Make America 1933 Again

The Rise of American Fascism

It can happen here. It already is.

Fascism doesn’t need to show up looking like the History Channel: swastikas, stiff-armed salutes, and jackboots marching down Main Street.

Contemporary fascism, here and abroad, wears their Sunday best and clutches a Trump Bible. Fascism in Germany didn’t start with deportations and gas chambers,—it started with the elimination of civil rights and a Big Gov surveillance system focused on “thought crimes.”

And the closer you look at the MAGA movement, the harder it is to avoid the conclusion that America is not just playing footsie with fascism. Millions are in bed with it, spooning it, whispering sweet nothings to it on Truth Social.

Let’s not get coy. There are BIG differences between Trumpism and Hitlerism, of course. But the ideological overlap is substantial—and disturbing.

So what I want to do here is lay out, piece by piece, how MAGA ideology mimics the machinery of Nazi-style fascism. I’ll also explain where it diverges. But mostly, I want to draw your attention to the structural similarities in how power is pursued, how enemies are constructed, and how the lie becomes the truth.

1. The Big Lie: Different Words, Same Playbook

Every fascist movement needs a Big Lie. For Hitler, it was the Dolchstoßlegende—the “stab-in-the-back” myth that Germany had actually won World War I, but was betrayed by Jews, Marxists, and other internal enemies. For Trump, the Big Lie is that he didn’t actually lose the 2020 election—that shadowy forces stole it from him. In both cases, the lie justifies everything. And in both cases, the lie is not just a story—it’s a loyalty test. You either believe it, or you’re the enemy.

This is how fascism works. It doesn’t argue. It demands belief. And if you don’t believe, you’re not a political opponent—you’re a traitor.

In Hitler’s Germany, once the Big Lie took hold, it legitimized the purge of enemies—journalists, academics, civil servants, entire communities. In Trump’s America, the Big Lie has become a litmus test for Republican candidates and a green light for violence. January 6 wasn’t an aberration—it was a proof of concept.

2. The Conspiracy Machine: Globalists, Communists, Soros

Let’s talk about the narrative architecture of fascism—because it always relies on some version of “the hidden hand.” Fascism needs a puppet master, a string-puller, someone behind the curtain infecting all the institutions that used to be good and pure.

In Nazi Germany, this was the Jew. In MAGA America, it’s a shapeshifting conspiracy that often looks like a combination of George Soros, the World Economic Forum, “communists,” “globalists,” and the “deep state.” Steve Bannon doesn’t say “Jews”—he’s too slick for that. But his audience hears the whistle. They always do.

There’s actual data here. The Anti-Defamation League has reported sharp increases in anti-Semitic incidents since Trump took office. And among the far-right influencers feeding the MAGA base—Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, white nationalist Telegram channels—the Jew is still the villain. They just say “globalist elite” now. The rhetoric got rebranded, but the target stayed the same.

And the rank-and-file? They’ve absorbed it. A 2022 PRRI poll found that 31% of Republicans agreed with the statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country.” That’s not a policy position. That’s fascism 101.

3. Authoritarian Desire: The Daddy State

This one’s simple. Fascist movements want a strongman. They want a daddy. Someone to come in, clean house, and punish the enemies. And they’re open about it.

In 2023, the Washington Post and UMass Amherst poll asked whether Americans would support a “president who ignores the courts and Congress if he thinks it is necessary to set things right.” 38% of Republicans said yes. Another survey from Bright Line Watch in 2024 found that a majority of Trump voters would support him being a “temporary dictator” if it meant restoring law and order.

Temporary dictator. Let that sink in.

The MAGA movement isn’t hiding this. They want Trump to be Caesar. Hell, they sell T-shirts that say it.

Like Mussolini, like Hitler, Trump presents himself not as a servant of democracy but as its savior. And when democracy gets in the way of the mission? Well, that’s when the courts are rigged, the prosecutors are “communists,” and the journalists are “enemies of the people.”

4. The Cult of Decay

Another hallmark of fascism is the idea that the nation has fallen from greatness. Everything is rotting. The culture is infected. The old ways have been corrupted by new people, foreign ideas, and immoral values. Sound familiar?

“Make America Great Again” is not a political slogan—it’s a myth of decline. It’s a cry for purification.

In Hitler’s case, that meant removing the cultural rot—Jews, jazz, modern art, democracy itself. In MAGA’s case, it’s trans kids, DEI programs, public libraries, and the New York Times. The specifics change, but the structure stays the same. The past was pure, the present is poison, and only radical purification can restore the nation’s soul.

That’s why MAGA obsesses over things like drag queens and Target displays. Fascism thrives in the theater of moral panic.

