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There has been much reluctance on the American “left” to discuss Trump’s electioneering efforts, and his politics more generally, with reference to the threat of fascist politics. Most Americans assume “It Can’t Happen Here,” drawing on the famous title of Sinclair Lewis’s seminal novel about the rise of fascism in a country that historically prides itself in democratic politics. U.S. media discourse routinely downplays talk of fascism, preferring terms like “authoritarianism,” or the more innocuous sounding “populism” to describe Trump’s anti-democratic tendencies. For example, in the first six months of 2020, a search of the Nexis Uni database reveals that the New York Times included the terms “fascist” or “fascism” alongside references to the Trump administration in 56 articles, compared to 161 articles referring to the Trump administration within the context of “authoritarian” politics or “authoritarianism,” and 193 articles referencing Trump alongside discussions of “populism” or “populist” politics. [1] Similarly, my review of the iPoll database, which is a clearinghouse for national polling data, finds that, for the professional polling organizations operating in the U.S., not a single group or poll bothered to ask Americans between 2016 and 2020 about their opinions of the “fascist” or “fascism” question, at all or in relation to the Trump presidency.--AD

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