Fascism doesn’t work in America because it is too large and sprawling. But China, which is even larger, is technofascistic. Because they want to sell electric cars instead of gas guzzling freedom cars.
'The fascist analogy doesn’t work with Trump because fascism demands a certain coherence and discipline. ' - this is true for Trump specifically ('strongman' might be a better description for him) but less true for much of his inner circle and his well-known supporters, (Miller, Bannon....)
There is an argument that a successor to Trump might continue his worst 'policies' without Trump's baggage. Trump has normalized so many hard-right ideas, it will be difficult to disentangle them (one example - the ideas around the 'Great Replacement' 'theory', which were once only found in neo-Nazi websites, are now mainstream).
Barkan is right about the 'permanent damage Trump has done to the United States is in its global reputation', but Trump has also severely, maybe even irreparably, damaged the US federal government in so many ways...the damage from DOGE alone may never be fully repaired.
I almost stopped reading at the bizarre comparison of the Trump and Nixon comebacks. The best efforts of a few hundred semi-violent Karen Intifadists in Minneapolis to recreate the hell I’m shocked you can still call the “George Floyd Uprising” is not going to alter the trajectory Trump has been on for at least six months to be as memory-holed by the right that comes after him as George W. Bush. And there in fact is where the Nixon analogy is apt - the country will no more move left on immigration and abortion, to say nothing of other things, than it did on law and order after Watergate. As for Europe and the international order, far larger historical forces are at work, and if anything Trump’s Caligulan derangement is being underplayed.
I'm curious that commentators still think that the plan is to have mid-terms, let alone for the Republicans to lose them.
And I don't think it's at all correct to say that fascism requires coherence. In fact, many have argued that you can define fascism primarily by its contradictions. We are the strongest people, but we are the scrappy underdogs fighting the elite. Our opponents are weak and degenerate, but they are all-powerful and control everything. We know the will of the people, democracy can't be trusted. And so on.
Trumpism might not have any intellectual basis, but it's fascist to the very core, often without even realising it.
Me, too. As awful as Trump is, he simply is not going to be able to somehow cancel the midterms and all indications are that Republicans are going to lose (many) seats.
I guess we'll see. As I say above, I didn't think we'd see an insurrection or Trump trying to overturn the last election results without any consequences, so I don't really see who or what would now stop him using the Insurrection Act to halt mid-terms if he chooses to do so, especially given how casually "domestic terrorism" accusations are now being flung around by the administration.
Semantically, I agree with you, but I think Ross is simply claiming that America is too large to be physically monitored (technologically is a different story) in the way, say, the Weimar Republic was. But I too use the word fascist to describe Trump.
America is a federalist republic of 50 states, forcing 50 states to do everything you wish, all the time, with the layers of local government we have is just about impossible, even with the most fascist-seeming executive.
Also, conceptually, there is no reason to push a bunch of red states to do redistricting (and be livid that some didn't) if the plan is not to have elections. The legitimacy of the governed remains essential in this country.
The end result of Fascism is a status quo of quiet, thoroughly subjugated people who move through life in daily fear of the state; that Trump may not totally achieve this in his term does not disqualify him from the label.
Here in LA, where ICE is still kidnapping people daily, if you call him a fascist, no one will disagree and everyone will know what you mean. Same in Portland, same in Chicago, same in Minneapolis. It's an apt term, whether you want to admit it or not.
Perhaps one day, when you get yanked out of your apartment, beaten, pepper-sprayed, and then spirited away to a slave camp somewhere outside of Moab, never to see your friends and loved ones again, you'll finally whisper to yourself, "Okay *now* it's fascism."
Honestly, I'd really like to believe this, it's very comforting. But genuinely what does it mean in practice? Because from the other side of the Atlantic I naively assumed that there would be consequences for an insurrectionist mob that planned to hang the Vice-President or for Trump being caught red-handed trying to overturn the 2020 election result.
If he invokes the Insurrection Act to stop the mid-terms, can/will that be meaningfully opposed from California or New York? By the military? The USA is certainly larger and more diverse, but in many ways it's also a much more coherent and powerful nation-state than Italy or Germany was in the 1930s (they were, what, only 50 or 60 years old at that point?) and they had plenty of layers of local government of their own and I would argue much more established and effective political opposition and civil society.
