Donald Trump and fascism
comparison
There has been significant academic and political debate about whether Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, can be considered a fascist according to consensus definitions of the term or because of expressed attitudes some critics perceive as sympathetic to the extreme right. Such critiques, first made from 1989, arose especially in response to his 2016 and 2024 presidential campaign and during his second term as president. A number of prominent scholars, former officials, and critics have drawn comparisons between him and fascist leaders with respect to authoritarian actions and rhetoric, while others have rejected the label.
Trump has supported political violence against opponents; many academics cited Trump's involvement in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack as an example of fascism. Trump has been accused of racism and xenophobia with respect to his rhetoric about illegal immigrants and his policies of mass deportation and family separation. Trump's base, referred to as the MAGA movement, is sometimes analyzed as a cult of personality. Especially during his second term, several experts of fascism have characterized Trump and his allies' rhetoric and style of governance as authoritarian and have compared them to previous fascist leaders'. In contrast, some scholars have described Trump variously as an authoritarian populist, a far-right populist, a nationalist, or of a different ideology.
Background
Donald Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and has served as the 47th president since January 2025. He ran three times as the Republican Party's candidate for the presidency, winning against Hillary Clinton in 2016, losing to Joe Biden in 2020, and winning again facing Kamala Harris in 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donald Trump and fascism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.