When Do We Shout 'Fascist!'?

Is labelling certain politicans 'fascist' justified or unecessarily alarmist?

Twice this week, I found myself wrestling with the same uncomfortable question about use of the label “fascist”.

First, it came up in a WhatsApp group with fellow democracy campaigners. Then, listening to the latest episode of 'The Rest is Politics US', I heard hosts Katty Kay and Antony Scaramucci clash over the same issue: is it reasonable - or reckless, or even just unhelpful - to use the word "fascist" to describe certain politicians today?

The exchanges left me feeling uncomfortable, partly because I realised I hadn't fully resolved this question in my own mind. When is legitimate political alarm justified, and when does it tip into hysteria? The debate prompted me to revisit Laurence Rees's chilling book The Nazi Mind, with its detailed examination of how authoritarianism can disguise itself as reasonable governance. If fascism historically presented itself as civic responsibility - “protecting public safety" through protest restrictions, "ensuring national unity" through media oversight - how do we recognise the warning signs when they're dressed up as sensible policy?

This isn't merely an academic debate. Across democracies - from Hungary to India, from the United States to parts of Europe - we're witnessing what scholars call "democratic backsliding." The question of when to use the F-word has become urgent, divisive, and deeply consequential. And in an era when the term gets weaponised across the political spectrum, distinguishing genuine alarm from partisan hyperbole has never been more important.

When Tyranny Wore a Suit

The Nazi Mind offers a sobering lesson: fascism rarely arrives looking like fascism. The Nazis didn't seize power with jackboots and torchlight parades alone. They legislated their way to totalitarianism, often using language that sounded utterly reasonable to contemporary ears.

Take their introduction of “protective custody" measures (Schutzhaft), which allowed detention without trial of political opponents. This wasn't presented as persecution but as protection - keeping dangerous agitators safe from an outraged public. The Malicious Practices Act of 1933 criminalised "disparaging" the government, framed not as censorship but as necessary for public order and national unity. Most dramatically, the Enabling Act of March 1933 gave Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers (without reference to the Reichstag), marketed as essential for efficient governance during a national crisis.

Each measure was wrapped in the language of democratic legitimacy. The Party-State Unity Law merged the Nazi Party with the German state under the banner of "securing national unity." The systematic coordination of media and civic institutions (Gleichschaltung) was sold as "public enlightenment" and cultural cohesion. What emerged was the eradication of pluralism, but it happened through legal channels and bureaucratic procedures that initially reassured many Germans that constitutional norms were being respected.

The pattern is clear: authoritarianism doesn't just smash democratic institutions, it hollows them out from within, wearing the mask of democratic legitimacy until it no longer needs to.

What Is Fascism, Actually?

Before we can debate whether the label fits contemporary politics, we need to grapple with what fascism actually means. And here, even scholars disagree. Umberto Eco identified fourteen characteristics of fascism including cult of tradition, fear of difference, and rejection of analytical criticism. Robert Paxton, perhaps the foremost fascism scholar, sees it as a process of radicalisation focused on national rebirth, unity, and purification through violence.

What most definitions share is fascism's rejection of pluralism, its cult of the leader, and its glorification of violence as both means and end. Fascism doesn't just seek power, it seeks to remake society entirely, destroying the very concept of legitimate opposition. It's nationalism taken to pathological extremes, where the nation becomes a mystical entity that justifies any sacrifice.

But it’s complex. Fascism exists on a spectrum. Few serious scholars expect to see exact replicas of 1930s movements, complete with brownshirts and beer halls. The question is whether we're seeing fascistic tendencies…patterns of behaviour that echo historical fascism even if they don't perfectly mirror it.

This definitional complexity matters because it affects how we use the term in contemporary politics.

The Case Against Crying Wolf

Critics of casual fascism-labelling raise genuine concerns. First, overuse trivialises genuine historical horror. When everything becomes fascist, nothing is. George Orwell warned of a kind of rhetorical inflation that would drain words of meaning. Second, the label often functions more as political slur than analytical description, alienating precisely the moderate voters who we need to convince.

More troubling still is the public confusion around the concepts of democracy, authoritarianism and fascism. Recent polling found that 52% of young people aged 13-27 agreed that "a strong leader who can bypass elections" could be a good thing. If people don't understand what democratic governance actually requires, then arguments about fascism become somewhat meaningless…just competing labels rather than substantive warnings about threats to democratic institutions.

Perhaps most damagingly, crying wolf may backfire. If voters perceive fascism accusations as partisan hyperbole, they may become immunised to warnings about genuinely authoritarian behaviour. The boy who cried wolf wasn't wrong about the arrival of the wolf…but nobody believed him when it mattered.

There's also the historical argument: comparing contemporary politicians to Hitler risks minimising the unique evil of the Holocaust and trivialising the suffering of fascism's victims. Some argue that until we see systematic genocide, the comparison is both historically ignorant and morally offensive.

The Case for Sounding the Alarm

But defenders of the term argue that waiting for full fascism is precisely the wrong lesson from history. Robert Paxton's crucial insight is that fascism is a process, not an event. It doesn't arrive fully formed but develops through stages. By the time the final stage is reached, it's too late for democratic resistance.

This is why some argue we must name fascistic patterns early, even at the risk of seeming alarmist. When a leader systematically attacks the press as "enemies of the people," when they refuse to accept electoral defeat, when they glorify violence against opponents, these aren't merely norm violations but potential warning signs of fascistic radicalisation.

The normalisation argument is powerful: each broken norm makes the next transgression easier to accept. If we only call something fascist after it's destroyed democracy entirely, we've missed the window for democratic self-defence. Euphemisms and soft language - “populism," "nationalism," "norm-breaking" - may actually enable authoritarian drift by making it sound less threatening than it is.

International context strengthens this case. We're witnessing authoritarian consolidation across multiple democracies, from Erdoğan's Turkey to Modi's India to Orbán's Hungary. These leaders follow recognisable playbooks: capturing media, weaponising the judiciary, suppressing voting rights, and portraying opposition as illegitimate. If this isn't fascism proper, it's certainly fascism-adjacent.

What Else Could We Call It?

Perhaps the solution lies in linguistic precision. Terms like "neo-fascist," "authoritarian populist," or "fascistic" acknowledge patterns without claiming exact historical parallel. Orbán’s use of the term “illiberal democracy" to describe his regime captures how the impression of democracy can be maintained while democratic substance is eroded.

Each alternative has trade-offs. Softer language may be more palatable but risks understating genuine threats. Academic terminology like "competitive authoritarianism" accurately describes the phenomenon but lacks the moral urgency that "fascism" carries…and is unlikely to gain much purchase with the ‘man in the pub’.

The challenge is finding language that's both analytically precise and morally clear, that educates rather than alienates, that warns without crying wolf.

The Question We Can't Avoid

So where does this leave us? Perhaps the real question isn't whether this or that leader perfectly fits the fascist template, but whether we've learned how fascism actually works. Do we recognise the warning signs when they're dressed up as reasonable governance? Can we distinguish between legitimate concerns about authoritarian drift and partisan point-scoring?

History suggests that fascism's power lies partly in its ability to sound reasonable to reasonable people. If we wait until it looks like the textbook version, we've already waited too long. But if we cheapen the term through overuse, we may disable our capacity for collective alarm when it's genuinely needed.

What I am certain about is that the stakes couldn't be higher: getting it wrong in either direction - complacency or hysteria - risks democracy itself. That alone confirms that we all - Katty Kay, ‘The Mooch’, all of us - need to continue to consider the matter carefully and with urgency.

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