Is Donald Trump a fascist? General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, thinks so. Trump is “fascist to the core,” he warns.

John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, agrees. So does Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in this year’s presidential election.

But political commentators who have a grounding in history are not so sure. Writing in The Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal calls Trump “Hitlerian” and his rallies “Naziesque”, but stops short of calling him a fascist.

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic understands the reservations, but he is tired spending time debating the difference between “fascistic” and just plain “fascist”. “He’s damn close enough,” Tomasky writes, “and we’d better fight”.

I understand this logic. It’s the reason Harris uses the term “fascist” to describe Trump – to send “a 911 call to the American people”. But there’s a problem.

I have spent the past six years researching right-wing, authoritarian political communication in America. I can say with confidence how these kinds of labels can misfire. They can very easily be made to look like liberal hysteria, playing straight into the hands of the far right.

Here are the two reasons why it is crucial to call Trump exactly what he is.

Calling Trump a fascist, and then instantly adding, “or close enough,” plays directly into the hands of the far right. “See?” they might say. “Anytime anyone steps outside the liberal consensus, they get labelled a fascist. This is how political correctness silences dissent.”

Trump’s kind of authoritarianism thrives on ambiguity about what sort of right-wing populist figure he is. Its success depends on the fact that “fascist” is the only name we have right now for authoritarian politics.

In my view, Trump is not a fascist. Rather, he is part of a “new authoritarianism” that subverts democracy from within and solidifies power through administrative, rather than paramilitary, means.

This brand of new authoritarianism hides in plain sight because there is no name for it yet. It looks like something else – for example, right-wing populism that is anti-liberal, but not yet anti-democratic. And then suddenly, it shows itself as anti-democratic extremism, as Trump did in refusing to accept the 2020 election result and encouraging the storming of the Capitol.

This moment starkly revealed Trump as a new authoritarian. Supplementary debate about whether Trump is like Adolf Hitler risks being........

© The Conversation