One of the real quandaries of Trump-era politics has been how to describe the school of thought (or action) its central figure leads. The more it has become apparent that the 45th president and his adulatory followers do not represent just a temporary phenomenon or a minor variation on an old conservative theme, the more tempting it has become to compare Trumpism to right-wing authoritarian movements outside of and antagonistic to democracy, which generally go by the term fascism. This temptation has been felt by Never Trump conservatives anxious to save their own tradition from contamination by the great orange demagogue, and by progressives who wish to powerfully distinguish the threat posed by MAGA folks from the conservatives of the past they’ve deplored. By and large, all of us Trump-despising opinion-spinners have avoided the f-word as a general descriptor. But that may now be changing.
Beginning in the wee hours of November 4, 2020, when Donald Trump began his defiant effort to overturn his reelection defeat by hook or by crook, the MAGA movement has become more and more explicitly anti-democratic and insurrectionist. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/is-it-finally-time-to-begin-calling-trumpism-fascism.html