If you ask ten people to define fascism, you will typically get zero real answers. This is because fascism only ever existed once and that was 80 years ago. What's more, most people have no idea what even the original Italian fascists were about, let alone the hazy variety that's been a favorite insult since the '60s.
Like "neoliberal," which these days just means bad and left of center, fascist is now just a generic term for bad and conservative. It has lost all meaning and nobody should use it anymore. If you can't figure out how to say what you really mean without it, maybe you should rethink what you really mean.
Berlusconi was the "most persecuted man" long before Trump, there are many parallels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlusconism
This is a curiously cranky post since the reason "fascist" gets used so often is because it's an extremely useful word meaning not a political program (which would obviously have shifted in relevance since the 1920s) and more of an aesthetic/attitude promoting conformity, dishonesty, masculinity and resentment. And since Mr. Drum doesn't offer any explication as to what _he_ thinks it means or what he thinks others are intending to say, it's a pretty hollow gripe, and basically, not his best work.
Also as far as I'm concerned, "neoliberal" didn't exist until the early 2000s so it's a term that never had any meaning in the first place.
Long before fascism, Nazism, etc. was ever a thing...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue
A few more links to balance the discussion:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/29/putting-our-own-people-first-nativism-us-vs-them-far-right-parties-lega-fpo-kkk-europe-usa/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/what-is-nativist-trump/521355/
https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/far-right-nativism-its-geopolitical-effects-and-its-future-north-america-and-europe
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nana.12860
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09579265221095406
The problem is that, to describe today's GOP accurately, we need a term that means something like:
"A formerly fairly conventional right-of-center party that has become so ideologically compact, so fixated on the replacement of factual reality by ideological commitments, and whose center of ideological commitment has moved so far in an anti-democratic direction, that a large portion of both its leadership and rank-and-file seem to be fully prepared countenance the transformation of the country from a representative democracy into something like an "illiberal democracy" or a "dictablanda," if not indeed an outright dictatorship."
What would you suggest? "Papenist" maybe?
My own preference would be to use the nearest analogue I can think of from US political history and call them "Redeemers." Unfortunately that term is probably even less well known and understood here than "fascist."
At some point in the future, the beliefs you described will be labeled "Trumpist."
This is also informative, advocating some pragmatic courses of action:
https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/05/resisting-call-of-nativism-what-u.s.-political-parties-can-learn-from-other-democracies-pub-81204
Fascists: A cabal of narcissists that identify as conservative, and that are in control of the levers of government.
Communist dictatorship: A cabal of narcissists that identify as progressive, and that are in control of the levers of government.
Not to mention wannabe fascists and wannabe communist dictators.
Suppose what I really mean is "bad conservative?"
""neoliberal," which these days just means bad and left of center"
LOL
Kevin channeling his inner Chait
This one must be a personal sore spot, eh?
But Kevin, neoliberal is so 2016. You people are reactionary centrists.
this strikes me as a fun discussion about labels; also GOP Radicals aka MAGAs calling EVERY *Liberal* marxists these days when no one really knows what that actually means, just a place holder for *commie* I assume but even that is kind of vague
I think it's a useful term, albeit one that is used sloppily.
A society is fascist -- I think -- when it elevates the interests of "the state" (however that is defined, and it doesn't necessarily encompass everyone subject to its rule) are elevated over the interests of individuals.
Sparta is the classical fascist state: if an individual becomes a burden in any way on the state, cut his or her throat.
And the Nazi regime was fascist not so much because it murdered so many "undesirables" -- that was just racism -- but because it would also murder any otherwise upstanding citizen as soon as he or she stood in the way of the interests of the Reich.
And a lot of the MAGAts are fascists because they support trampling individual rights for the good of the mythical "America" of their imaginations. Currently a lot of their mythology is embodied in the disgraced former President, but the mythology will outlive him.
Idiot. Fascism:
Views Democracy as a failed system
Anti-Communist
Anti-Capitalist (free markets can be controlled by enemies)
Autarky
Defines the People
National Myths utilized to define people
The People united across class, political, social into a community agsinst "others"
The People oppressed must seize power sanctioning violence
War as transformative and desirable
So, sounds like you are saying that "conservative" means "racist" and "misogynistic" and "book burning" and "suppression of free elections".
Magats aren't fascist because they are conservative. They are fascists because they are actively working to destroy American values.
Also:
"
ne·o·lib·er·al
adjective
favoring policies that promote free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending.
noun
an advocate or supporter of free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending.
"
We've moved so far to the right that now "fascists" are just "conservative", and what was "conservative" is now "left of center".
Divested of its ideological and organizational paraphernalia, fascism is nothing more than a final solution to the class struggle, the totalistic submergence and exploitation of democratic forces for the benefit and profit of higher financial circles. – Michael Parenti