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 — who have authority to block corporate deals, revoke licenses, and pursue investigations — signal to media corporations that they disapprove of popular critics (like a Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert) of the top leader, and then corporations 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 that the government is fascist.

When top tech chieftains (like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos) embrace and pay off the top leader and reverse corporate and philanthropic policies that irked the top leader, that is evidence that the government is fascist. 

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 that the government is fascist. 

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 for himself and his family businesses in 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 repeatedly calls for and glorifies violence against protesters, and mocks victims of brutal, politically motivated violence (Paul Pelosi), 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, and whitewash history to conceal the crimes of 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 the top leader directs his justice ministry to target political enemies for criminal prosecution, and drop legitimate prosecutions against political allies, and the leader’s political appointees do so over the objections of career officials, 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.