The “f-word” is the most misused insult in modern political discourse.

No, I am not talking about the vulgar four-letter Anglo-Saxon term for fornication which is continually on the lips of many sections of the population, but about the word used by the left to smear and demean its opponents: “fascist”.

Now that an increasingly desperate Kamala Harris has openly accused her Republican opponent Donald Trump of being a fascist, and Trump’s disgruntled former chief of staff, General John Kelly declared that his former boss “fits the definition of a fascist”, it is time to spread the word and ask whether the man who could well be re-elected president of the world’s leading superpower in less than a fortnight is in fact, a follower of the most despised and murderous ideology in the Western world.

As a historian who has made my modest contribution to the history of fascism, I feel qualified to answer the question. question Harris and Kelly asked. So, is Trump really a fascist? My answer would be a resounding “no”.

Although historians themselves are divided over whether fascism is a far-right ideological movement – ​​as most maintain – or a variant of socialism, as some dissidents believe, Trump does not check the boxes basic elements that define this harmful creed.

Fascism first appeared on the world stage more than a century ago, on March 23, 1919, in a meeting hall in Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan, northern Italy. 200 angry men – mostly soldiers who fought in the recently ended First World War – gathered to express their discontent with the political chaos in Italy and the meager rewards they had received for their part in the victorious war .

One of these men, a journalist and former soldier named Benito Mussolini, proposed founding a new movement which he called the “Fasci de Combattimento» or “battle formations” to confront the socialist pillars who were spreading the ideas of the Bolshevik revolution, taken from Lenin’s Russia – across Italy.

Mussolini knew what he was fighting against, for until 1915 he himself had been a leading and very militant member of the Socialist Party, editing the party newspaper “Avanti!» (Forward!) He had been expelled by the socialists for his passionate demand that Italy go to war against Germany and Austria, forgetting the socialist mantra that all workers are brothers, whatever their country. original.

Four years after this momentous meeting, Mussolini’s new fascist movement had been brought to power in Rome, after a campaign of brutal violence that had seen its socialist enemies beaten into submission: murdered, brutalized and publicly humiliated with the fascists’ preferred punishment: a dose of castor oil so that their victims get dirty involuntarily.

It is therefore clear that the first fascists were definitely on the far right of the political spectrum with their roots on the left, and when an admirer of Mussolini took over the leadership of his own party in Munich, a few months after the meeting of Milan in September In 1919, Adolf Hitler called it the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) or “Nazis” for short. Hitler, like Mussolini, merged the heady doctrines of nationalism and socialism into a single ideology that they hoped would appeal to the working class alienated by the internationalism of the Bolsheviks who had recently seized power in Russia.

The characteristics of the movements then launched by Hitler and Mussolini were violence, anti-communism, the cult of their leader, impatience with the “chatter” of parliamentary democracy, an avowed affection for war and above all a cult of the nation.

Fascists and Nazis had much in common, but where Hitler differed from his Italian hero was in his open racism: savage anti-Semitism and the belief that Germany Herrenvolk (the master race) was destined to dominate and rule the world.

So is Donald Trump a new “Duce” or “Fuhrer” – a leader demanding unconditional obedience from a people hypnotized and fallen under his spell? Is he a murderous dictator ready to plunge the world into war and organize the murder of millions?

Although he joked that he wanted to rule as a dictator for just one day, it should be remembered that Trump has already spent four years as president without massacring his political enemies, without starting wars, and without suspending the US Congress: all of which were acts committed by the actual fascist dictators he is accused of imitating.

The former president is not anti-Semitic either. It’s quite the opposite. Trump is a staunch supporter of Israel and the man who moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and ordered the assassination of General Quasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport in January 2020.

Unlike Mussolini and Hitler, Trump has a keen sense of humor and ridicule. He is a tease and loves nothing more than to mock those who solemnly denounce him as the destroyer of freedom and democracy in the United States. There is a big difference between his often extravagant and crude rhetoric – both private and public – and his actual actions in office.

If he returns to the White House, Trump will not burn it down, rig or abolish elections, or persecute his domestic enemies as they have relentlessly pursued in court. American democracy is safe in these notoriously small hands. Trump may be a boastful buffoon, but he is not a fascist.

Nigel Jones’ books include Hitler’s Heralds, Countdown to Valkyrie And Mosley

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving deals and more.