There it is: A position completely untethered from empirical evidence, as ridiculous analytically as it is dangerous politically, propagated by anti-liberal leftwing intellectuals who are solely animated by their disdain for “the Libs” and have abandoned any regard for accuracy.
The key to all of Bessner's downplaying is that he once co-authored a column that said that admitting Trumpism is fascism would mean that the left should ally itself groups outside the left in order to stop it.
And that, apparently, would be a step too far for him.