I do think that in an academic sense, Trump is not fascist. I mostly agree with Daniel Bessner on this front. The purpose of creating a category or ideology called fascism and not just what a weird Italian party called themselves because they are Roman LARPers, is that there was something new with this strain of European politics in the 1920s. So I do feel that any definition of fascism has to embrace that part, that it is something that is unique to Europe in the 1920s and not pre-existing political positions or precedents. So, to some extent, the lack of mass politics or the use of a party paramilitary being involved can lead one to say that Trump isn't fascist.

To a lesser extent, I do think that maybe Bessner is correct in that there is real stakes to this discussion, in that this is trying to make Trump's ideology and actions a foreign, European import and ignoring how it is a natural extension or direct conclusion of the American Right-Wing.

I don't usually push back on people calling Trump or American politicians fascist, since most people think fascism is just racism and reactionary politics. But as I said, I am mostly just looking at an academic classification, and even though all political terms being contested, any definition of fascism has to take into account that the use of the term as a category was because Europeans in the 1920s said "wait, this is something new and unique". Why people get worked up about this is that fascism, due to the united front, is something that is almost universally agreed as a bad thing. Anarchists, Communists, Socialists, Liberals, and even some Conservatives were united against fascism in allied countries. So fascism fulfills the roll of the political bad, so when people hear you say "Trump isn't a fascist", what they think or hear is "No, he isn't really that bad". Despite the fact that things can be bad in multiple ways, so Trump doesn't have to be fascist to be really racist, "authoritarian" and bad. The Belgian Congo under King Leopold wasn't necessarily fascist, but it was extremely evil and bad.