5. Where They Diverge: Jews, Christianity, and American Exceptionalism

To be clear, MAGA is not Nazi Germany. For one thing, Christianity is central to MAGA’s identity. Whereas the Nazis were fine using Christianity as a tool, their ultimate goal was the deification of the state and the Führer. MAGA, by contrast, wraps itself in Christian nationalism. Trump is seen not just as a political leader but as a prophetic one—anointed, sent to wage holy war.

And while Nazi ideology was explicitly antisemitic, MAGA’s antisemitism is more submerged—more coded, more plausible-deniable. In fact, MAGA openly celebrates some Jews—so long as they’re the “right” kind: Netanyahu, Kushner, Ben Shapiro. As long as you hate the same people and endorse the same order, you can sit at the table. For now.

But just because MAGA isn’t identical to Nazism doesn’t mean it’s not fascism. It’s American fascism. Italian fascism was not antisemitic and Italian Jews were not deported until Germany invaded Italy when they capitulated to the Allies.

American fascism is homegrown. Red-capped. And unlike the Far Left, it’s taken control of one of our two major political parties.

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6. Dehumanization: Same Playbook, Different Targets

One of the most chilling throughlines between MAGA and Nazi ideology is the way both movements talk about their enemies. And let’s be blunt: this isn’t garden-variety political rhetoric. This is extermination language. This is how you talk about pests, not people.

Here’s Adolf Hitler in a 1920 speech:

“The Jew is and remains the world’s parasite, a sponger who, like a germ, spreads more and more wherever he can.”

And here’s Hitler again, in Mein Kampf:

“The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”

The Nazis didn’t just oppose the Jews politically—they cast them as biological contagions. As vermin. As disease. Once you frame a group that way, violence becomes not only acceptable, but necessary. You’re not committing genocide—you’re cleansing. You’re purifying. You’re saving the body of the nation from infection.

Fast forward a century.

Here’s Donald Trump, November 2023, at a rally in New Hampshire:

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country… The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.”

“Live like vermin.” That’s not a metaphor—it’s a mirror. And the targets may have changed, but the tactic hasn’t. Replace “Jew” with “immigrant,” “deep state,” or “Democrat,” and the structure is exactly the same.

And if you think this was just one off-the-cuff remark from Trump, think again. At that same rally, he described immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Sound familiar?

Here’s Hitler, 1924:

“The consequences of racial crossing are always the lowering of the higher race… If we don’t recognize the racial problem and cleanse our nation of foreign blood, we will fall just like Rome did.”

And here’s Donald Trump November 11, 2023:

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world—not just in South America, all over the world—they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re emptying out their institutions into the United States of America.”

Let me be very clear here: this is not a casual overlap. These are not two men who just happen to use colorful language. This is rhetorical lineage. Trump isn’t copying Hitler because he read Mein Kampf (though it’s worth noting that his ex-wife Ivana once said he kept a copy on his nightstand). He’s channeling fascism because fascism works. The script still plays.

And MAGA LOVES it.

You don’t get a cheering crowd when you talk about poisoning blood unless a whole movement has already been primed to see human beings as something less than human. To see immigrants not as neighbors or workers or families—but as contaminants.

That’s not immigration policy. That’s nationalism. That’s eliminationist rhetoric.

Once you define your opponents—political or ethnic—as vermin, then every cruelty becomes justified. Internment? Sure. Forced removals? Of course. Violence? You’re not attacking a person, you’re stomping on a rat.

And remember: the Nazis didn’t start with gas chambers. They started with language. Words came first. And that language—vermin, infestation, rot—paved the road to genocide.

We are watching the road being paved again.

7. Don’t Wait for the Uniforms

We keep telling ourselves we’ll know when it’s time to panic. We’ll see the signs. There’ll be tanks in the street or laws banning Jews or books being burned in the town square.

Well, guess what? We’ve got book bans. We’ve got loyalty oaths. We’ve got a political movement that wants to purge the “deep state,” punish the press, and put its leader above the law. We’ve got sitting members of Congress using Nazi terminology like “vermin” and “bloodlines.” We’ve got a party platform that increasingly reads like a checklist from Mein Kampf, minus the umlauts.

You don’t need swastikas to have fascism. You just need the belief that some people aren’t really people, that violence is justified, and that only one man can fix it.

We’ve got that. Right now. In broad daylight.

So the question is no longer, Could it happen here?

The question is: Can we stop it, now that it has?

Editors Note: One way to help “stop it” is by getting this analysis in to your friends, co-workers, family and neighbors. Your word of mouth recommendations is critical. If you have ever referred someone to The Cycle: THANK YOU!

Thank you!

Rachel