In Donald Trump the word ‘fascist’ has regained its original meaning

On February 20, 1939, the walls of New York’s Madison Square Garden, the self-styled “world’s most famous arena”, were festooned with red, white, and blue bunting hung alongside rally-sized swastikas. The occasion was to celebrate the birthday of President George Washington along with the “America First” campaign of the American Nazi movement known as the German American Bund.

The America First rally was in keeping with the Nazi style of the era: the 20,000 attendees were highly disciplined, arms rising in mechanically precise salutes, the stage backed by an array of American flags accompanied by stiffly attentive brown shirts.

Visually, Donald Trump’s rally in the Garden last Sunday was nothing like this, marked instead by the chaotic power of his shambolic personality. But in hatred and intent, it was very much in keeping with its fascist forbear. The New York Times called it “a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism.” As Jay Michaelson described it in The Forward, 1939’s crowd “sat, sang, and saluted politely, but the speakers and crowd in 2024 were vulgar, crude, and mean-spirited.”

The word ‘fascist’ is thrown around lightly these days, often by those with little understanding of its meaning. To a high school student whose assessment is marked down for missing the deadline, the teacher is a “fascist.” In 2022, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Gina Viola called her opponent “a full-blown fascist” for campaigning to maintain the police budget at then current levels.