“But still, there is something so cheap and tawdry, something so manifestly hollow and farcical about this regime, that to give it the name of a grand historical tragedy like “fascism”—or even the terrible title “dictatorship,” implying as it does the concentrated, legalized use of terror and force—grants it a dignity it does not deserve. The regime may be authoritarian in its aims, but it can’t fairly be said to be totalitarian, except in the dreamworlds of its most servile supporters: Political life and pluralism amble on and are unlikely to be swept away entirely. Trump may wish to shape reality to his whims, but he cannot; gravity still holds, and the poll numbers are going down. I understand the hesitation to award the Trump administration the badge of fascist dishonor, especially when it so badly wants to be taken as something formidable and frightening. It all seems like a spectacle. Why, indeed, take it so seriously when its attempt to cow Los Angeles into submission with military occupation fizzled? Or dress up what is a massive agglomeration of rackets and scams led by a racketeer in chief, more Al Capone than Il Duce, into a world-historical drama? Why contribute to the climate of numbing conspiratorial speculation that proved so instrumental to Trump’s rise by granting him an additional air of hocus-pocus?”