941].
3. Elitism. "No other document from the National Socialist regime [as the Wannsee Minutes] sets out so clearly the complete plan for the extermination of European Jewry" [Scheffler 1993].
4. Consequentialist ethics. "I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness." [Hitler 1939]
5. Contempt for democracy. "...in the parliamentary system we see no genuine expression of the nation's will--a will which cannot logically be anything else than a will to the maintenance of the nation--but we do see a distortion, if not a perversion, of that will. The will of a nation to the self-determination of its being manifests itself most clearly and is of most use when its most capable minds are brought forth. They form the representative leaders of a nation, they alone can be the pride of a nation--certainly never the parliamentary politician." Hitler 1933.

Conclusion: All five criteria are met. Nazi Germany under Hitler was fascist.

Example #2. The United States under Trump

1. The Leader Principle.
   • "Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it." [Trump 2016]
   • The Trump administration continues to erode the power of Congress, trampling on its constitutional prerogatives in ways large and small. Through it all, Republicans in charge have mostly shrugged — and in some cases, outright applauded--as their powers, once jealously guarded, diminish in ways that will be difficult to reverse [Barnes and Edmondson 2025].
   • "And what has Congress done? On oversight, and advice and consent, we have confirmed a vaccine denier. On tariffs, we’ve given up our constitutional responsibility. On appropriations, we’re bending the knee to an Administration that is rescinding and decided what to spend and what not to spend despite the way our law—in a bipartisan way—was passed" [Welch 2025].
   • In an analysis of 165 court orders filed against the Trump administration, the Washington Post found that it was accused of resisting court orders in at least 57 of those cases – approximately 34 percent [Baio 2025].
2. Militarism.
   • [Trump's] undiplomatic talk in recent days of reclaiming the Panama Canal--and annexing Greenland and even Canada--have left world leaders scrambling to respond. Panama's foreign minister has insisted that the sovereignty of its vital canal, which the U.S. handed over a quarter-century ago, is "not negotiable." The prime minister of Denmark, a NATO member that oversees the autonomous territory of Greenland, has insisted that "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders." And, Canada's outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has quipped that there isn't "a snowball's chance in hell" of a merger with the United States [Neuman 2025].
   • Hours after a federal court in California ruled against how President Trump used the National Guard in Los Angeles this summer, Trump touted his use of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and said he would soon send the troops into Chicago [Kaplow 2025].
3. Elitism.
   • Trump 9 June 2015: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting." [Gamboa 2015]
   • White nationalist racism became the defining feature of the Trump presidency, making Latinos’ heightened experiences of racism, and the relegitimization of overt White nationalism, one of its lasting legacies [Canizales and Vallejo 2021].
   • Recent reporting has exposed dozens of cases where U.S. citizens, including children, cancer patients, and members of Native American and Latino communities, were unlawfully swept up in ICE raids and held for days or weeks without legal recourse. Some were physically assaulted or deported alongside undocumented family members, often without consent. Despite ICE policy explicitly prohibiting the detention of U.S. citizens, agents have reportedly ignored individuals’ citizenship claims and failed to verify documentation. In some cases, field agents made no effort to confirm a person’s status even after it was asserted [Goldman 2025]
4. Consequentialist ethics.
   • Trump: "Even if it [torture] doesn’t work they deserve it" [Jacobs 2015].
   • Trump says "torture works," backs waterboarding and "much worse" [Johnson 2016].
5. Contempt for democracy.
   • "On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, then-U.S. president Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to 'find 11,780 votes' and overturn the state's election results from the 2020 presidential election" [Gardner 2021].
   • "On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, a violent and heavily armed mob of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. While lawmakers and staff were shepherded to secure locations or barricaded behind doors, the rioters pushed past severely outnumbered Capitol Police officers, breaking windows and vandalizing offices, many with disturbingly violent intentions toward members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence for their having refused to succumb to Trump’s attempts to overturn the election in his favor. Five people were killed, including one Capitol Police officer who was beaten by rioters." [American Oversight 2023].
   • Trump 26 July 2024: "In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote" [Reid 2024]
   • Trump 18 August 2025: "We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt" . . . Democrats have been significantly more likely to vote using mail-in ballots, compared to Republicans, since the 2020 election [Lopez 2025].

Conclusion: All five criteria are met. The United States of America under Donald Trump is fascist.

References

American Oversight 2023. The January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. https://americanoversight.org/investigation/the-january-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/, accessed 9 September 2025.

Barnes, J.E., Edmondson, C. 2025. Trump Tramples Congress's Power, with Little Challenge from G.O.P. The New York Times, 7 September 2025.

Brooker, P. 1995. 20th Century Dictatorships--The Ideological One-Party States. New York: NYU Press.

Canizales, S.L., Vallejo, J.A. 2021. Latinos & Racism in the Trump Era. Daedalus, Spring 2021, 150-164.

De Grand, A. 1982. Italian Fascism--Its Origin and Development. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Gamboa, S. 2015. Donald Trump Announces Presidential Bid By Trashing Mexico, Mexicans. NBC News 16 June 2015.

Gardner, A. 2021. "'Find the fraud': Trump Pressured a Georgia Elections Investigator in a Separate Call Legal Experts Say Could Amount to Obstruction". The Washington Post, 9 January 2021.

Goldman 2025. 8 August 2025 Press Release: Goldman, Warren, Padilla, Kelly and Correa Demand Investigations into ICE's Detention of U.S. Citizens. https://goldman.house.gov/media/press-releases/goldman-warren-padilla-kelly-and-correa-demand-investigations-ices-detention, accessed 9 September 2025.

Griffin, Roger 1991. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martins Press.

Hitler, A. 1933. The Paradise of the Jew or the State of the German People. Speech given at Nuremburg, 1 September 9/1/1933, reported in the Voelkischer Beobachter 2 September 1933.

Hitler, A. 1939. Speech to Wehrmacht Commanders at Obersalzberg, 22 August 1939.

Hitler, A. 1941. Conversation recorded by Martin Bormann 8/19/1941. From Hitler, A. 1953. Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Young.

Hoyt, Edwin P. 1994. Mussolini's Empire--The Rise and Fall of the Fascist Vision. New York: Wiley.

Johnson, J. 2016. Trump says ‘torture works,’ backs waterboarding and ‘much worse’. Washington Post 17 February 2016.

Kaplow, L. 2025. Judge Rules Against National Guard in LA, and Trump Vows to Send Them to Chicago. NPR, 2 September 2025.

Lopez, A. 2025. Trump Wants to Stop States from Voting by Mail and Using Voting Machines. NPR 19 August 2025.

Neuman, S. 2025. Is Trump's rhetoric on Greenland, Canada and Panama Canal a 'Madman Strategy'? NPR 11 January 2025.

Reid, T. 2024. Trump Tells Christians They Won't Have to Vote After This Election. Reuters 26 July 2024.

Scheffler, W. 1993. Die WannseeKonferenz und ihre historische Bedeutung. Erinnern für die Zukunft, p. 17.

Scruton, Roger 1982. A Dictionary of Political Thought. London, UK: The Macmillan Press.

Trump. D.J. 2016. Speech at the Republican National Convention, 21 July 2016.

Welch, P. 2025. Opening Remarks, Senate Finance Committee Hearing, "The President’s 2026 Health Care Agenda," 4 September 2025.

Page created:	08/28/2025
Last modified:	09/09/2025
Author:	BPL