American Exceptionalism as Camouflage

In The Anatomy of Fascism (2004), historian Robert O. Paxton offers a five-stage model for understanding fascism not as a fixed ideology but as a political process that unfolds over time. Unlike traditional approaches that define fascism by doctrine or by comparison to regimes like Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, Paxton’s framework emphasizes how fascist movements gain traction through behavior, institutional alliances, and escalating conflict. This structural and processual lens proves far more useful for analyzing movements like Trumpism, which do not mirror 1930s European fascism but still exhibit many of its core dynamics. Rather than ask whether America is "just like" Italy or Germany, Paxton invites us to track how far a movement has progressed through the stages—from intellectual ferment to the seizure and radicalization of power. This shift in perspective is crucial for understanding the uniquely American context, where fascist currents often cloak themselves in the language of constitutionalism, free speech, and rugged individualism.

Paxton's model consists of five stages: (1) the intellectual elaboration of nationalist, anti-liberal themes; (2) the rooting of these themes in a political movement; (3) the arrival of the movement on the national stage; (4) the exercise of power; and (5) the radicalization or entropy of the regime. Crucially, Paxton's framework shows that fascism is not a monolith but a progression that interacts dynamically with its environment, adapting to local institutions, cultural norms, and historical conditions. In Paxton's words, fascism must be studied as "a political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity."

In the United States, fascist tendencies rarely declare themselves openly; instead, they often disguise themselves in the idioms of American exceptionalism. Rather than marching under overtly authoritarian banners, they invoke the Constitution, wrap themselves in the flag, and frame their struggle as one to “restore liberty” or “protect the republic.” This rhetorical camouflage is not a departure from fascist tradition but a localized adaptation—what Paxton might call the domestication of fascism within American cultural norms. Where European fascists exalted the state or race above all, their American counterparts more often appeal to "freedom" as a justification for hierarchy, exclusion, and violence. The result is a uniquely American fusion: fascism as folk rebellion, authoritarianism marketed as anti-authoritarian defiance. Understanding this paradox is key to recognizing how far such movements have advanced in Paxton’s five-stage sequence—and why so many Americans fail to recognize the threat until it has already taken institutional root.

Paxton’s five-stage model allows us to trace the development of American right-wing movements like Trumpism with greater precision than analogical comparisons ever could. Stage one, the intellectual elaboration of fascist themes, is evident in decades of cultural grievance, white identity politics, and libertarian anti-government rhetoric that framed democracy as weak and corrupted. From the Southern Strategy to right-wing talk radio to the myth of the "silent majority," the intellectual foundation of American fascism was laid long before Trump entered the scene. These ideas coalesced around a mythology of national decline—blaming liberal elites, immigrants, and racial minorities for undermining traditional values and national greatness.

Stage two, the rooting of these ideas in a political movement, came with the rise of the Tea Party and later Trump’s 2016 campaign, which translated abstract resentments into a charismatic, anti-elite crusade. What began as a rejection of big government and political correctness quickly evolved into a vehicle for racial resentment, conspiratorial thinking, and personalized authority. Trump’s rhetorical style—mocking, bellicose, performatively anti-establishment—became a rallying cry for those who felt alienated by demographic change and cultural pluralism.

Stage three, the arrival in power, was achieved with Trump’s election, during which previously marginal ideas—like the “deep state,” mass voter fraud, and racial replacement—entered the political mainstream. Once in office, Trump normalized institutional defiance, treating law enforcement, the judiciary, and intelligence agencies as tools of personal loyalty or as enemies to be delegitimized. The Republican Party, rather than resisting, recalibrated itself around his style and substance. The mainstream media, despite attempts at critical coverage, often amplified his message by treating every outrage as a spectacle.

Stage four, the exercise of power, saw Trump’s efforts to hollow out institutions, reward loyalists, and erode the boundaries between party, state, and personal loyalty. Through purges, executive orders, and public pressure campaigns, he replaced independent officials with cronies and reshaped the civil service into an apparatus for political enforcement. Trumpists in Congress echoed his narratives, defended his abuses, and stymied efforts at oversight. Meanwhile, law enforcement increasingly became an instrument of selective application, harsh on protestors and lenient on right-wing militias.

Stage five, typically marked by a regime’s radicalization or descent into violence, was glimpsed in the January 6th Capitol insurrection—an attempted seizure of power justified by mythic betrayal and patriotic theater. While not a successful coup, it was a dress rehearsal: a demonstration of how far a faction was willing to go to preserve power through force. The event revealed the extent of radicalization among the base and complicity among elites. Since then, the movement has metastasized, integrating election denialism, anti-vaccine rhetoric, and parental rights activism into a broad assault on pluralism.

Stage four, according to Paxton, is where fascism moves from movement to regime—not always through overt revolution, but often through collaboration with existing elites. In the American context, this complicity did not come from military juntas or royalist sympathizers, but from mainstream political figures, media empires, donor networks, and even segments of the judiciary who treated Trumpism as a tolerable vehicle for their own agendas. Republican leaders who once dismissed Trump as unfit gradually embraced his base, overlooked his norm-breaking, and repeated his narratives to maintain power. Conservative legal institutions worked to reinterpret the Constitution in ways that weakened federal oversight while strengthening executive power. Right-wing media ecosystems served as parallel institutions, laundering conspiracy into legitimacy. Rather than resist, many American institutions adapted, enabling authoritarian behaviors under the guise of constitutionalism. This blend of collaboration and capitulation is what allowed Trumpism to not only survive electoral defeat, but to rebrand itself as an anti-establishment insurgency with elite cover—mirroring the very pattern Paxton warns about, where fascism thrives not in opposition to the state, but by hollowing it out from within.

Paxton’s model is especially valuable because it resists collapsing all authoritarian movements into fascism. Not every populist strongman or nationalist party qualifies—fascism, in his view, demands a particular trajectory and intensity, including mass mobilization, a myth of national rebirth, scapegoating, and ultimately, redemptive violence. What makes Trumpism distinct from generic authoritarian populism is how clearly it flirts with the structural thresholds Paxton describes. It cultivates grievance not just against elites, but against pluralism itself; it weaponizes nostalgia for a purified, mythic past; and it increasingly flattens the distinction between political opposition and existential enemy. Most alarmingly, it has begun to sacralize violence—not merely as unfortunate outbursts, but as justified acts of political purification. January 6th was not an aberration—it was an experiment; a test of how far the base and institutions would go. That it failed electorally but succeeded rhetorically reveals a movement not yet fully fascist in state form, but well into stage four, teetering toward stage five. The question is not whether it will become fascism, but whether enough social and institutional resistance remains to interrupt its progression.

If Paxton’s model teaches us anything, it’s that fascism is not an inevitable fate but a contingent process—one that relies not just on the strength of its believers, but on the silence or collaboration of everyone else. At each stage, there are points of intervention: intellectuals can challenge myths rather than amplify them; institutions can choose integrity over access; citizens can reject scapegoating and demand accountability. The American system, for all its flaws, still possesses tools of democratic resistance—but they require activation, not complacency. Too often, the assumption that “it can’t happen here” has allowed stage after stage to unfold with little alarm until spectacle breaks through. But Paxton reminds us that by the time fascism is fully visible, its roots are already deep. Preventing its consolidation means recognizing the danger early, naming it precisely, and refusing to normalize its behavior under the banner of partisanship or tradition. In America, the battle is not against fascism in its final form, but against the slow, familiar drift that makes it possible.