I agree. My only caveat is that the federal government can listen in on everything you say and has satellites that can see when your shoes are untied. The panopticon is less effective than boots on the ground but it isn’t ineffective.
Defund ICE! Renee Good and Jeffrey Pretti gave their lives defending democracy and fighting fascism. Hope Bovino and TACO are prosecuted for war crimes.
“I’ve come to believe the permanent damage Trump has done to the United States is in its global reputation.”
Exactly. Many Americans living in a domestic information bubble probably can’t see that far.
As an American (a “heritage American,” even, in MAGA-fascist parlance) living long-term overseas in a closely allied country of the US and working on international issues, I see, hear and feel the disgust, disappointment and horror every day at what the US has become — and bewilderment at how it got there. Metastasized Reaganism is about the best I can offer, by way of explanation. Time will tell — one day, decades from now, it might all make sense.
Meanwhile, the USA is fucked about 100 times worse than it seems to realize.
Yes, your view, I believe, is the most realistic due to your broader perspective. The US centered view of most people in the US is limited by the existing dominance (or diminishing dominance). They fail to see the approach of a new world order. Barkan’s friend Momdani is perhaps on of the most astute politicians in the US in this respect. He speaks in a new world language without debt or allegiance to either of the old parties.
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, REM/Michael Stipe).
California is projected to lose four House seats in the next census.
At that point, a Democratic candidate for President could win all of Harris' states plus Wisconsin plus Michigan plus Pennsylvania--and still not get to 270 electoral votes.
That's why both parties care about illegals in blue sanctuary states.
An interesting piece, but the fact that you still cannot grasp that Trump and his movement are fascist in nature is a serious blind spot--and, at this late hour, as paramilitaries are executing citizens on the street, a rather shocking position to continue to hold.
Just because America as a nation will not likely become a fully-entrenched autocracy (which I agree with) does not mean Trump and his movement are not, therefore, fascist--nor does their lack of discipline. The fascists in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 30s were also undisciplined and chaotic in the early phases. Every single major scholar of fascism is on record at this point that Trump is a fascist. Even Jonathan Rauch, centrist liberal, has come around, penning a systemic argument for this inescapable conclusion at The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/
I would suggest that any hope of America reconstructing its broken Republic depends on understanding what has assaulted it--so that it can take proper defense measures in the future.
The problem of using “paramilitaries executing citizens on the street” as a standard is that ICE isn’t a paramilitary - it’s an existing, if very bad, arm of the federal government. It’d be like calling the police department under a nasty mayor like Rudy Giuliani a paramilitary. (People did, for the record, call Giuliani fascist.) Also, killing can’t be the standard, either. Cops kill civilians. Eric Garner, George Floyd, the list is very long.
MAGA doesn’t get to control ICE if it doesn’t run the federal government. It’s not their private army, as much as they’d like it to be.
I suspect one long term outcome will be the collapse of the distance between the attorney general and the executive branch. Trump has the office functioning as the president's lawyer, going after people on command, and every democrat over spoken to has an appetite to return the favor.
The legal system has destroyed a lot of it's legitimacy over the past several years.
I always feel like MAGA detractors over-estimate its power. It's a fringe movement in the grand scheme of things. It's the Left in America who has the funding, the institutions, the media, etc. on their side.
I certainly want to believe this is the twilight hour, but it sure doesn’t feel that way in central Pennsylvania. I had the same reluctance in response to your piece on Kirk’s failure to launch.
Around here, a new Turning Points flag goes up every day, schoolteachers sing his praises, and pastors are reportedly still preaching on him. I continue to be amazed by the way Trumpers push further and further in what they defend. I’m just not seeing any retreat or fatigue. But I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
Fascism doesn’t work in America because it is too large and sprawling. But China, which is even larger, is technofascistic. Because they want to sell electric cars instead of gas guzzling freedom cars.
'The fascist analogy doesn’t work with Trump because fascism demands a certain coherence and discipline. ' - this is true for Trump specifically ('strongman' might be a better description for him) but less true for much of his inner circle and his well-known supporters, (Miller, Bannon....)
There is an argument that a successor to Trump might continue his worst 'policies' without Trump's baggage. Trump has normalized so many hard-right ideas, it will be difficult to disentangle them (one example - the ideas around the 'Great Replacement' 'theory', which were once only found in neo-Nazi websites, are now mainstream).
