![]() ![]() I still think less Mussolini than Berlusconi (and people forget his 1994 cabinet was made up of a majority of radical right ministers).” But I can’t agree with him on the fascism label.” When I asked Matthew Feldman, director of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, if he agreed with Paxton, he replied, “No. Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College and an expert on European politics in the 1930s, told me on Tuesday, “I saw Paxton’s essay and of course respect him as an eminent scholar of fascism. Capitol Police detain Trump supporters outside of the House chamber on January 6. ![]() ![]() They are hardly alone in the sense that some important line was crossed when Trump supporters, at his urging, stormed the Capitol, leaving over 50 police officers injured and two dead, and leaving four rioters dead as well. This past week, though, Ben-Ghiat took to Twitter to draw parallels between the Capitol siege and Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome, and between Republicans now turning on Trump to Italian fascists who voted Mussolini out of power in 1943, not to reinstate democracy but to save fascism. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at NYU and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, told me in October that she preferred the term “authoritarian” to “fascist” in describing Trump. Robert Paxton, a Columbia University historian of fascism and Vichy France, wrote after the attack, “I have been reluctant to use the F word for Trumpism, but yesterday’s use of violence against democratic institutions crosses the red line.” The assault on the US Capitol on January 6 has changed matters significantly. In October 2020, they were inching closer, but most dismissed the term as likely an exaggeration or distraction. Back in 2015, no fascism expert would use the word to describe Trump. It’s a question I’ve tried to answer a few times in the six-odd years that he has dominated American politics. ![]()
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