08-07-2025
Breaking down claim foreign press started calling Republicans the 'American Fascist Party'
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In early July 2025, a rumor began circulating online claiming that foreign news outlets started referring to the Republican Party, or Grand Old Party (GOP), as the "American Fascist Party."
"The Republicans are now being referred to as the American Fascist Party by the foreign press, and I'll be calling them this as well," one Facebook post (archived) read, reaching over 18,000 reactions, 1,800 comments, and 2,500 shares.
(Facebook page U.S. Democratic Socialists)
Similarly, another Facebook post (archived) with over 13,000 reactions, read, "Republicans are now being referred to as the American Fascist Party by foreign media (and they would know). Guess we better do the same. Just to avoid any confusion."
Other posts (archived) made more specific references to "European media." The claim spread across multiple platforms, including Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, X and Threads.
However, none of the posts included specific examples of which foreign or European news outlets referred to the Republican Party as the "American Fascist Party." They did not cite any country, language, publication name, or article where such a label was being used.
Our review of international news articles in multiple languages found no indication that this term had been adopted by mainstream foreign news outlets, either in English or in other languages. The phrase does not appear to be in common use across international media. The popularization of the term "American Fascist Party" likely stems from a 2023 opinion article by former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, published in the British newspaper The Guardian. However, this was an individual commentary, not an example of widespread usage in foreign press.
We performed a Google search in over 20 European languages (English, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish). The search returned no relevant results showing that mainstream news media in these languages referred to the Republican Party as the "American Fascist Party."
The phrase "American Fascist Party" seemed to trace back to commentary by Reich. In an April 2023 opinion piece for The Guardian, a British newspaper, Reich wrote that the Republican Party was "hurtling toward fascism." He wrote that "Donald Trump is not singularly responsible for this dangerous trend, but he has legitimized and encouraged the ends-justify-the-means viciousness now pushing the GOP toward becoming the American fascist party."
Reich has repeated similar phrasing in other opinion pieces and social media posts on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. "My friends, the Republican Party is no longer committed to democracy. It is rapidly becoming the American fascist party," Reich wrote in an article published on Substack and Common Dreams.
But these reflected his personal opinion, not an editorial position of a news organization — and certainly not a trend among foreign media.
Additionally, while European news outlets like The Independent or Le Monde have discussed concerns about the GOP's direction and mentioned fascist rhetoric or tactics, they had not referred to the GOP as the "American Fascist Party" as a matter of journalistic framing or categorization. For instance, journalist Patrick Cockburn wrote in a 2021 article for The Independent that the "nullification of elections is only the latest step in the Republican Party's strange voyage towards becoming a genuine fascist party." However, the phrase "American Fascist Part" was mostly used in social media posts, comments, and blog articles — not in reputable news publications or mainstream news outlets.
Over the years, we fact-checked numerous viral claims involving fascism. For instance, in August we debunked a claim that Winston Churchill once said that the "fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists." In December 2020, we looked at claims that in an interview that published widely in 1976, David Bowie said he believed in fascism and that "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars." Additionally, in January 2024, we investigated whether a viral video showed hundreds of people performing a Fascist salute in Rome on Jan. 7, 2024.
Evon, Dan. "Did Winston Churchill Say 'The Fascists of the Future Will Call Themselves Anti-Fascists?'" Snopes, 7 Aug. 2018,
Google Search. Accessed 7 Jul. 2025.
---. Accessed 7 Jul. 2025.
Is Trumpism a Form of Fascism? Two Historians Debate. 3 May 2025. Le Monde,
Lee, Jessica. "Did Bowie Say He Supported Fascism and Praise Hitler?" Snopes, 23 Dec. 2020,
Opinion | The United States Now Has a Fascist Political Party | Common Dreams. Accessed 7 Jul. 2025.
Reich, Robert. "Is the GOP Becoming the American Fascist Party?" Robert Reich, 10 Apr. 2023,
"The Republican Party Has Turned Fascist – It Is Now the Most Dangerous Threat in the World | Patrick Cockburn." The Independent, 23 Jun. 2021,
"---." The Independent, 23 Jun. 2021,
Wrona, Aleksandra. "Is 2024 Video of Hundreds Performing Fascist Salute in Rome Real?" Snopes, 10 Jan. 2024,
