In the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk and other violent incidents like the shooting at the ICE facility in Dallas, there has been a lot of talk about lowering the temperature of political debate. Many of the suggestions are vague and difficult to monitor. However, one practice that has become a political cottage industry can be stopped very simply.
Let’s stop calling Trump, MAGA supporters and conservatives Nazis, fascists and even Hitler. This epidemic has spread into local politics, like the Philadelphia district attorney’s race, and even into the policies and focus of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — the unions that represent millions of teachers who work with tens of millions of America’s kids.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner appears to be running against President Trump rather than former Philadelphia Judge Patrick Dugan. He might set a world record for labeling members of the Republican Party as “Nazis” and “fascists.”
At a September 2025 town hall, when asked if labeling MAGA supporters was necessary, he replied, “It’s 100 percent necessary.” He also mentioned his father going off to fight in World War II and talked about how half his family was gone because of the Nazis and fascists. He summed up everything by arguing that Republican opponents “don’t believe in equality at all” and therefore using the fascist label was necessary in order not to be an appeaser.
Krasner probably topped this performance during a recent confrontation with Frank Scales, a young conservative activist in Philadelphia. Scales confronted Krasner after Krasner’s bike ride in a Philadelphia park. Scales had recently challenged Krasner at a September town hall where Krasner had attacked Trump and his supporters.
In this park exchange, Scales pressed Krasner on his claims that Trump is a fascist. Krasner responded by saying, “You’re un-American, Frank. You’re un-American.” Scales replied that he was a citizen of Philadelphia and resented being called “un-American.” That didn’t stop Krasner, who said, “Because you support people who support hate. You don’t understand what it means to be a fascist, what people like Adolf Hitler do, how spreading hate, which is something that, frankly, the people you admire do, gets us closer to that.”
Watching this exchange, Krasner seemed to take on the role of a strident teacher speaking to an ignorant student. It called to mind the approach of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. In her new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, Weingarten says she is sounding the alarm because people don’t know what fascism is. On Rev. Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show, she told him, “And what is clear to me is that people don’t know what fascism is. They don’t know what authoritarianism is. So, what they see is they think we’re just being — or people when they use a term are just being political.”
No, people are not ignorant. They see that the focus of the teachers union is not on the abysmally low reading and math scores of America’s kids, but rather on opposition to Trump. Her group shares this preoccupation with the National Education Association, which at its July convention passed policies making combating fascism the principal goal of this school year.
To make progress on the big issues facing us in the Delaware Valley or nationwide, it is crucial to oppose the crutch used by increasing numbers of progressives who claim Trump is a budding Hitler. This is the type of narrative that inspires violence.
It’s fine to oppose Trump and MAGA on any number of policies. It’s just plain lazy to scream fascism.