In 2015, “fascism” once again became the highest-octane political epithet in general use. Of course, the temptation to apply the fascism label is almost overwhelming when we confront language and behavior that superficially resembles that of Hitler and Mussolini. At the moment, it is being widely applied to cases as disparate as Donald Trump, the Tea Party, the National Front in France, and radical Islamist assassins. But, though the temptation to call such actors “fascist” is understandable,
it should be resisted.
...At its creation in the 1920s (first in Italy and then in Germany), fascism was a violent reaction against a perceived excess of individualism. Italy was scorned and Germany was defeated in World War I, Mussolini and Hitler claimed, because democracy and individualism had sapped them of national unity and will.
<snip historical events>
The fascists set themselves up (and acquired elite support) as the only effective barrier to the other political movement that surged following World War I: Communism. To international socialism
the fascists opposed [sic, offered] a national socialism, and while they crushed socialist parties and abolished independent labor unions, they
never for a moment questioned the state’s obligation to maintain social welfare (except for internal enemies such as Jews, of course).
<snip The Islamic State is not fascist.>
The Tea Party is at the farthest remove from fascism’s state-enhancing nature. With its opposition to all forms of public authority and its furious rejection of any obligation to others, it is better called right-wing anarchism. It is individualism run amok, a denial of any community obligations, the very opposite of a fascist appeal to the supremacy of communal obligations over individual autonomy. [Such hyperbole but still.]
<snip The National Front and its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen.>
Donald Trump is a special case altogether. Superficially, he seems to have borrowed a number of fascist themes for his presidential campaign: xenophobia, racial prejudice, fear of national weakness and decline, aggressiveness in foreign policy, a readiness to suspend the rule of law to deal with supposed emergencies. His hectoring tone, mastery of crowds, and the skill with which he uses the latest communications technologies also are reminiscent of Mussolini and Hitler.
And yet these qualities are at most derivative of fascist themes and styles;
the underlying ideological substance is very different, with the entitlements of wealth playing a greater role than fascist regimes generally tolerated.... <snip diatribe against Trump, the important point, Trump is not a fascist.>
It is too bad that we have so far been unable to furnish another label with the toxic power of fascism for these abhorrent people and movements. We will have to make do with more ordinary words: religious fanaticism for the Islamic State, reactionary anarchism for the Tea Party, and self-indulgent demagoguery on behalf of oligarchy for Donald Trump. There are fringe movements today, such as Aryan Nations in the United States and Golden Dawn in Greece, that draw openly upon Nazi symbolism and employ physical violence. The term “fascist” is better left to them.
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Originally Posted by jet57
