Don't Help Trump by Calling Him a Fascist

Donald Trump's critics are making two kinds of mistake when they call him a fascist, or a proto-fascist, or a kind of fascist, or complain that his rallies evoke images of Nazi Germany and so forth. The first mistake is that he isn't any kind of fascist. The second is that this line of attack at best serves no purpose, and at worst makes him stronger.

Trump, to be clear, is grossly ill-suited to be president. He's a divisive, dishonest, bullying, flamboyantly uninformed man, whose ambition is an expression of pure vanity. The kindest thing I'll say about him is that he at least seems to know when he's talking nonsense, which is most of the time: The more vapid the statement, the more careful he is to repeat it for emphasis. He'll repeat that vapid statement. Believe me, he'll repeat it.