But there are also strong counterforces:

• Trump retains unusually intense loyalty among Republican primary voters.
• Many Republican officeholders fear primary challenges more than general elections.
• Conservative media ecosystems remain heavily pro-Trump overall.
• Republican voters increasingly view impeachments as partisan weapons, reducing stigma.

So the most accurate answer is:

• There is a plausible constitutional and political scenario where it could happen.
• It would probably require an extraordinary catalytic event close to the midterms.
• Without such an event, conviction remains unlikely because the Senate threshold is so high and Republican incentives still generally favor staying aligned with Trump.

Most mainstream scholars do not classify the U.S. under Trump as a fully fascist regime.

More common descriptions include:

• right-wing populism,
• authoritarian populism,
• illiberal democracy tendencies,
• democratic backsliding,
• nationalist populism,
• proto-authoritarianism.

Some scholars and commentators do explicitly use the word “fascist,” especially after January 6 and later executive-power proposals. Others strongly reject that label as historically inaccurate or politically inflammatory.

Objective assessment

The Trump movement shows:

• meaningful overlap with some historical authoritarian and fascist dynamics,
• especially leader-centered nationalism and institutional antagonism.

But it also differs substantially from historical fascism because:

• constitutional structures still function,
• opposition parties remain viable,
• civil liberties broadly persist,
• and the U.S. remains institutionally decentralized.

So the most defensible analytical statement is probably:

Trumpism exhibits some authoritarian-populist characteristics that partially resemble historical fascist movements, while still operating within a constitutional democratic framework that remains substantially intact.

The reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades, according to new federal testing data, a worrying sign for teenagers as they face an uncertain job market and information landscape challenged by A.I.

In math, 12th graders had the lowest performance since 2005.

The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, long regarded as the nation’s most reliable, gold-standard exam, showed that about a third of the 12th-graders who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills.

It was a sign that, among other skills, they may not be able to determine the purpose of a political speech. In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills like using percentages to solve real-world problems.

The test scores are the first of their kind to be released since the Covid-19 pandemic upended education. They are yet another sign that adolescents are struggling in the wake of the virus, when schools were closed for months or more. They also arrive at a time when Americans overall are abandoning printed text for screen time and video-dominated social media, which experts have linked to declining academics.

Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990 — then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s. That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops.

The pandemic then accelerated learning declines, especially for the poorest students. Some pandemic effects have lingered. Student absenteeism, for example, remains higher than prepandemic."

Some experts believe that the end of No Child Left Behind, the contentious school accountability law signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, explains some of the recent test score declines.

Like many who have studied the law, Brian A. Jacob, professor of education policy at the University of Michigan, showed that it increased test scores but had problematic elements.

“It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement,” he said. “There’s evidence that school accountability does change behaviors of teachers and administrators and probably parents and students.”

Nearly half of American teenagers now say they are online “almost constantly,” compared with just under a quarter who said that a decade ago, according to Pew Research Center. Virtually all schools give children laptops or tablets in class, as early as kindergarten.

Few rigorous studies have teased out the role of devices in academic outcomes. Yet educators say there’s no question that swiping has decreased students’ focus and persistence, and time on devices has displaced time spent reading or studying. Far more teenagers — nearly one in three — now say they “never or hardly ever” read for fun.

In turn, schools expect less from students, assigning fewer whole books and simplifying the curriculum, said Carol Jago, associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“There’s no other way, except volume, in order to become a really proficient, fluent, avid reader,” she said.