Donald Trump is being called a fascist – by his former appointees and his opponent Kamala Harris.

On Sunday, in a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump and his allies traded in crude and racist insults, amplifying the nationalistic rhetoric his camp has become known for. The event drew stark comparisons to another gathering at the Garden–a 1939 "Pro-American Rally," put on by the German-American Bund, a pro-Nazi group, with 20,000 of its members in attendance.

The MAGA rally, for some, was the tipping point for calling Donald Trump a fascist. For others, it was simply another piece of evidence placed atop an already very tall stack.

Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. He first warned about Trump’s fascist rhetoric in 2018, and explains why it's more important than ever to call it by its name.

A portion of this interview originally aired in our October 25, 2024, program, Fascism, Fear and the Science Behind Horror Films.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Donald Trump is being called a fascist – by his former appointees, as well as by his opponent Kamala Harris. On this week’s On the Media, a historian of fascism explains why he sounded the alarm back in 2018. Plus, the science behind why horror films make your skin crawl.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Jason Stanley, a professor of Philosophy at Yale University and who has written several books on fascism. He first warned about Trump’s fascist rhetoric in 2018, and explains why it's more important than ever to call it by its name.

[20:05] Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with science writer Nina Nesseth to explore how horror filmmakers make our skin crawl, the anatomy of a jump scare, and why all screams aren’t created equal. Her book Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films delves into question – why do we crave being scared senseless in the movie theater?

[32:50] OTM producer Rebecca Clark-Callender dives into the history of Black horror to see what it is and who it's for, ft: Robin R. Means Coleman, professor of Media Studies and of African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia and co-author of The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar; Tananarive Due, author, screenwriter, and lecturer on Afrofuturism and Black Horror at University of California, Los Angeles; Rusty Cundieff, writer and director of Tales from the Hood (1995); and Betty Gabriel, actor widely known for her acclaimed performance as "Georgina" in Jordan Peele's blockbuster Get Out (2017).

Further reading:

• Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, by Jason Stanley
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley
• Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films by Nina Nesseth
• Horror Noire: A History of Black American Horror from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

For the last few years, patriotism has been stuck in the wheelhouse of the GOP. A Gallup poll from June shows that 60% of Republicans — compared to 29% of Democrats — express extreme pride in being American. Donald Trump wraps himself in flags at each rally, walking out to God Bless America. But recently, Democrats have been taking it back, little by little. At a rally in Philadelphia, the crowd erupted into chants of, “USA! USA! USA!” and at the DNC, former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger proclaimed, “The Democrats are as patriotic as us.” That same night, Kamala Harris claimed that Americans all have the “fundamental freedom” to clean air and water, and the right to an environment free from the pollutants that “drive the climate crisis.”

A group of researchers at New York University, led by Katherine Mason, are investigating this unlikely pairing – flag-waving, steak grilling, good ol’ American patriotism and climate change. They released a new study measuring the effectiveness of this combination in changing stubborn minds. This week, host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Katherine Mason to discuss the effectiveness of combining patriotism with climate change, and how to harness peoples’ inherent psychological need for stability to promote social change.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.