Calling Trump a fascist isn’t the knockout blow Kamala thinks it is

In the closing days of a divisive and bitterly fought election campaign, the wilder the insults against the former president, the more passionately his supporters will stand by their man, says Mary Dejevsky

Less than two weeks before polling day in the United States, a new and highly emotive word entered the campaign.

The Democratic contender, vice-president Kamala Harris, has described her Republican rival Donald Trump as a “fascist”.

Resorting to the F-word tells its own story about the closeness of this campaign. Harris may be just ahead in most polls, but the very small gap would seem to be narrowing, with Trump’s trajectory on the up. Add the distinction between the popular vote and the electoral college vote that actually decides a US election, and the result is, as so often said, too close to call.

Both candidates have everything to play for in the contest to lead the most powerful country in the world.

Harris’s use of the F-word as a rally cry against her opponent is also a reminder that language has been notably unrestrained throughout this US presidential campaign.

Even if you are used to the cut and thrust of UK politics, a semblance of limits as defined by “parliamentary language” still mostly applies. If uttered here some of the insults hurled by both Harris and Trump – and their running mates – would do more damage to the speaker than the target. With ever fewer holds barred, to condemn your opponent as fascist is one of the last places to go.

Harris picked up the word second-hand – with evident alacrity – from Donald Trump’s one-time chief-of-staff, retired US Marine Corps general John Kelly, who used it in a New York Times interview. And while military men can be freer than many others in their use of language, Kelly knew exactly what he was doing. In his choice of word and the timing, Kelly set out to inflict the most damage he could on the Trump campaign.

But the damage is likely to be limited. Former staff members turning against Trump is hardly without precedent – just flick through John Bolton’s memoir, The Room Where it Happened, about his time as Trump’s national security adviser – and also because, as far as Trump’s character is concerned, minds are largely made up. For true Trump devotees, the more and the wilder the insults, the more passionately they will stand by their man.

From court cases to guilty verdicts to street protests, anything that pits him against what might be seen as the US establishment serves to strengthen his appeal.

So while the fascist charge plays to Harris’s case – undoubtedly, it draws a contrast between her and Trump – it is unlikely to make any actual converts.

Trump has insisted that, far from being a “fascist” – or, as Kelly suggested, someone who “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist”, who admired dictators and especially wished he had had generals who were as loyal as Hitler’s top officers – he is the “opposite” of the Nazi leader, whatever that means.

Regardless of the merits of applying the F-word to Trump – only last month, for instance, he made outrageous claims about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs – this has the feel of a last throw of the dice by anti-Trumpists concerned that Harris is about to be defeated.

The word “fascist” cannot but resonate. Trump is a big talker, a blusterer. It is hard not to see him as a narcissist, with authoritarian tendencies – but an actual fascist, a would-be Hitler?

Certainly, Trump’s record in power largely discredits a key fact of fascism, the pursuit of territorial expansionism. He can correctly claim to have started no wars in his four years in office.

As for “admiring” Hitler, the only evidence offered is his desire for the absolute loyalty of the armed forces. Is this not something a head of state who is also commander in chief is entitled to expect?

The United States is a highly patriotic country. Americans by and large genuinely consider their country to be superior to all others. Such ingrained nationalism is partly why “Make America Great Again” has enjoyed such wide appeal – but also why the charge that Trump is a fascist will appear more credible than it really is.