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13 January 2021

Why Trump isn’t a fascist

The storming of the Capitol on 6 January was not a coup. But American democracy is still in danger. 

By Richard J Evans

A number of prominent commentators, including the ­historians Timothy Snyder and Sarah Churchwell, the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and the Berkeley public policy professor Robert Reich have been arguing for some time that Donald Trump is a fascist. The writer Rebecca Solnit has even called Trump’s ­supporters “Nazis”.

Look at his contempt for democracy, they say; his attacks on the press and the judiciary, his rabble-rousing, his intolerance of all who oppose him, his authoritarianism, his self-identification with foreign dictators and strongmen, his nationalism and “America first” foreign policy. Look at the way he spurns international organisations, treaties and agreements, his racism and encouragement of white supremacist groups, his incitement to violence on the streets of the US.

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