And while he has a number of obvious similarities to past right-populist candidates, from Pat Buchanan to Ross Perot to the Alabama governor George Wallace, he tends to differ from them in precisely the places where fascist temptations can creep in.

Buchanan, for instance, was a nationalist, but also a deeply religious man, whose campaigns were fueled as much by pro-life conviction as by populism. Not so Trump: He plainly regards his semi-professed Christianity purely instrumentally and has little time for the religious right’s causes.

Perot was an economic nationalist but also an obsessive deficit hawk and budget balancer, who won a lot of libertarian votes with his promise of a green-eyeshade approach to government. Not so Trump: He clearly doesn’t care a whit for limited government or libertarianism, and he’s delighted with a hyperactive state so long as it’s working hand-in-glove with corporate interests.

Wallace was a noxious segregationist, but his racism was bound up in a local and regional chauvinism, a skepticism of centralized power and far-off Washington elites. Not so Trump: When he sounds an anti-Washington note, the argument isn’t that local governments can do things better, or that local folkways need respect; it’s that he can do things better, that centralization is fine and dandy so long as you have the right Duce — er, Donald — at the top.