The L.A. Times asks “Is Donald Trump a fascist?”.

The transcript is here:

Patt Morrison asks: Robert O. Paxton talks fascism and Donald Trump • 2016 Mar 9 • Patt Morrison • Los Angeles Times

There’s the claim that the United States is in decline and needs a strong leader. And that was at the heart of what Mussolini and Hitler promised. They offered a recipe for revival: nationalism, aggressive foreign policy, attacks on the enemies inside and out without much regard for due process, an obsession with decline and with enemies like Jews or socialists, foreigners – those are echoes of that today.

…

Blaming our troubles on the internal enemy as well as the external enemy – well, that goes wider than fascism; it is present in classical fascism. First of all you depersonalize them, and then you attach negative images to them, and then you prescribe measures that are illegal, brutal – and this is very much what Hitler did with Jews and with Slavs and Mussolini did with socialists. That’s one of the echoes.

…

And then, it’s the manner, it’s the kind of style, the aggressive style, the assertion of strength and the image presented of somebody who’s not going to be bothered by little things like the rule of law or political correctness or being polite, and will actually get things done.

…

I understand perfectly that no one would want to hear him called fascist, but then he should stop using these images, retweeting Mussolini and so forth.