How do scholars define fascism and how do those definitions apply to modern U.S. political movements?

1. What scholars mean by “fascism”: a cluster concept, not a checklist

Contemporary scholarship emphasizes a “fascist minimum” made up of recurring traits—militant nationalism, contempt for liberal democracy, anti-left hostility, a cult of violent rejuvenation, and a mass-mobilizing style led by charismatic figures—while noting that fascism is a cluster concept rather than a single ideological blueprint, a position reflected in major syntheses by Payne, Griffin, Paxton, and encyclopedic treatments ^{[1] [7] [5] [8]}.

2. Key theoretical framings: Paxton, Payne, and the “new consensus”

Robert Paxton frames fascism as a political practice that mobilizes popular enthusiasm through propaganda and direct action against liberal institutions, whereas Stanley Payne and the “new consensus” map fascism through its negations, goals, and distinctive aesthetic—anti-liberalism/anti-communism, aims of authoritarian national renewal, and a style of mass symbolism and violence-friendly politics—giving scholars both descriptive and analytical tools ^{[5] [1]}.

3. Historical touchstones and definitional anchors

Textbook and reference sources continue to anchor definitions in the Italian and German cases—Mussolini’s corporatism, Nazi racial fanaticism and totalitarian control—because those regimes crystallize features like centralized autocracy, racialized nationalism, and forcible suppression of opposition; major references including Britannica and Merriam-Webster still use these historical examples as definitional touchstones ^{[2] [3] [9]}.

4. Applying the definitions to the U.S.: where scholars converge and diverge

Scholarly opinion diverges on labeling contemporary U.S. politics “fascist”: recent work argues the term can illuminate a “fascist moment” when exclusionary vanguard groups and political actors use mobilization, paramilitary violence, and anti-democratic rhetoric—features found in some white-power and Patriot movement circles—while many experts stop short of calling mainstream U.S. politics fascist because it lacks the full consolidation of one-party, totalitarian state power that defined historic fascisms ^{[4] [10] [7]}.

5. The Trump question and the analytic stakes

Debate about Donald Trump illustrates the larger methodological caution: some scholars and commentators identify fascist tactics—normalizing violence, demonizing opponents, and aggressive unilateralism—but most surveyed fascism scholars judged that Trump reached authoritarian or fascist-adjacent behaviors without fully crossing into classical fascist rule; contemporaneous analyses stress that the resilience of democratic institutions and popular refusal to acquiesce have so far prevented consolidation of power ^{[4] [6] [5]}.

6. Politics, rhetoric, and the risk of overuse

Across the spectrum, political actors weaponize “fascism” as a rhetorical amplifier: the right accuses the left of totalitarian impulses while the left maps exclusionary, vengeful, and violent tendencies on the right, complicating public discourse and risking analytical dilution of the term; scholars therefore urge using historical definitions and observable practices—mobilization, suppression of dissent, and state capture—rather than broad invective ^{[11] [8]}.

Conclusion: a usable, cautious tool for analysis

Fascism remains a historically rooted but flexible analytic category: useful for diagnosing movements that combine militant nationalism, anti-pluralist politics and mobilized violence, yet demanding restraint because most U.S. movements studied to date fall short of the classical criterion of consolidated fascist state power; the academic impulse is to apply precise, evidence-based markers rather than polemical labels ^{[1] [4] [5]}.