Barkan is right about the 'permanent damage Trump has done to the United States is in its global reputation', but Trump has also severely, maybe even irreparably, damaged the US federal government in so many ways...the damage from DOGE alone may never be fully repaired.
I almost stopped reading at the bizarre comparison of the Trump and Nixon comebacks. The best efforts of a few hundred semi-violent Karen Intifadists in Minneapolis to recreate the hell I’m shocked you can still call the “George Floyd Uprising” is not going to alter the trajectory Trump has been on for at least six months to be as memory-holed by the right that comes after him as George W. Bush. And there in fact is where the Nixon analogy is apt - the country will no more move left on immigration and abortion, to say nothing of other things, than it did on law and order after Watergate. As for Europe and the international order, far larger historical forces are at work, and if anything Trump’s Caligulan derangement is being underplayed.
Describing the 'hell' in Minneapolis as the work of 'a few hundred semi-violent Karen Intifadists' is a remarkably stupid statement.
I'm curious that commentators still think that the plan is to have mid-terms, let alone for the Republicans to lose them.
And I don't think it's at all correct to say that fascism requires coherence. In fact, many have argued that you can define fascism primarily by its contradictions. We are the strongest people, but we are the scrappy underdogs fighting the elite. Our opponents are weak and degenerate, but they are all-powerful and control everything. We know the will of the people, democracy can't be trusted. And so on.
Trumpism might not have any intellectual basis, but it's fascist to the very core, often without even realising it.
There will be mid-terms and the Republicans are going to lose badly.
Fingers crossed my friend. In all sincerity.
Me, too. As awful as Trump is, he simply is not going to be able to somehow cancel the midterms and all indications are that Republicans are going to lose (many) seats.
I guess we'll see. As I say above, I didn't think we'd see an insurrection or Trump trying to overturn the last election results without any consequences, so I don't really see who or what would now stop him using the Insurrection Act to halt mid-terms if he chooses to do so, especially given how casually "domestic terrorism" accusations are now being flung around by the administration.
Not to belabor the point but it’s easy to say “we’ll see, could happen…” but I’m out here making a prediction - it’s not going to happen 😊
Well, as I say, let's hope you're correct!
Semantically, I agree with you, but I think Ross is simply claiming that America is too large to be physically monitored (technologically is a different story) in the way, say, the Weimar Republic was. But I too use the word fascist to describe Trump.
America is a federalist republic of 50 states, forcing 50 states to do everything you wish, all the time, with the layers of local government we have is just about impossible, even with the most fascist-seeming executive.
Also, conceptually, there is no reason to push a bunch of red states to do redistricting (and be livid that some didn't) if the plan is not to have elections. The legitimacy of the governed remains essential in this country.
The end result of Fascism is a status quo of quiet, thoroughly subjugated people who move through life in daily fear of the state; that Trump may not totally achieve this in his term does not disqualify him from the label.
Here in LA, where ICE is still kidnapping people daily, if you call him a fascist, no one will disagree and everyone will know what you mean. Same in Portland, same in Chicago, same in Minneapolis. It's an apt term, whether you want to admit it or not.
Perhaps one day, when you get yanked out of your apartment, beaten, pepper-sprayed, and then spirited away to a slave camp somewhere outside of Moab, never to see your friends and loved ones again, you'll finally whisper to yourself, "Okay *now* it's fascism."
Honestly, I'd really like to believe this, it's very comforting. But genuinely what does it mean in practice? Because from the other side of the Atlantic I naively assumed that there would be consequences for an insurrectionist mob that planned to hang the Vice-President or for Trump being caught red-handed trying to overturn the 2020 election result.
If he invokes the Insurrection Act to stop the mid-terms, can/will that be meaningfully opposed from California or New York? By the military? The USA is certainly larger and more diverse, but in many ways it's also a much more coherent and powerful nation-state than Italy or Germany was in the 1930s (they were, what, only 50 or 60 years old at that point?) and they had plenty of layers of local government of their own and I would argue much more established and effective political opposition and civil society.
I agree. My only caveat is that the federal government can listen in on everything you say and has satellites that can see when your shoes are untied. The panopticon is less effective than boots on the ground but it isn’t ineffective.
But I can’t imagine that we would ever have people going door to door making sure the radio was on as they did in Nazi Germany.
"The Europeans have spent decades as quasi-content vassals of the U.S. and that era is drawing to a close."
