With Trump gone, can we talk about the fear of fascism we had about him? | Cas Mudde

It's time to start a critical self-assessment of our analyses and commentary of the past years. What held up and what didn't?

A March on Rome it was not. The Million Maga March" attracted an estimated 5-10,000 people, far less than the roughly 30,000 fascists that marched from Naples to Rome in 1922, and it came nowhere near the million" it had promised - despite the usual number-boosting from Trumpists. While Mussolini was able to use his march to grab power, this march will not help Trump cling on to power. In fact, Trump was so invested in the march, that his convoy sped past the protesters so that Trump could spend another day at his golf club in Virginia.

The Million Maga March is a good reminder of how problematic comparisons with historical fascism are. As soon as Trump became a serious contender for the US presidency, in early 2016, articles and books on the death of democracy/liberalism and the rise of fascism exploded. Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century became a #1 New York Times bestseller and the self-help book for anxious liberals. In 2016, users of the term fascism" (for Trump) were criticized as fearmongers. Four years later, those not using the term were seen as cowards and enablers.