John Gruber of Daring Fireball, on Jonathan Rauch’s aforelinked essay in The Atlantic:

We call Benito Mussolini’s regime “fascist” because he coined the term. His political movement was literally named the Fascist Party. There was no debate whether Hitler and his regime were Nazis because that was their name. “Fascist” and “Nazi” weren’t slurs that were applied to them by their political or military opponents. That’s what they called themselves, and their names became universally recognized slurs because the actions and beliefs of the Fascists and Nazis were universally recognized as reprehensible and evil. And because they lost.

Our goal should not be to make fascist or Nazi apply to Trump’s movement, no matter how well those rhetorical gloves fit his short-fingered disgustingly bruised hands. Don’t call Trump “Hitler”. Instead, work until “Trump” becomes a new end state of Godwin’s Law.

The job won’t be done, this era of madness will not end, until we make the names they call themselves universally acknowledged slurs.

It’s already happening: MAGA is practically an epithet; Trumpism is shorthand for a nativist, grievance-fueled, anti-democratic movement; and the red MAGA hat is the moral equivalent of the white Klan hood. I have tremendous faith that the next generation will scornfully decry future autocratic, xenophobic, narcissistic, wannabe authoritarians as Trumpist.