As I said in a top level comment, the better term is competitive authoritarianism. They tend to do what they can get away with and try to push that limit.

One can argue about the specifics but Trump's administration certainly fits that style to a very large degree.

> direct oppression from speech, activism

People have been arrested in the US lately for activism and in many cases without any justification. I doesn't seem like the administration will get away with it, but they certainly seem to try.

I think the claim being considered is not

  The current system of government in the US under Trump is an instance of fascism

but rather

  Trump and his movement have strongly fascist characteristics

The fact that Trump is limited in his executive power (for now) means that the system is robust and has checks and balances. It does not make Trump himself is less of a fascist.

Trump plainly believes that the entirety of government (domestic and foreign), education, industry and media should all support the executive power as he wields it. Not the structure of law in place, nor the cultural norms. Not even the predecessor that wielded less power is spared, despite hypocritical acts. There's nothing more transparently fascist than this administration.

The primary bulwark has been the socialization of the populace to oppose this behavior. The courts are viewed as a shelter, as feckless as they have been over the last 6 months. When moves are made over the next few years, that are more desperate and heavy handed, I would hope for conciliation.

Absolutely agree. However, I think we are seeing people in power in the US attempting to move us toward that more-real definition of fascism. At the risk of the "slippery slope" fallacy... we should be concerned, at the least.

I’m also from Russia, and it’s very clear to me that we’re heading straight in that direction. See the executive’s revenge policies against Harvard and Columbia, law firms, media networks, and student activists. If things keep going as they are, it won’t be long before protesters start getting black-bagged and shipped to some desert concentration camp. Putin needed a decade to get to that point.

Ha! Are you sure about that? These so called student activities have been anything but peaceful. And they are being instigated on American soil by foreigners which is an obvious violation of their Visa stays.

At least one of the students illegally detained did nothing more than write a few columns in her school newspaper. (And I think it's similar for several others, but I don't recall off the top of my head.)

> I'm from Russia and out there we know what real fascism looks like, it isn't mean tweets or cutting government funding, it's direct oppression from speech, activism, etc.

Real fascism is no different than the current US Executive. The difference is the amount of power currently wielded.

> Here in the US and other western countries, a person can go their entire life without being exposed to what real fascism is and what real oppression is

The common case is that Americans don't recognize it because it's so incremental that the larger goals are a footnote in discussions around specific acts or outlive the constituents/promoters. This state of executive vs a compromised judicial has been in the works since before I was born.

This is just a "no true scottsman" fallacy applied to what constitutes fascism.

Bad bot.