How relevant is the 'fascist' label in this election cycle? 

In the homestretch of this exhausting presidential campaign, the question of whether former President Donald Trump can be justly called a fascist, extensively debated during his 2016 campaign and his presidential term, has made a comeback.

Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris answered this question in the affirmative when it was posed to her in a CNN town hall, following statements from two retired generals who served in high-level positions under Trump applying the label to their former boss. Republicans have answered with accusations of scaremongering, desperation and mudslinging.

So, how relevant is the f-word to our current political moment?

Many Trump supporters claim that virtually every Republican president and presidential candidate, from Ronald Reagan onward, has been called a fascist or a Nazi or compared with Hitler. One can certainly find examples of such rhetoric, but generally from the far left, not from mainstream Democrats. In 2004, when conservatives slammed the liberal activist group MoveOn for posting two video clips comparing George W. Bush with Hitler among over 1,500 entries for an ad contest, the group quickly apologized.

In this case, John Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as head of homeland security and White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, has said that Trump, as president, expressed a wish for loyal and obedient generals like the ones Hitler had. Kelly has also noted that Trump met the definition of a fascist insofar as fascism is a “far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader.” Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called Trump a "fascist to the core."

There is little question that Trump, who routinely gushes over dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and who repeatedly expressed impatience with the constraints on his power during his presidency, has a tyrant’s instincts. While it’s doubtful that he has anything like a well-developed ideology, his movement exploits vague grievances, blaming hardships and injustices — real or imagined — on foreigners and/or “the enemy within.” Those are classic strategies of authoritarian populist nationalism, an ideology whose more radical forms do amount to fascism. In that sense, calling Trump’s political persona fascist is a fairly accurate description.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that Trump would be able to institute an actual fascist dictatorship in America, where democratic institutions, even if somewhat degraded in recent years, remain very strong. It is likely, however, that if elected he will fill his new administration with loyalists who will be far less likely to hold him in check than the “adults in the room” the first time around. The dangers to democratic governance are real.

I still think that for Harris to invoke the term “fascist” against Trump was probably misguided, if only because it helps normalize extreme rhetoric in American political discourse. But Republican complaints about such rhetoric are breathtakingly hypocritical, considering that Trump has repeatedly called Harris a “fascist” on the campaign trail — as well as a “Marxist” and a “communist.”

In a way, the fixation on labels like “fascist” gets us into a debate about what fascism is and distracts us from what we know about Trump: that he’s a narcissistic bully who peddles hate, has no respect for the law, and wants to use power for self-aggrandizement and vengeance. When asked whether Trump is a fascist, Harris should have simply stated those facts.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.