It was nice while it lasted, spending nothing on their militaries while Daddy Yankee put 40 trillion on his credit card.
Defund ICE! Renee Good and Jeffrey Pretti gave their lives defending democracy and fighting fascism. Hope Bovino and TACO are prosecuted for war crimes.
I wrote a poem as a tribute to Pretti: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/jeffrey-pretti-poem
“I’ve come to believe the permanent damage Trump has done to the United States is in its global reputation.”
Exactly. Many Americans living in a domestic information bubble probably can’t see that far.
As an American (a “heritage American,” even, in MAGA-fascist parlance) living long-term overseas in a closely allied country of the US and working on international issues, I see, hear and feel the disgust, disappointment and horror every day at what the US has become — and bewilderment at how it got there. Metastasized Reaganism is about the best I can offer, by way of explanation. Time will tell — one day, decades from now, it might all make sense.
Meanwhile, the USA is fucked about 100 times worse than it seems to realize.
Yes, your view, I believe, is the most realistic due to your broader perspective. The US centered view of most people in the US is limited by the existing dominance (or diminishing dominance). They fail to see the approach of a new world order. Barkan’s friend Momdani is perhaps on of the most astute politicians in the US in this respect. He speaks in a new world language without debt or allegiance to either of the old parties.
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, REM/Michael Stipe).
California is projected to lose four House seats in the next census.
At that point, a Democratic candidate for President could win all of Harris' states plus Wisconsin plus Michigan plus Pennsylvania--and still not get to 270 electoral votes.
That's why both parties care about illegals in blue sanctuary states.
I agree. This too shall pass. MAGA builds nothing positive. It is built solely on rage and owning the libs. That can't last long-term.
An interesting piece, but the fact that you still cannot grasp that Trump and his movement are fascist in nature is a serious blind spot--and, at this late hour, as paramilitaries are executing citizens on the street, a rather shocking position to continue to hold.
Just because America as a nation will not likely become a fully-entrenched autocracy (which I agree with) does not mean Trump and his movement are not, therefore, fascist--nor does their lack of discipline. The fascists in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 30s were also undisciplined and chaotic in the early phases. Every single major scholar of fascism is on record at this point that Trump is a fascist. Even Jonathan Rauch, centrist liberal, has come around, penning a systemic argument for this inescapable conclusion at The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/
I myself wrote about this several years ago: https://open.substack.com/pub/nickcoccoma/p/the-f-word?r=7ymja&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I would suggest that any hope of America reconstructing its broken Republic depends on understanding what has assaulted it--so that it can take proper defense measures in the future.
The problem of using “paramilitaries executing citizens on the street” as a standard is that ICE isn’t a paramilitary - it’s an existing, if very bad, arm of the federal government. It’d be like calling the police department under a nasty mayor like Rudy Giuliani a paramilitary. (People did, for the record, call Giuliani fascist.) Also, killing can’t be the standard, either. Cops kill civilians. Eric Garner, George Floyd, the list is very long.
MAGA doesn’t get to control ICE if it doesn’t run the federal government. It’s not their private army, as much as they’d like it to be.
I'm more concerned about factions of the Democratic party causing the conditions for techno-fascism / techno-authoritarianism, long-term.
There is a whole iceberg around https://bsky.app/profile/conorsen.bsky.social/post/3mdej7c5lw22z
I suspect one long term outcome will be the collapse of the distance between the attorney general and the executive branch. Trump has the office functioning as the president's lawyer, going after people on command, and every democrat over spoken to has an appetite to return the favor.
The legal system has destroyed a lot of it's legitimacy over the past several years.
I always feel like MAGA detractors over-estimate its power. It's a fringe movement in the grand scheme of things. It's the Left in America who has the funding, the institutions, the media, etc. on their side.
I prefer totalitarian.
Honestly I agree about the legacy. I think a lot of people will be surprised at how quickly he is forgotten, especially 5-10 years after the fact.
I certainly want to believe this is the twilight hour, but it sure doesn’t feel that way in central Pennsylvania. I had the same reluctance in response to your piece on Kirk’s failure to launch.
Around here, a new Turning Points flag goes up every day, schoolteachers sing his praises, and pastors are reportedly still preaching on him. I continue to be amazed by the way Trumpers push further and further in what they defend. I’m just not seeing any retreat or fatigue. But I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.