The ISO has not yet adopted a position on whether the USA can be labelled fascist. This personal contribution sets out an argument that the USA has crossed that threshold.

This article was first given as a short introductory talk at ISO Whanganui-a-Tara branch meeting, a recording of which is on our YouTube channel.

What’s going on in the USA?

Another member recently provided a comprehensive overview of the latest Trump administration’s first couple of months. That overview is recorded and I recommend re-visiting it on our YouTube channel. In this introduction, rather than going back over that in detail, I’ll try to give a quick summary and update and then discuss further what we do in response.

Universities in the US have been bowing to the administration’s requirements to adopt new policies in order to maintain their funding, policies that will stifle left-wing protest. They are especially targeting those who stand up for Palestine, which is being re-framed as anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, the government has been labelling these same students connected with Palestine solidarity protest as ‘supporters of Hamas’. We have seen arrests, revocation of student visas, even revocation of permanent residency status, with intent to proceed to deportation of these students.

We’ve also been seeing arrest and summary deportation without trial of so-called ‘illegal immigrants’. The most obvious injustice has been legal Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia mistakenly deported to an El Salvador detention and torture facility – a deportation the Department of Homeland Security has said it can’t undo. But of course the lack of public justice process means we can’t actually know the number and scale of injustices occurring. And all of this just to help stoke xenophobia and nationalism to distract the masses from the real criminals running the government.

The meme-referencing but seriously destructive DOGE – Department Of Government Efficiency – has been firing state employees and cutting state programs not limited to but including those which provide some degree of environmental protection and much-maligned DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – programs which attempt to redress some systemic power imbalances. DOGE is laying the groundwork for Trump’s stated objective of abolishing the Department of Education; undermining consumer protections which somewhat protect workers from some aspects of capitalist greed; and threatening public broadcasting and planned parenthood funding.

D. Taylor writes for Socialist Alternative’s Red Flag about Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021: 

“The radical demagogue, who inspired the world’s fascists, was almost immediately bound by circumstance. When he came to power, his own party tried to constrain him […] The Democrats took back the Congress. Black Lives Matter was simply too big to repress; it means that Trump’s first term was defined by a progressive movement of astonishing breadth and persistence, with enormous immediate cultural impact.” 

We of course have the lens of hindsight through which to view that period. The blunders were comical, the fight-back was inspiring, the various uninspiring bureaucratic and other capitalist competitive forces were at least somewhat useful in this case, and Trump was ousted after a single term. To some degree things might feel more raw in this moment because it is here and now and the unknown future is terrifying.

But there is certainly also concrete justification for feeling such terror.

Is it fascist?

I’ve discussed definitions of fascism in a previous talk which can be re-visited on our website or YouTube channel. Fascism is a term used by people of various politics, and what they mean by the term tends somewhat to be shaped by the speaker’s politics. I’ve previously summarised the features of fascism as: anti-egalitarian; hierarchical and authoritarian; exclusionary and othering; glorifying of an idealised past; and violent and vindictive. I think describing things like this can often be useful – such descriptions can help us recognise current events, and might help convince others to our side. By that list of features, Trump’s USA is most certainly fascist. It’s worth acknowledging Taylor’s analysis that much of USA’s history has maintained a form of authoritarianism which at least claimed to be democratic rather than totalitarian. This particular character of USA authoritarianism means that the fascism of today’s USA may look quite different from the images we tend to reference from last century.

I acknowledge a failing of my previous discussion of fascism: although I had also discussed fascism’s function, I didn’t include function in the list of its features. An earnest thank you to fellow ISO member Martin Gregory for pointing that out. Descriptions of appearance are useful, but consideration of function allows us to be certain we’re not mistaken and that our responses will be appropriate. Trotsky provides a useful definition of function: 

The historical role of fascism is to crush the working class, destroy its organisations and stifle political freedom, at a time when the capitalists are conscious that they have become incapable of governing or dominating through the democratic system.

We most certainly are seeing a global revival of interest in socialist politics, and in recent years there has been escalating worker struggle worldwide. Importantly for this discussion in the USA we’ve seen worker struggles range from Amazon warehouses to Tesla factories to Hollywood production studios and more. While the USA’s response to COVID was slow and often chaotic, with deadly consequences, increased support for public health nonetheless negatively impacted many capitalists’ profits. The Black Lives Matter organising and protests of a few years ago made inroads against systemic racism. I wouldn’t say the USA’s capitalists had reached the point of incapability to govern or dominate, but I would say they were threatened. The swift and brutal response we’re seeing through these early months of this Trump administration is exactly what Trotsky described: “crush the working class, destroy its organisations and stifle political freedom”.

In my opinion, Trump the individual is an opportunist, not a fascist. Throughout his career, from property development to television personality to politics, Trump’s primary motivation appears to have been ego and power. He’s an authoritarian insofar as he wants others to follow him, and he’s most certainly capitalist, chauvinist, and racist. But I’m not convinced Trump himself is ideologically driven. Nonetheless, the far-right have been rallying, organising, and strengthening their political positions for many years now. What we’re seeing in the USA is a confluence of Trump’s drive for personal power and the organised ideological power of far-right forces which are able to further entrench themselves in the wave of Trump’s populism – the product of which I believe we can safely and usefully call fascism.

What should socialists do?

Socialists imagine a future where resources are shared fairly, where we look after one another, where we aren’t set against one another with competition, bigotry, colonialism, and imperialist wars. We fight against those who hoard wealth and who exploit others. Because fascism is a product of capitalism, socialists are inherently anti-fascist. But we fight capitalism in all of its manifestations, knowing that if we are to ultimately achieve an egalitarian future we will need a revolution that destroys the entirety of this fundamentally exploitative system.

So we continue to do what we’re already doing – communicating as best we’re able that another world is possible, another world is necessary, and we have at least a rough idea of how to get there. We continue to build the size and capacity of our organisations, we continue to practice resistance activities to build our skills and confidence and to hinder the capitalists’ side, and we support progressive reforms where there are opportunities to do so without distracting ourselves from the ultimate revolutionary goal.

Specifically, here in Aotearoa and around the world, socialists should emphasise solidarity with USA protesters who are standing up against the Trump administration. We should point out that rather than deporting so-called ‘illegal immigrants’, the USA and every country should erase borders and allow the free movement of people. We should make clear our stand against imperialism and war-mongering as practiced by the USA and its allies, and challenge our government to distance itself from USA’s imperialism by rejecting AUKUS and disallowing rocket launches of military equipment.We should reject colonialism and seek justice for its effects, and we should make clear that all socialists stand with indigenous people for justice and for self-determination. We should stand against the far-right culture wars, and make clear that we value neurodivergent people, queer people, immigrants, and everyone. And we should continue to organise on the street collaboratively with comrades, as we do for example through our participation in the Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition.

” Hands-Off rally, Washington, DC” by G. Edward Johnson is licensed under CC BY 4.0