What is fascism?

By WILL WEISSERT and LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris was asked this week if she thought Donald Trump was a fascist, and she replied, “Yes, I do.” She subsequently called him the same thing herself, saying voters don’t want “a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

But what exactly is a fascist? And does the meaning of the word shift when viewed through a historical or political prism — especially so close to the end of a fraught presidential race?

Here’s a closer look:

What is fascism?

An authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is often associated with the far right and characterized by a dictatorial leader who uses military forces to help suppress political and civil opposition.

History’s two most famous fascists were Nazi chief Adolf Hitler in Germany and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Known as Il Duce, or “the duke,” Mussolini headed the National Fascist Party, which was symbolized by an eagle clutching a fasces — a bundle of rods with an axe among them.

At Mussolini’s urging, in October 1922, thousands of “Blackshirts,” or “squadristi,” made up an armed fascist militia that marched on Rome, vowing to seize power. Hitler’s Nazis similarly relied on a militia, known as the “Brownshirts.” Both men eventually imposed single-party rule and encouraged violence in the streets. They used soldiers, but also fomented civilian unrest that pit loyalists against political opponents and larger swaths of everyday society.

Hitler and Mussolini censored the press and issued sophisticated propaganda. They played up racist fears and manipulated not just their active supporters but everyday citizens.

Today, the term fascism has taken on a looser political definition and is often evoked as a catch-all for efforts to spread oppression and racism — as well as to decry dictators or leaders who embrace totalitarian tactics.

It is not just the left that has used the term, denouncing a push rightward in the U.S. and in many parts of the world. Some conservatives decried lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic as “fascist.”

What are other historical examples of fascism?

Hitler and Mussolini are its two biggest names, but it gets murkier from there.

Does military dictator Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year, ironfisted rule in Chile qualify? What about Indonesian strongman Suharto or Spain’s Francisco Franco? Were the regimes of Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary and Brazil’s Plínio Salgado fascist? Where does American neo-Nazi leader David Duke fit?

Indeed, critics sometimes describe modern U.S. extremist groups — including movements that have cheered Trump, like the Proud Boys — as fascists or neo-fascists. Those labels may be more steeped in political ideology than clear historical parallels.

Why is Harris calling Trump a fascist?

The vice president has long criticized Trump as being mentally unstable and not a true believer in, or defender of, the nation’s founding democratic principles.

She notes that Trump suggested he’d deploy the military to target political opponents, including people he has decried as the “enemy from within.” The former president has long talked about attacking his enemies and declared to his supporters that he would be their “retribution.”

“He’s talking about the American people. He’s talking about journalists, judges, nonpartisan election officials,” Harris said Wednesday night at a CNN town hall.