A couple of people I know criticized me for calling the Trump administration fascist. They said I didn’t know what fascism is or that using that word is dangerous. 

I have looked carefully at what fascism means and whether it is appropriate to call the Trump administration fascist. There is much evidence to support that opinion. 

When enforcement agency heads with authority to approve or block corporate deals signal to companies that they disapprove of popular critics (like a Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert) of the top leader, and then companies seeking deal approval sideline those critics, that is evidence that the government is fascist. 

When top media companies (like CBS and ABC) pay the top leader to settle frivolous lawsuits he files against them, that is evidence of fascism. 

When top corporate chieftains (like Mark Zuckerberg) embrace and pay off the top leader and reverse corporate policies that irked the top leader, that is evidence of fascism. 

When giant corporate law firms agree to serve the top leader as the price of continuing to do business with the government, that is evidence of fascism. 

When the government demands an ownership stake in a businesses (like Intel) as the price of government support, and then the leader says he wants more deals like that, that is (at least some) evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader blatantly leverages the power of his office to obtain billions in business deals with investors, domestic and foreign; when the top leader pushes his allies in the legislature to approve a deal where a foreign government gifts an airplane, taxpayers pay to rebuild it, and then the leader gets to keep it when he leaves office; and when the top leader directs government business to his own for-profit properties, that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader denied, against all evidence, that he lost his re-election bid, and then incites a mob (like on January 6) that viciously attacks police officers guarding the legislature about to confirm that loss, that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader and his aides vilify, demonize, ostracize, and expel vulnerable groups in society (like immigrants and trans people), that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader and his aides idealize the culture of the dominant race, and invert civil rights laws to advantage the dominant race, that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When masked federal agents disappear people off the streets and deport them without due process and in violation of court orders, that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader repeatedly purports to fire federal officials in violation of the law, that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader and his aides repeatedly call for the impeachment of judges who rule against the administration, that is evidence that the government is fascist. 

When a regime denies fundamental scientific truths (like climate change is real and dangerous, or vaccines benefit public health), that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When the top leader tells bald-faced lies (like he didn’t draw a lewd birthday message to a pedophile, or he didn’t use a pen to alter a hurricane map), that is evidence that the government is fascist.

When cabinet secretaries slavishly praise the top leader, and officials post images of the top leader as a king or god-like figure, and when giant images of the stern face of the top leader appear on the front of government buildings (that this writer runs by every morning), that is evidence that the government is fascist.

As to the dangers of using the term, yes, there are risks to calling this government fascist, but there also are risks to not calling it fascist and thus understating the danger. When I see a both-sides situation like that, my tiebreaker is the truth. The Trump administration is fascist.