To defeat Trump, stop calling him names
Calling the president a fascist does nothing to advance the Democrats’ cause — and more of the party’s leaders would do well to realize that.
The Democrats had a great election night earlier this month when the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani scored a smashing triumph in New York’s mayoral race, and mainstream Democrats won gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia. Savoring the victories, left-wing standard-bearer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her party had united against a common foe: fascism.
“It’s not about progressive, it’s not moderate, it’s not liberal,” Ocasio-Cortez declared. “This is about, do you understand the assignment of fighting fascism right now? And the assignment is you come together across difference no matter what.”
She’s right about the need for my fellow Democrats to join hands to challenge President Donald Trump and his MAGA loyalists. But she’s wrong to call them fascists. That doesn’t hamper Trump; it empowers him.
And you know who gets that? Zohran Mamdani.
Witness his meeting with Trump at the White House on Friday, when a reporter asked Mamdani if the president was a fascist. Before the mayor-elect could answer, Trump threw him a lifeline.
Trump isn’t hampered by being called a fascist; he’s empowered by it.
“That’s OK, you can just say yes,” Trump said. “It’s easier than explaining.” Laughing, he gave Mamdani a light pat on the arm. “I don’t mind,” Trump added.
Mamdani played along, smiling widely. “OK, all right,” he replied.
But it was better than all right. It was brilliant.
Calling Trump a fascist does nothing — literally, nothing — to advance the Democrats’ cause. And Mamdani was wise to steer away from it.
To win elections, the Democrats need to claw back voters who tipped for Trump and the GOP in 2024. Do you think they’re going to be persuaded by someone telling them they supported a fascist?
If so, you just haven’t been listening. Last October, a mask-wearing protester accosted Tom Eddy — chairman of the Republican Party in Erie County, Pa. — and called him a fascist. “Do you even know what it means?” Eddy asked. “Don’t need to know,” the masked man replied. “I know who you are.”
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A month later, Trump won Pennsylvania by the largest margin of victory for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Of course, Democratic accusations of fascism weren’t the only reason for that. But they certainly didn’t help.
Neither does calling Trump a white supremacist or racist, which is another turn-off for voters. In a 2023 Public Agenda survey, 77% of Americans said it was a “serious problem” that “people are too quick to accuse others of racism.”
And it’s not just white voters who think that. In the poll, 77% of Latino Americans and 76% of Asian Americans agreed with the statement. The percentage of African American voters who agreed was a bit lower — 68% — but still represented a significant majority.
Let me be clear: Donald Trump has said some horribly racist things: Haitians eat pets, Mexicans are rapists, Africa is full of shithole countries, and so on. But calling him a racist won’t sway anyone into the Democrats’ column; it’s more likely to bring people to his side because they’re sick and tired of hearing about how racist America is.
Ditto for labeling Trump a fascist. I’ve read my Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, and I do see elements of fascism in Trump’s MAGA movement: the relentless denunciation of internal enemies, the Big Lie about elections (see: 2020), and the celebration of a strongman who will save us. But I still think it’s an enormous mistake to imagine all of his supporters — or, even, his entire party — as fascist.
That’s what the American Association of University Professors — our nation’s most venerable academic organization — did earlier this fall.
Rebutting the idea that academia is biased against conservatives, the AAUP posted that “fascism generally doesn’t do great under peer review.”
Translated: The reason there aren’t more conservative professors is that they’re actually fascists. So is anyone who disagrees with the dominant liberal consensus on campus.
As comedian Jon Stewart warned back in January, none of this is going to enlist more voters for the Democrats. “Enough with the ‘He’s a Hitler,’” Stewart urged. “Tell people what you would do with the power that Trump is wielding, and then convince us to give that power to you, as soon as possible.”
That’s exactly right. And that’s also what Mamdani has been doing, with his persistent focus on housing and affordability.
Pressed by an interviewer on Sunday, Mamdani said he stood by his earlier comments that Trump was a “despot” as well as a fascist. But he quickly changed the subject, because he knows that’s a game Democrats can’t win.
“I’m not coming to the Oval Office to make a point or make a stand,” Mamdani declared. “I’m coming in there to deliver for New Yorkers.”
The way for Democrats to defeat Trump and the GOP is to show we can deliver for all Americans, in the ways that matter most to them.
So enough with the name-calling, OK? It makes us look churlish and small. Focus instead on the big things we can do. And we will be all right.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools.”