Calling Trump a 'fascist' is offensive.

Jews ought to know a real fascist when we see one.

photo: Leo_Visions/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Calling U.S. President Donald Trump a “fascist” has become political fetish — the type that insults history, memory, and the millions who actually suffered under true fascism.

The term is often delivered with moral certainty, as if saying it automatically wins the debate, ends all discussion, and absolves the speaker of critical thinking and intellect.

But from a Jewish perspective (and certainly others), this accusation is not just wrong; it is deeply offensive. Not because Trump is beyond criticism. He isn’t. He can be controversial, abrasive, and impulsive. At times, his language has a tendency to come off as crude, his instincts polarizing, and his political style deeply unsettling to many. Reasonable people can strongly oppose him on policy, temperament, or values.

But none of that makes him a fascist. And words matter, especially to Jews, who understand fascism not as an abstract academic label or a political insult. Fascism is not a vibe. It is not authoritarian aesthetics, harsh rhetoric, or a leader with a cult of personality.

Fascism is a totalizing political system with clear historical features: one-party rule, the fusion of state and ideology, the abolition of independent courts, the suppression of opposition through force, the criminalization of dissent, state-controlled media, and the normalization of political terror. It is a system in which power is no longer constrained, disagreement is no longer permitted, and minorities are no longer protected.

If those elements are absent, the label does not apply.

For Jews, this is not theoretical. Fascism is not something we encountered in op-eds or hashtags. It is the regime that stripped our grandparents of citizenship, profession, dignity, and eventually life. It is the system that turned Jews into subhumans by law, by culture, and by force. When Jews hear the word fascist, we do not think “politician I dislike.” We think of secret police, party militias, book burnings, purges, and a state that mobilized society toward the eradication of an internal enemy.

That history imposes obligations. One of them is precision.

Donald Trump did not abolish elections. He did not outlaw opposition parties. He did not shutter the press or nationalize media. He did not eliminate the courts or establish a one-party state. He did not normalize political imprisonment or state violence against dissenters. The institutions of American democracy did not break under his first presidency from 2017 to 2021, and they are not breaking now. That does not make Trump inherently admirable (or loathsome), but it does make the word fascist inaccurate.

Trump is better understood as a stress test on sociopolitical systems that were not working for a long time, but that many people both in politics and among the general public felt comfortable sweeping under the rug. He has exposed cultural fractures, elite failures, media dysfunction, and institutional brittleness. Stress tests are uncomfortable. They can be destabilizing and ugly. But they are not the same thing as fascism. To conflate the two is not vigilance; it is political illiteracy.

One particularly striking — and troubling — example of historical exaggeration is the comparison some critics make between the Gestapo and ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The Gestapo, created by the Nazis in 1933 (less than three months after they officially rose to power in Germany), was a secret police force tasked with enforcing a totalitarian ideology, suppressing dissent, and ultimately participating in the systematic persecution and murder of Jews, political opponents, and other “enemies of the state.” Its very existence was tied to a regime of terror.

ICE, by contrast, was established in March 2003 as a federal agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws in the United States, largely as a response to the September 11th terrorist attacks two years prior. Its mission is to investigate illegal immigration, human trafficking, and cross-border crime, not to persecute a population based on race, religion, or political belief. ICE operates under oversight, is accountable to courts, and is constrained by law — far from the unchecked, lethal power of the Gestapo.

To equate these two organizations is both factually wrong and hurtfully reckless. For Jews, who inherit a memory of what unchecked state power can do, such comparisons trivialize the lived horrors of the Holocaust. Gestapo officers orchestrated mass deportations, executions, and terror campaigns. ICE agents, in a rule-of-law democracy, enforce civil statutes. The resemblance exists only in the imagination of exaggeration, not in history or function.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, it does: People are referring to ICE’s detention of illegal immigrants as “concentration camps.” Detaining individuals who have entered and remained in a country without authorization is not the same as creating a state-run system designed to exterminate populations of citizens. The intent, scope, and function of these institutions are fundamentally different.

Legally, the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that aliens who have physically entered the United States generally fall under the protective scope of the Due Process Clause, which applies to all persons within the country, including those present unlawfully, temporarily, or permanently. As a result, non-citizens already inside the United States are afforded greater procedural protections in formal removal proceedings, including the right to a hearing and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before deprivation of a liberty interest.

At the same time, the Court has indicated that the precise extent of these protections may vary depending on an individual’s status and circumstances. For instance, some constitutional safeguards may depend on whether an alien has been formally admitted to the United States or has established substantial ties to the country.

In other words, U.S. Congress and federal agencies have considerable discretion in enforcing immigration laws, within the bounds of due process, but this is far from the unrestrained, lethal power exercised by the Nazi regime. Equating lawful immigration enforcement with concentration camps not only misrepresents the law and the facts; it also trivializes the historical suffering of Jews and other victims of fascist regimes.

