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Fascism is often imagined with a distinct appearance: uniformed, orderly, and menacing. It isn't supposed to resemble an overweight president who struggles to pronounce everyday terms and digresses about refurbishing United Nations buildings using marble rather than terrazzo. But as Umberto Eco noted in his seminal work about the persistent nature of fascism, “Life is not so straightforward. Ur-Fascism can return under the most innocent of disguises.”

Historians and Insiders Identify the Danger

Academic experts, scholars, and including some ex- presidential insiders have seen past the farci cal facade. They observe in Donald Trump and his associates Eco’s fundamental criteria: the appeal to tradition and rejection of rationality, apprehension of difference, antagonism toward disagreement, ressentiment, machismo, deterioration of language into propaganda, and the cult of a “strong” figure. Nearly a twelve months past, historian Robert Paxton explained why he revised his mind regarding using the term to describe this political movement, remarking: “It’s bubbling up from below in deeply concerning manners, and that’s quite similar to the original authoritarian regimes. It’s the real thing. Truly.”

Actions Weakening Institutions

In the interim, the presidential administration has utilized the American armed forces and National Guard against the will of local leaders. They have pressured local governments to disenfranchise political rivals in extraordinary ways, and proposed eliminating postal ballots to exclude voters living abroad. It has used government authority to censor literature, bully the media, and “silence” entertainers who mock the president. They have seized presidential authority in alarming and potentially illegal ways, such as applying trade taxes, immigration policy, and selective exceptions to generate subservience among corporate actors.

Excessive focus on whether actions are legal overlooks the bigger picture: legality is, practically speaking, what the highest court decides. Should the court acquiesces to radical alterations in the character of the United States, this represents merely one more sign of the extent of the decay extends.

Regarding concrete policy to the choice to openly honor the Confederacy, the planned direction is clear.

Revealing the Truth

The facade fell more after the murder of Charlie Kirk – one more tragic incident in the convergence of gun violence and growing ideological conflict. During his unusual funeral-rally, a senior aide delivered a speech filled with the exact elements the philosopher cautions about, railing against a vague “them” who “cannot conceive of the force they've ignited in everyone”. “You amount to nothing,” the speaker added. “You have nothing. You represent evil. You are jealousy. You are resentment. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing.”

Europe’s Response: From Denial to Negotiation

Over the last twelve months, as the administration and his supporters have dismantled American democratic structures rapidly, the European dialogue at last moved from refusal to attempts at bargaining, with some recognition of American withdrawal and disinterest going forward. However there has been almost no space for a high-level, open discussion about what to do when the American administration is, for the foreseeable future, controlled by actors hostile to the European Union's core purpose and its principles.

I understand why EU officials are reluctant to have this conversation openly before the public. They worry that alienating Trump, even slightly, could result him to remove US support for the Eastern European nation. The most astute believe they are able to buy time by flattering him, manipulating him just long enough to find a better footing, whereas the blindly optimistic pin hopes on the 2026 midterms as a turning point, and a kind of “return to normal”. But those elections won't save us. According to legal expert Marc Elias explained for The New Yorker, the upcoming vote are likely to not be wholly free and fair, and in cases they are, Trump’s prior history of rebellion indicates that the results very well might not be honoured. And, the administration is already preparing to drop the country completely onto Europe's shoulders.

Taking Trump Literally

During the initial term, we were told, repeatedly, that the president should be taken seriously, but not literally. That was a error then, and it is a error today. Whenever the president says, “I hate my opponent and I do not desire what's best for them”, European observers (“an adversary,” remember?) must interpret his words directly. The extreme anti-democratic program the presidency is pursuing domestically is relevant to Europe. A US having a new, masked, secret immigration police with vast resources, whose “conservative” government sends its armed forces to “liberal” cities, and uses the legal system to exact retribution on rivals at the president’s behest – essentially, the demise of legal order – inevitably impacts EU governance. Not least, because the US government is waging a culture war against Europe, promoting forces that aim to dismantle it in its present form.

EU Citizens Leading Politicians

Citizens in the EU are out in front of their representatives regarding this matter. A recent EU poll showed that large majorities want the EU to safeguard them from crises and security risks, think the EU needs more financial means to achieve this, and favor new funding coming from the union collectively, rather than national governments alone. A survey of the EU’s five biggest states – France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Republic of Poland – found that a majority think the EU was humiliated in the latest agreement with the United States. They fault the EU executive for failing to protect Europe vigorously, with a significant portion of 39% wanting the union to become more resistant to Trump.

Timothy Garton Ash lately allowed US citizens 400 days to rescue their political system. From a US perspective, it seems unlikely the nation has that long. For Europeans, it's prudent to presume that it does not.

Europeans are ready for an honest conversation about the challenge Europe confronts from the US administration – just as they've united in the face of aggression from the Russian leader. The danger lies in EU officials equivocating, delaying, and avoiding this conversation. If they cannot speak openly, the public will decide that European democracy and its structures are insufficiently robust to endure the pincer move that is building opposing it.