Harris called Trump a 'fascist.' Experts debate what fascism is -- and isn't

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

48% : Paxton, a former Columbia University professor and author of The Anatomy of Fascism, was previously only convinced that Trump bore some staples of fascism.
40% : What we're witnessing with Trump is "far more dangerous because it can sit in a democracy," in his view.
38% : "You can associate him with racism, xenophobia, male chauvinism, extreme capitalism and the whole load of -isms," he said, but he sees "no evidence that Trump has a coherent enough ideology, let alone a coherent ideology of the overthrow of the state through a coup to merit the word fascism.
38% : A recent NPR investigation found more than 100 instances in which Trump has said his opponents, critics and private citizens should be investigated, prosecuted, jailed or otherwise punished.
29% : Jason Stanley, who is a philosophy professor at Yale University and author of How Fascism Works, said Trump is also targeting the same people Hitler did.
28% : "Trump is dangerous not because he's a fascist," he said, "but because he is systematically trying to destroy the fundamental principles of liberal democracy -- freedom of speech, and respect for experts and open mindedness -- all this stuff which is fundamental to healthy democracy all over the world."
25% : "For Kelly, the highest-profile Trump-era official to publicly denounce the former president, it was these comments that moved him speak out against Trump, he said in an interview with the Times.
22% : But, according to Griffin, Trump himself lacked intention on that day because he has no fixed ideology.
21% : In a Times interview published last week, he confirmed that he was no longer opposed to calling Trump a fascist after the Capitol siege.
20% : "If Trump [on Jan. 6] intended to overthrow the American Constitution and inaugurate a new order based on charismatic power exercised by him, then he was absolutely a fascist," Griffin, the British political theorist, said.
15% : With Election Day looming, the fascist accusations against Trump grew louder this past week.
14% : Those who endorse the fascist label for the former president have pointed to the following marks of Trump's campaign and presidency: Upon announcing his 2016 presidential bid, Trump maligned Mexican migrants as rapists and pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
12% : For many scholars, the answer to whether Trump meets the qualifications of a fascist boils down to what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump's followers stormed the Capitol to stop the democratic transfer of power.
3% : Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump's longest-serving chief of staff, said in an interview with The New York Times published on Oct. 22 that Trump "certainly falls into the general definition of fascist."The next day, the Republican presidential candidate's Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris -- when asked on CNN whether she thought Trump was a fascist -- said, "Yes, I do.

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