Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has adopted policies after policies shocked Americans and the world. Trump has fully embraced the far-right agenda from launching immigration crackdowns and persecuting residents’ sympathy for the Palestinian people to demolish diversity and inclusion programs and attacking higher education and freedom of expression. His critics at home and abroad easily call him a fascist.

But fascism is not the ideology of choice for the US president. The fascist movements differ in their approaches to political and economic issues, but they have several commonalities: the interests of the state are higher than those of all, and the state plays an overall role in society and economy.

In other words, fascism attempts to re-establish the socialist ideal as a strong nationalist framework. As a historical response to communism and liberalism, it was exiled in the "extreme era" of the 20th century, as British historian Eric Hobsbawm said.

Trump may use the language of "America first" in his remarks, but he is not really pursuing "the interests of the country." He is pursuing 1% of the profit.

Trump and his cheerleaders hope to go beyond neoliberalism, insisting that the smallest state is ideal for economic prosperity and establishing high capitalism by eliminating any state’s control over wealth accumulation.

They learned that we live in times when profiting from society is not so easy, so they want to get rid of the barriers of democracy and the demands of the people, namely, protected by the rights of the state (political, social and human).

The tech brothers surrounded by Trump envelop this high capitalism in a cover of technology, claiming that technology can solve all dilemmas and unlimited growth - reading unlimited profits for the rich - are the only way to progress.

This is clearly outlined in books produced by Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Andreessen, among others, who wrote a technology-Hot Manifesto a year before the U.S. elections put Trump in power for the second time. He wrote: “By the religious conception of technology and markets, “technicalists believe that sharks, growing or dying society. …We believe in ambition, aggression, lasting, lasting, ruthless-power-power. …We believe in agency, individualism. …We believe that there is no material problem – whether it is essentially or incapable of material problems caused by technology – and that there is no way to solve more technology. ”

This view combines unrestricted capitalism with transhumanism—the belief that humans should use technology to enhance their abilities—and an individualistic explanation of Charles Darwin’s victory in survival. It is easy to see that this keen vision of individualism is contrary to historical fascism, which prioritizes the state and community over the individual.

Some might point out that Trump’s tariff policy is a proof of his statistician tendency. But if you scratch the surface, you will find that the trade war launched by the US president is not really about "bringing back the job", "defending national interests" or reversing globalization.

Trump is using tariffs as a tool of coercion to force countries to negotiate with him. When he announced a 90-day pause on certain tariffs, he himself bragged about 75 governments with his government to lend a helping hand. These bilateral negotiations will be used to blackmail large capital closely related to the Trump administration, rather than defending the rights of American workers and creating conditions for the return of manufacturing to the United States.

Indeed, Trump attracted support from European post-fascist politicians and used fascist language and tools, but that was not enough to brand him with the imprint of "fascism". European post-fascists, like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, also deviate from fascist conceptions of state and economics. Meloni and others readily embrace the “free market” policy of “free market” to reduce taxes for the rich and eliminate social security provision for the poor. Her economic policies are different from those of Trump.

The U.S. president fully embraced xenophobia and racist language, reminiscent of fascist rhetoric and launched a vicious campaign against immigration. He did this not only to scare and win over the marginalized parts of society, but also to shift their growing dissatisfaction to the racialized "other" rather than the wealthy class.

This strategy is not only because of the increasing dissatisfaction of liberals, and therefore the poor majority accumulates, but also because the left fails to act.

Left and progressive politicians condemned themselves to repetition of left and right clichés without success, shunned "Trump's fascism" and debated their colleagues' Nazi or Rome tributes. It is futile to engage in this rhetoric and a waste of time and energy.

Instead, the left should focus on developing specific strategies to deal with Trump’s popularity and the driving force of supercapitalism. It should return to the root of the problems faced by ordinary people throughout their lives: work, health care, education and growing cynicism about politics. It not only needs to make Trump’s true identity-a supporter rich in capital interests, but also needs to provide a solid and realistic choice.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own views and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.