Donald Trump is out, but his style of politics remains. Even before the U.S. president was elected, observers debated whether his style should be called fascism. After the past year, we argue that it unequivocally should be and that the appropriateness of the term lies specifically in the growing union of right-wing party politics and paramilitary street violence.
Sociologist Michael Mann’s definition of fascism is one of the most influential: “the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.” This takes 1930s fascism as its prototype. It is a restrictive definition but one that now describes the U.S. situation well.
