section_path: Invocations of the comparison/Invocations during Trump's second presidency
section_name: Invocations during Trump's second presidency
paragraph_text: Invocations during Trump's second presidency
  
  In 2025, Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore, and Jason Stanley, three experts of fascism from Yale University, fled from the United States to Canada. They cited what they perceived to be America's descent into a fascist dictatorship as their reason for leaving the country. Additionally, an April 2025 survey of over 500 political scientists found that the majority considered the United States under Trump to be quickly becoming an authoritarian regime. In May 2025, Jason Stanley stated that Trump's frequent attempts to target institutions of higher education such as Harvard University was due to them being a "threat to the glory of the dictator" and that "all dictators smash universities".
  
  In a United States Senate hearing in March 2025, Bernie Sanders presented a graphic created by Trump's 2024 campaign and compared it to a piece of Hungarian fascist propaganda. Both images depicted Jews controlling political leaders as puppets on strings. Three expert witnesses on the subject of antisemitism agreed that Trump's publication was antisemitic propaganda similar to the fascist example. Matthew Kriner, a scholar of far-right extremism, argues that the Elon Musk salute controversy was far from the only instance of fascist imagery appearing from supporters of Donald Trump while noting how many of the examples of veiled fascism have plausible deniability. Larry Diamond argued in March 2025 that Trump had some but not yet all of the characteristics of a fascist leader.
  
  In an April 2025 speech, former United States Vice President Al Gore directly compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, drawing comparisons between Trump's political actions and those of the Nazi regime. He quoted antifascist philosopher Theodor W. Adorno describing the use of misinformation by the Nazi regime to convert "all questions of truth into questions of power", saying that Trump uses the same tactic. Adrienne LaFrance cited scholars who see Trump's second term as textbook fascism.
  
  Following the assault and forceful removal of senator Alex Padilla from a press conference in June 2025 after he attempted to ask a question, several United States senators described the event as fascistic. Elizabeth Warren stated that "it's looking more and more like a fascist state out there every day", and Scott Wiener stated that "anyone who continues to doubt whether this is fascism is living in an alternate reality". Additionally, journalist Jim Acosta said that "what happened to Senator Padilla is not homeland security. That's homeland fascism."