If it checks off eleven or more of the boxes in the Fourteen Points of Fascism, it's fascist, sorry.
I'm sure there's a similar "Fourteen Points of Communism" around somewhere and if a candidate or leader clicks off at least eleven or more boxes, then they are indeed communist.

Some species of camels have one hump and some have two, but it's fact that all camels do have humps.

It's not our fault that the Republican Party majority is embracing this, just as it's also not our fault that the majority now openly reject democracy.
They did this to themselves and I think it is a disservice to reasoned debate to pretend that an existing political ideology's name constitutes an illegitimate attack, when these individuals are defining themselves without any help from anyone else.