In 1935, the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote that “Fascism seeks to give [the masses] an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.”
Fascistic displays of power are just that – displays. But they help prepare the ground for spectacle to be realized when the illusion of authority is used to justify radical actions.
President Donald J. Trump, former star of “The Apprentice,” has himself shrouded the abuse of executive power in showmanship.
Trump and his movement have gradually carved out a political ideology that is fascist at its core but adorned in a combination of traditional conservatism, wealth, and a veneer of Christianity to boot.
While the term “facism” can seem amorphous and a universal definition is disputed, there are undeniably fascist throughlines and credible historical parallels to be made between the Trump administration and historical fascist characteristics.
The present moment is a uniquely-American context that doesn’t fit perfectly with a term developed to describe political patterns in 20th century Europe, but it is a useful starting-point.
Scholars Roger Griffin and Constantin Iordachi define fascism in terms of a mythic core, one which at minimum rallies “populist forces of the nation or race (catalysed by an elite, a vanguard or charismatic leader) to regenerate the organically conceived nation or race so that it can be saved from a state of existential threat and decadence in which it finds itself […] once put into practice, can lead to […] violence against the enemies of regeneration, whether internal or external.“
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” as Trump said in his Jan. 20, 2025 inaugural address.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has used displays of power, authoritarian threats, and evocative culture-war rhetoric to express populist grievance while blaming the decadence on undesirables through exclusionary narratives.
At a November 2024 campaign rally in Durham N.H., Trump remarked that illegal immigrants from all over the world are “poisoning the blood of our country,” before repeating the false claim that the 2020 “election was rigged.”
Similar words were used by Hitler in his infamous work Mein Kampf to condemn the blood-mixing by those the Third Reich deemed racially inferior.
At a Sept. 30 meeting, Trump addressed hundreds of generals called to Quantico saying “we’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy,” going on to say that “the [cities] that are run by radical left Democrats…they’re very unsafe places…we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
The Trump-incited Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the targeting of immigrants by ICE and their villainization as internal enemies, and allusions to white supremacist rhetoric paint a disturbing picture.
Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Trump spoke at Kirk’s memorial — an event resembling a political rally interspersed with Christian worship music — remarking that “I disagreed with Charlie, I hate my opponent and don’t want the best for them.”
Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, also spoke at Kirk’s memorial, invoking a theocratic justification for political violence.
“In the audience right now there are rulers…God has given them power over our nation and our land. God saved our President, President Trump from an assassin’s bullet for this moment…may we pray that our rulers here, rightfully instituted and given power by our god, wield the sword for the terror of evil men in our nation, in Charlie’s memory,” said Johnson.
Theatrical gesturing of this kind serves several functions through imagery. Among them, to lend legitimacy to political violence against enemies of the state, to silence dissent to the myths through the mere possibility of retaliatory violence, and to activate in-group identification among the MAGA base.
When these and official White House threats are caved into, when the narratives of enemies conspiring to destroy the country are not called out, and the nightmarish shadows cast on the proverbial wall mistaken for reality, we are brought one step closer to domination by fascists.
For Walter Benjamin, it was too late to escape the regime that sought to destroy him. After being captured in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis, Walter Benjamin took his life to avoid a worse fate.
For us, there is still time to resist the warping of an American fascist fantasy into reality.
