Opinion: Harris finally calls Trump a fascist. But don't take her word for it. Take his.
Some voters will be quick to dismiss this as just Trump being Trump. But it's not enough to call him a 'fascist.' Democrats should back it up by pointing to what the former president says and does.
When asked outright if she believed former President Donald Trump was a fascist at a CNN town hall last week, Vice President Kamala Harris’ answer was simple.
“Yes, I do,” the Democratic presidential nominee told Anderson Cooper. She used the term later in the night when asked what she’d say to someone considering a third-party candidate due to her stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
“For many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries,” Harris said. “They also care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”
I was surprised to hear her use such a loaded word on the presidential campaign trail, though people have called Trump one before. Historians and scholars have been debating whether Trump is a fascist for years, and the answer has shifted over time. So I decided just to ask the question. Is Trump a fascist?
Is Trump a fascist? This professor says yes.
Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor, is the author of “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.” He has been describing Trump’s rhetoric and actions as fascist since 2018. In a Vox interview from the time, he described fascism's key components as "identifying enemies, appealing to the in-group (usually the majority group) and smashing truth and replacing it with power."
“The fact is, it was correct then and it’s correct now,” Stanley told me this month. “And if you realized Trump was a fascist, you would have known he would try to stay in power.”
I asked him what he thought of Harris’ use of the term.
“Finally, the candidate for the Democratic Party is using an accurate description of reality,” Stanley said. “It’s essential. Is it sufficient? No. Is it necessary? Yes.”
Trump's former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, thinks he's a fascist
This was not the first time the Democratic nominee has referred to Trump as a fascist on the campaign trail. In an interview earlier in October, Charlamagne tha God asked Harris if they could use “fascism” to describe the other side. She said they could.
Harris also used the CNN town hall to highlight revelations from former White House chief of staff John Kelly. In a recent interview with The New York Times, the retired four-star Marine general said Trump “falls into the general definition of fascist."
In a story for The Atlantic, two anonymous sources recently said they heard the former president say he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had.” Kelly confirmed it.
President Joe Biden agrees with Kelly’s assessment, according to the White House. Clearly, so does Harris.
Trump has used language like this in the past to describe Harris. He often calls her “Comrade Kamala” and said she was a “Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist” at a September event in Arizona. Those claims are baseless and a tactic used by actual fascists.
“Hitler called the entire Social Democratic Party 'Marxists’ and imprisoned them in concentration camps,” Stanley said.
Trump's own words and policy proposals signal fascism
It’s not enough to call Trump a “fascist,” Stanley said. Democrats should back up their claims by pointing to what the former president says and does.
“To explain that he’s a fascist, all you need to do is put together the things he’s suggested,” Stanley said.
A big part of this is Trump’s stance on immigration. He has repeatedly claimed that if reelected, he will launch “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” Hitler shared similar anti-immigrant ideas in “Mein Kampf,” Stanley said.
He stressed that Trump’s deportation plans would change the fabric of the nation: “People turning their neighbors in, that’s what’s coming.”
Democrats have finally realized they need to point out fascism every chance they get
Trump has threatened to punish political opponents more than 100 times. He wants to up the use of “stop and frisk” around the country. He wants to defund public schools that allow their transgender students to be who they are.
All of these things, Stanley said, are evidence Democrats could use to point out Trump’s fascism.
It’s significant that in the last days of her presidential campaign, Harris’ closing message to voters is a firm stance on the threat Trump poses. Whether it makes a difference with voters, I’m not sure. Trump has already survived scandals that would tank any other politician’s career; the MAGA crowd doesn’t seem to care.
At Trump's Madison Square Garden rally Sunday night, a comedian called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" and made jokes about Black people "carving watermelons" for Halloween. Trump spoke about the "enemy from within" and called the media the "enemy of the people."
None of that is normal. That's fascism.
I'm sure some voters will be quick to dismiss this as just Trump being Trump. It doesn't change that he said these things and appears to mean them. Even if none of Trump's claims come to fruition, it does not change the fact that he made them. It is not OK for Trump to say and do the things he does.
Finally, the Democrats aren't afraid to say their quiet part out loud. Trump and Republicans have been doing that this entire election.
Follow Paste BN elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno