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.
Authoritarian. Totalitarian. Dictatorial. Anti-democratic. I'm sure there are other single-word epithets that fit the right-wingers in the US today.
So the right wing in the US are simply a homogeneous mass, all the same?
Well, that's some useful quality political understanding.
It's always the people who rant the loudest about "stereotypes" and "understanding" and "diversity" who seem incapable of knowing what THOSE particular words mean.
FOAD, troll.
FOAD, troll.
Many on the left have for decades had a nasty intolerance toward people of the right. It is the biggest defect with the left. Either agree with lefty politics and social views, or you are crap. Trump has made the problem much worse. It is one more harmful thing that Trump has done to the country.
So, yes, there are still some sane, old-school conservatives. All are anti-Trump conservatives. But 95% of Republican Party voters will vote for Trump in 2024. If they vote for Trump, regardless of their political views, they are MAGA conservatives. You can't vote for Trump and not be MAGA. So in that sense, the stereotype of MAGA conservatives fits about 95% of Republicans. Many may have been duped by Trump's sociopathic manipulations, but being duped by an authoritarian is no excuse.
Why be tolerant of the intolerant?
Yeah - fascist these days is just another flavor of authoritarian. It always was.
This is just Kevin being his usual contrarian self. There's nothing wrong with the word's usage. It never really meant anything as specific as he's making out - or rather, people overstate the specificity of fascism. It was essentially just authoritarian nationalism by another name. That's basically what the right wing in the US is today. Using fascism/fascist to describe at least some of them is entirely accurate.
I just looked up fascist in an online dictionary. Sounds exactly like the MAGA platform. I’m a big fan, but I think you misfired on this one.
Yes, and the other side gleefully uses whatever epithet they can get away with - communist, socialist, woke, antifa, etc. I don't support unilateral disarmament.
Maybe fascist is a "loaded" term compared to authoritarian, dictatorial, etc. Yet when the Republicans support banning books and free speech, denigrate the opposition as "unAmerican", all while wrapping themselves in the flag, it is the term that comes to mind.
But it makes you so cool to the other stoner kids.
"This is because fascism only ever existed once and that was 80 years ago."
Fascism existed from the 1920s to the 1970s. In addition to Italy and Germany, fascism also existed in Portugal and Spain.
Fascism didn't die until the Estado Novo regime in Portugal lost power in 1974 and the Falange regime in Spain collapsed when Franco kicked the bucket in 1975.
Died? Italy's PM Giorgia Moroni was a member of the MSI, a political party founded by followers of Benito Mussolini in 1946. She might not march under a bundle of sticks today, but she's kept firmly to their principals.
Ethnic nationalists are us.
Looking up the definition in a dictionary find a definition that is more or less the same it was defined 40 years ago. So if some of the ten people you ask can master looking up in a dictionary, then they will come up with a shared definition.
Merriam Webster:
"a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition"
that is also the textbook definition of the MAGA movement. So, "fascist" it is, pace Kevin.
Trump himself doesn't give a toss about any nation, so he himself is not really a fascist. But many of his supporters are indeed fully-blown fascists.
I agree that he's more of a dynastic Monarchist by choice. But if Don Jr. can't be the caudillo-in-training, Sr will take absolute power for the rest of his life and let the rubes fight about the leavings when he's gone.
That's useless as a practical guide because it's a collection of six or seven separate attributes, plenty of which applied to non-fascist regimes, and which mostly do not apply to MAGA and Trump.
Regardless of your feelings about Trump, to claim that he and his supporters stood for "severe economic and social regimentation" is idiotic, and while Trump himself, and some of his crowd may have WANTED "forcible suppression of opposition" or "centralized autocratic government", they didn't get it, and this was (and remains) very much a minority view.
Meanwhile "exalting race over the individual" is pretty much the single most important plank of the woke agenda, and precisely why so many people (including Hispanics, Asians, and most Republicans) are so opposed to woke.
"Meanwhile "exalting race over the individual" is pretty much the single most important plank of the woke agenda"
You are half right. Race is indeed very important to liberals. But you must keep in mind that liberals understand race to mean history and sociology. Conservatives keep insisting - incorrectly - that race means genetics. Understanding that difference in terms can help you grasp a great many of our political differences.
Of course, you can't actually point to this 'woke agenda' so...
Right?! What is KD on about? Clear cut insults?
One of the hallmarks is the cult of personality of a strongman. Unlike communist regimes the capitalists aid and abet the fascists — which is why so many conservatives in the US, both now and in the past, don’t have a big problem with fascism the way they do the anti-capitalist communists. I highly recommend Rachel Maddow’s mind boggling podcast “Ultra” which tells the shocking story of the huge US fascist movement in the 1930s. There were powerful people in Congress who were funded directly by Hitler’s government to promote US fascism.
The MAGA movement doesn't exalt the actual United States, it only exalts the White Christian part.
What most MAGAs seem to want is a return to how things were before the 1960's. In the South there was one-party rule, but it was run by state and county pols, not some "charismatic" quasi-national leader (except maybe the dead Robert E. Lee). What is the term for that? The veneration of Trump is new, and more fascistic.
That doesn't really characterize MAGA, which is not nearly that extreme.
"MAGA" is "not nearly that extreme" because MAGA is largely fat old white middle-class dudes and their status-crazed wives who don't have the muscle mass (below their heads, that is) to march with arm bands.
So we agree the Webster definition doesn't really align with MAGA supporters (though probably some small minority of them may fit).
On pure parallelism grounds, Trump's movement has quite startingly similarities with the original Italian fascists, unlike many other figures in the past (e.g. Nixon).
I am in particular thinking of the disquieting parallels between the March on Rome and the 6th of January 2021: in both cases, a violent movement tried to gain power with a mob, representing a minority, directly threatening the seat of parliamentary power. The 6th of January was straight out of Mussolini's history. There are many differences and of course the outcome was different (thanks in no small part to Pence, who had more spine than the Italian king).
But the historical parallel is there and quite chilling.
Yes! This times ten. Plus two.
That’s a lot of this.
I'm being Grinchy 😉
With a plank of complaint focusing on blaming other minorities (racial impure, religious, sexual orientation) directly for the plight of the State.
MAGAites are a problem, and have some disturbing tendencies. But there is an order of magnitude difference between the MAGAites and what actual dictators and Fascists do.
Many (including some frequent posters here) forget that and by doing so cheapen the value of the word "Fascist," discrediting themselves and the Left in general with their overwrought language. It's kind of like when Rightists call Dems "Socialists" and "Marxists" --- when I see that I say to myself "here is someone who should not be taken seriously."
Exactly.
Didn't Kevin work for an outlet that published...
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/31/the-12-early-warning-signs-of-fascism/
The “Conservatives” refer to anti-fascists as the enemy, so it seems like they like being fascists. But whatever. Asshole works too.
Meanwhile, the AI takeover has begun… reconnaissance attacks probing for weaknesses.
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/customers-report-missing-deposits-from-wells-fargo-bank-accounts/
“Wells Fargo is dealing with a technical issue that has resulted in customers reporting that their direct deposits had disappeared from their bank accounts.”
"Asshole works too."
Not really. Musk is an asshole, but Trump and his followers are much worse than that.
All conservatives are assholes, but not all assholes are conservatives?
I didn't understand the question.
The word "Conservative" I wouldn't use, because really nobody use it anymore to mean "Conservative".
MAGA is not Conservative, though opportunistically pretends to be, and many of the MAGA supporters in the absence of the demogogue likely would fall back to classic American conservativism.
I think DeSantis and his followers would like a single party state with DeSantis as dictator. Trump and his followers seem more inclined to Monarchy.
And I don’t think DeSantis’s appalling comment about cutting bureaucrats throats was figurative.
I doubt it. I think that if you got to know some of them, you would find that your assessment is inaccurate.
And I think what you are witnessing in them is “the banality of evil”.
Personally, I think it's way overused and frankly, a cliche. Do not construe this to mean I don't like the anti-democratic activities of the former president, and the support that seems to garner. Nor do I like the constant scapegoating of small minorities as "deviant".
More risible contrarian codswallop from Kevin. Long ago in a galaxy far, far away (OK, it was the '70s), I was a history major in college and, except for a couple of required survey and American history courses, I studied modern European history. I know exactly what fascism means and I know it when I see it. Drumpf, the Gauleiter of Florida (who is rearin' to slit throats), and the bulk of the whole damn Republican Party are following the standard fascist playbook. They are plain and simple fascists (Nazi works almost as well) and I will continue to call them such. The nitpicking disapproval of the world famous historian Kevin Drum to the contrary.
Not only would it be wrong to retire fascist, it would be good to see wider use of Gauleiter. Both are useful and unfortunately relevant today.
Kevin's also wrong about neoliberal. It's a word with a history and it has meaning, and nearly every important economist and politician associated with the term is or was conservative, not "left of center."
I agree that neoliberalism is pretty specific, although it's an inadequate term for describing someone's entire politics, it just characterizes a certain emphasis.
What, no love for Hannah Arendt, Oswald Mosley, et. al? I'm sure that more than one of Kevin's readers have at least one of each of their works on their shelves.
Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism has been on my shelf (and in my moving boxes) for 15 years now. I'll read it someday when I'm in the mood for something depressing, and long. Might be good poolside reading.
No, the meaning of the term is clear and well-understood. It's used here more often than it used to be because it describes U.S. politics as practiced by the Republican party better than it used to.
????????????????????
Neither Mussolini-led fascism in Italy, the Nazis in Germany, or even Franco in Spain serve as good models or explainers for American politics today, which in the case of MAGA is good old-fashioned nativist populism (with that unmistakable racist taint inherent to white nationalism more generally, and the peculiar alliance of Trump with evangelical Christian right).
The hard right (as opposed to conservative right) is gaining ground in many democratic countries however, with varying elements of Christian and racist overtones, and should be understood on its own terms (and not with historical pejoratives).
Not that you will fail to find some parallels of course, fascists were bigoted nativists before they "innovated" fascism.
"Nativist populism" falls far short of describing what we're seeing from the Republicans, such as the undermining of separation of powers, reduction of elections to sham formalities, consolidation of all government authority in one man, and attempts to align all corporate activity with the party's positions. That you can find some subtle differences between the current Republican party and 20th century fascist regimes is of no consequence.
I find this more telling (and akin): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue
And as far as economic boycotts, I've supported them as far back as the fight against apartheid in South Africa, people you agree with don't have a monopoly on that, and very few people even in MAGA would support the government "aligning all corporate activity", which is a lot different than refusing to buy Bud Light or taking away special district and privileges from Disney (economically dumb too in the latter case).
Trump is the chief demagogue, DeSantis is just a cheap imitator who attempts some things even significant segments of MAGA won't support.
Pretty much everyone in MAGA-land is in favor of bringing "woke corporations" to heel using governmental power. They're all thrilled to outlaw DEI programs and affirmative action any time they can. I'm not talking about consumer boycotts, which have nothing to do with fascism.
When I call them fascists I mean it literally.
Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon are fascists. Bannon actually talks about it outloud.
Fundamentally it's about finding any way at all to keep a crowd motivated at just the edge of rioting while trying to push forward on the effect of their incited anger and managed hysteria, with easily targeted helpless victims and conspiracy theories of existential threats and persecution as key motivation, along with active denial of objective reality. The most nightmarish version of feudalism.
And if your people really, really want to kill a lot of others, well the dead don't vote, do they?
Great video illustrating how people keep falling for Republicans,
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1687525283807580168
I mean exactly what I say, dude. I expect you've at least read summaries of Hannah Arendt's works. If so, you know what the word means.
Let me ask instead that you say what you mean - you're annoyed with shallow lefties complaining about authoritarianism incompetently. So say what you mean, don't do the authoritarians' work for them by playing language cop.
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are wannabe dictators who will use hate, particularly directed at vulnerable groups, to rise to power. I think that fits the popular conception of fascism pretty well.
Mitch McConnell is not a fascist. George W Bush wasn't a fascist (though lots of people liked to accuse him of it.)
It does get muddy because as you pointed out, most Republican members of the house supported Trump's 1/6 coup attempt, which makes them fascist supporters. It sounds a little uncomfortable calling most Republican House members fascist, but they knew what they were supporting.
If you'd prefer we call this iteration Trumpism, I'm cool with that.
Trump himself doesn't care about the nation, so he doesn't really fit "fascism", and therefore "Trumpism" is better, meaning something like "Anti-democracy, anti-honesty, anti-generosity, anti-fairness, anti-rule-of-law".
I disagree that the term is no longer useful, and that it has become so broad as to be useless.
Fascism is a specific form of authoritarianism that venerates an imagined idyllic past which has been lost through the corrupting influence of <insert out-group here> and which only can be regained by violence. It solicits support from religious and corporate powers and rewards them with special treatment. It invariably elevates a single charismatic leader who "is the only one who can" <save us, restore our past, fight the out-group>. There is always aggrieved victimhood posturing, used to justify the breaking of norrms, laws, and heads.
All these things are present in other forms of authoritarianism, but only fascism ties them together in a particular package. And the package is worth reifying -- labeling as "fascism" when it appears -- because:
1) History shows that this repellent package is horrifyingly effective. Its elements work over and over again, and have synergistic effects when bound together. Human brains appear to be particularly susceptible to this recipe.
2) It's goddamned dangerous. We've seen over and over again what horrible things people are willing to do when they believe they've been wronged, that their way of life is in danger, and that a specific out-group is responsible. Fascism's package wraps that evil up and gives it a steroid shot.
So yes, there is a bit of a propaganda aspect in using a name that stands for genocide, pogroms, and literally weaponized bigotry. Argument by analogy, right? But consider:
The contemporary American Republican Party's glide into fascism could be left as an exercise for the reader, but let's spell it out. All the elements are there. Appeal to lost, imaginary past glory: check. Identification and vilification of out-groups: check. Willingness to encourage militia violence: check. Charismatic leader: check (throw up in mouth a little). Appeal to and special privileges for corporate and religious powers: check. Aggrieved victim posturing by bullies and those with power: Oh my God, check.
If the jackboot fits...
The term "fascism" is probably overused, but I agree with commenters that it still has a useful and relevant meaning. One of the best descriptions I have seen comes from here: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2022/09/semifascism-and-trump.html
QUOTE:
[A]s the highly-respected scholar Robert Paxton points out fascism is less a coherent ideology than a set of “mobilizing passions:”
* a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
* the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual
* the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
* dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
* the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
* the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s destiny;
* the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;
* the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success;
* the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.
END QUOTE
Another element of fascism today is that it's international, as it was in the 20s and 30s.
Primarily promoted from Russia and people who vote for Republicans, but occurring throughout Europe, and, invariably, elsewhere.
Your point about Russia being the closest thing we have to Fascism is well stated --- post Cold War Russia has an eerily similar path as post-WW 1 Russia.
But the idea that the modern GOP is Fascist is absurd --- most conservatives I know are angry at what they consider Leftist bullying and overreach but do not want to end American Democracy or anything. Like, if you believed that Biden actually stole the election, you would evaluate 1/6 as SUPPORTING democracy, wouldn't you?
Delusion is failure not an alternative.
After four years of Donald Trump 74 million people still voted for him. The only way to say that's rational is to say that's real hate.
If they're not Nazis now they will be next time because they can't bring themselves not to do the wrong thing and they'll find increasing ways to make it meaningful to themselves.
Kevin is more right than wrong, there is very little consensus on what fascism really means, or understanding the etymology of it in Italy, which is something along the lines of strength through unity (in their particular case and peculiar form of elite-deviant populism), and as has been pointed out through the years, Italian fascists and Nazis were more different than alike.
The more important insight is that fascism was anti-liberal and anti-conservative, and one could make the strong case that Trump is much less a conservative or a Mussolini and instead more comparable to a nativist and a Berlusconi, as this is mostly about Trump elevating himself, about HIS triumph, and willing to use all the classic nativist levers to engineer this (and with these nativist tendencies latent in segments of the populace ready to be manipulated).
I am going to pile on the push back to Kevin. I think the term fascist describes accurately much of right wing politics around the world. I found this piece written back in 2003 eerily accurate about the todays MAGA movement.
* The 14 Characteristics of Fascism
Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine's policy.
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections
Fascism may have had a heyday in the 1930s but it is clearly making a comeback.
Good call. All 14 seem to fit Trump.
DeLong (and others) divided Neo-liberalism into right and left which seems reasonable. Reagan was RNL. Gingrich in 1994 and Nader in 2000 ended any possibility of a left neo-liberalism. Right populism is clearly headed towards some flavor of fascism. Political movements are works in progress not fixed entities.
The biggest flaw in Trump's "strategy" is that he so transparently throws away (under the bus) anyone who shows any independent thinking or lack of fealty, including the ever-growing line of people he's hired and praised than later condemned and insulted when they were even in the least contrary, that it becomes more and more obvious this is all about him, and not America, or Americans (the wannabe emperor wears no clothes, and shows no evidence of leadership skills beyond pitching himself), and that he's a danger not only to civil libertarian ideals, and to liberalism as confused as that term also is, but also to American conservatism.
He's the picture boy for elite deviance, and how can anyone take all his protestations about weaponizing justice and government seriously, when he himself has campaigned all along about putting Hillary in jail (and now is doubling down on that with Biden's whole family)?
If it walks like a fascist, talks like a fascist, it probably is a fascist.
Like commenter Joseph Harbin above, I find Kevin's claim that neoliberals are "left of center" puzzling. First and foremost I think of "neoliberalism" as referring to the sort of policy/political changes unleashed by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s -- hardly left-wing stuff.
In a substack post, economist Noah Smith writes,
QUOTE
I’m paraphrasing heavily from many sources here, but basically the “neoliberal turn” is supposed to have involved the following:
* Lower taxes
* Cuts to social welfare
* Deregulation
* Free trade
* Privatization
* Anti-union policy changes
END QUOTE
Source: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/was-there-really-a-neoliberal-turn
I guess that one might be mislead into thinking "neoliberalism" is left-wing since it contains the word "liberal," which in a US context in particular typically means "left of center."
But the "liberal" in "neoliberalism" is meant in the sense of "classical liberalism" -- free markets, small government, etc. (The term "liberal" in a European context, rather than a US context, still largely denotes classical liberalism, as it happens.)
Classical libealism was a very progressive doctrine in the 17th-19th centuries, when the contrasting ideology was monarchy / aristocracy. However, classical liberalism is now well to the right of modern "egalitarian liberalism," aka "New Deal liberalism," aka "social democratic liberalism."
Neoliberalism explicitly wishes to return to classical liberalism -- the "neo" here denotes a new revival of classical liberalism. So neoliberalism indicates a wish to move rigthward from the economic/political policies that prevailed from the New Deal to the 1970s. That's why it is strange for me to hear Kevin call it left of center.
And BTW, count me in the social democratic liberal camp, not the neoliberal camp.
Actually, some of us DO know what "Fascist" means: an adherent of Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco or in modern terms, somebody like them who uses the power of the state and widespread propaganda to advantage their corporate funders.
It does NOT mean "Nazi" which had some similarities but was a WHOLE lot worse.
The most prominent American politician currently following the mold is interestingly the descendant of four great-grandfathers born far south on the boot of Italy: i.e. Ronito DeSantolini.
really not sure what you're talking about, kevin. facism has a perfectly well understood definition. it's even i the dictionary.
fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Start with ingroup-outgroup psychology, projection on to the other/enemy, and the long history of prejudice and nativism, and then see how the Italian fascists here, and the Nazis there, and even the transitional hard right today, built and borrowed and veered into their own unique manifestations.
The most important thing is standing up for civil liberties and individual freedom and pursuit of the good life and happiness, and continuing the expanding of the ingroup circle and focusing the outgroup on those who would willfully commit violence to achieve their aims, and/or use power to stomp out the rights and liberties of other groups and individuals) for reasons of greed and/or selfishness.
One can look at Jesus for an example of expanding the ingroup circle, this was after all a man who went from town to town helping and healing the least fortunate, regardless of social status or background.
The meaning of fascist is perfectly clear: ethno-nationalist authoritarian/totalitarian. The Italians invented the word in the twenties, but fascists we have always had with us. Alas, we probably always will.
Neo liberalism on the other hand, means basically free-marketism. This used to be the economic philosophy of the republican party. Not so much any more.
I personally have no issues with people using language informally. That train left the terminal a few decades ago for me.
That is to say, I would not correct people on the differences between Fascism and fascism, Populism and populism, and Liberal and liberal.
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