Of course, I can already hear the “critics” claiming that Trump’s behavior, rhetoric, and unconventional approach to governance constitute a prelude to fascism — that his administration is laying the groundwork for something far darker, if not now, then soon. This argument is common and emotionally compelling. It plays on fear, uncertainty, and the vivid memory of history’s horrors. But it collapses under scrutiny, particularly when viewed through the lens of Jewish experience.

A prelude to fascism implies that a regime is steadily eroding democratic norms, consolidating absolute power, and normalizing violence against opposition or minorities. It suggests that institutions will bend and break, that the rule of law will yield to the whims of one man, and that society will become a monolith ruled by fear. In short, it implies the inevitability of authoritarian catastrophe.

Trump’s presidency, uncomfortable and disruptive as it can be at times, does not meet this threshold. Courts struck down unconstitutional actions, elections were held and certified, free press outlets criticized and investigated him without reprisal, and state and local governments operated independently of the federal executive. Even when Trump sought to challenge electoral outcomes, he faced institutional resistance at every level. If this is a prelude to fascism, it is a remarkably weak one. By historical standards, it is a rehearsal in democracy, not a dress rehearsal for dictatorship.

Moreover, equating controversy with inevitability ignores the resilience of the system. Fascist regimes do not require perfect villains; they require compliant institutions and widespread societal complicity. Jews under Mussolini or Hitler could not appeal to courts, protest freely, or expect elections to check the state. That is precisely why calling Trump’s behavior a “prelude” trivializes both history and memory. It blurs the line between political irritation and moral catastrophe, turning outrage into a spectator sport rather than a moral warning.

Not every populist who riles up crowds, undermines norms, or attacks media is a fascist-in-waiting. Equating Trump’s controversies with fascist prelude risks numbing society to real authoritarian signals. Jews, more than most, understand the difference between warning signs and actual threats. Precision is a moral duty. If we exaggerate, we weaken our ability to recognize genuine prelude when it arises. Memory is a tool for vigilance, not hyperbole.

photo: Leo_Visions/Unsplash

And yet, labeling Trump a fascist does more than distort history; it also lets his political opponents off the hook. By insisting that the real danger is Trump himself, critics excuse the wide-ranging failures of the Democratic Party and the broader liberal establishment. They tried to re-run President Joe Biden who appeared to be in major cognitive decline and deliberately lied about it until they got caught, only to coronate Kamala Harris without a real primary contest. They misled the public, mismanaged messaging, squandered opportunities on economic and cultural issues, and repeatedly mishandled causes that should have been their strengths. They have become a party of grievance, not a party of ideals — and calling an opponent “fascist” is no substitute for real leadership.

Rather than going back to the drawing board to develop a cohesive framework that appeals to a majority of voters, leftists repeatedly fearmonger, casting the situation not as a contest of ideas but as a battle against “fascism” — all while masking their own failures and turning political ineptitude into a kind of moral performance.

This is part of a larger pattern: When outrage replaces analysis, mistakes are excused, nuance is abandoned, and responsibility disappears. Painting Trump as a fascist becomes a convenient cover for the Democrats’ inability to win on substance, strategy, and vision, and it reinforces a political theater where moral labels matter more than actual results.

To be sure, though, the problem here is not just American politics. It is the steady dilution of moral language until it loses meaning. When everything is fascism, nothing is. When every controversial leader is Hitler, the word stops functioning as a warning and becomes a punchline.

If Trump is a fascist, what word do we reserve for regimes that abolish elections outright, imprison dissidents, erase minority rights, and rule through fear? What language is left when genuine fascism reappears? When warnings are constant and maximalist, people stop listening. That is not how you prevent catastrophe; that is how you make society numb to it.

There is also a bitter irony in how casually the term is deployed. The same cultural and media ecosystems that eagerly label Trump a fascist often downplay or excuse real authoritarianism elsewhere — so long as it comes dressed in the correct ideological language. Outrage is selective. Precision is optional. Moral vocabulary is inflated because inflation gets clicks, likes, shares, and manufactured virality. The most extreme label is often the most profitable.

Under actual fascist regimes, Jews did not argue about labels on social media. Journalists did not criticize leaders freely. Courts did not block executive power. Elections were not litigated; they were abolished. These are not rhetorical flourishes. They are historical facts. Ignoring them makes one careless with memory.

Jewish memory, specifically, is not meant to be weaponized for partisan effect. “Never Again” was never intended to mean “whenever I strongly dislike a politician” or “because I said so.” It was meant to be a warning: clear, disciplined, and sober. Calling Trump a fascist does not honor history; it exploits it.

You can oppose Trump passionately without vandalizing the past. You can criticize his behavior, reject his politics, and vote against him without muddying labels. History does not grant us moral supremacy, but it does confer moral stewardship. We are responsible not only for remembering what happened, but for protecting the meaning of the words that describe it.

Fascism is not a metaphor. It is a system. And Jews ought to know the difference.

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