this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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Fascism is a pretty specific ideology. If you want to learn more, Umberto Eco made a list.
I get where you're getting at: the role of past and ongoing colonialism is still being downplayed. But you're wrong. There are very good reasons why we should fear fascism in particular.
The USA genocided an entire continent under it's current form of government, and committed and is still committing countless other atrocities. Look at what Europe did to Africa and Asia under that same form.
Bourgeois parliamentarism is a much more stable shell for colonialism than any other form of government has proven to be. Demonizing a dead form of colonialism (fascism) lets them off the hook, and never forces them to look at what their own governments are currently doing. They get to keep their chauvinist / supremacist myth about "liberal democracy" being the superior form of government, without challenging it.
Yes, that's why I wrote the part after “I see what you're getting at”
I'd also like to add that hitler was very specific about his desire to emulate the US model of colonialism: and do to eastern europe, what the US had already done to its native peoples.
The only difference between lebensraum and manifest destiny, is that bourgeois democracy was far more effective at indigenous genocide than fascism was.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/nazi-germanys-american-dream-hitler-modeled-his-concept-of-racial-struggle-and-global-campaign-after-americas-conquest-of-native-americans.html
Yeah, the Nazis weren't really subtle. If you instead maintain a civil front inward for public support, you can wreak havoc more effectively.
That's why fascism is a different kind of danger. It wouldn't leech off of other places for centuries, it would explosively and directly attack internal and external enemies.
Neither of these things can be risked.
Eco is not a definitive authority and his little checklist is extremely ahistorical.
Source?
Literally just read the list. It's not ahistorical because it gets history wrong, it's ahistorical because it has nothing to do with history. It has no ability to explain how and why fascism emerged when it did rather than sooner or later and thereby has very little understanding of what it actually is. It's like defining a disease by a very loose checklist of symptoms, the fundamental causality is completely absent, so there is very little you can even do with it besides make a shaky diagnosis.
Incidentally, Trump isn't a fascist. He flirts with being a fascist and in many ways has lit the way [something something tiki torches] for future fascists, but fundamentally, he's just doing fascist-like rhetoric as a way to sell people on relatively normal neoliberal policy. Probably the most strange thing he did was bomb Qasem Soleimani, something that Democrats didn't even really oppose on any grounds other than it being rash, despite Soleimani being a leader in the fight against ISIS. If I had to pick a second thing, it was probably lowering military funding to South Korea, which was just him being stupid and accidentally a clearly good thing to do. He's not harder on immigrants than Democrats, he's not harder on China or Russia, he's just a normal rightist wrt to queers, he likes giving tax cuts to rich people, and he's fussy in diplomatic meetings. He had very few policies that Biden didn't immediately perpetuate. If you want to call the whole neoliberal edifice fascist, fine, whatever, but he's not special in anything but aesthetics.
Umberto Eco completely ignores the material basis for fascism, which is usually the downwardly mobile petit bourgeoisie. Fascism takes advantage of superstructural elements, which is why Eco’s list contains the elements it does in a kind of grab bag fashion. But it still has a material basis, itself being a response to a crisis within capitalism. Would highly recommend The Jakarta Method for further reading on what people are discussing in your replies and in this thread.
The Nation, 2017: Trumpism: It’s Coming From the Suburbs
another good read on the subject https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/trump-american-gentry-wyman-elites/620151/
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Funny how Trump is a fascist no matter what definition you use.
Trump isn't a fascist. In action he is actually a pretty standard reactionary liberal. You will notice that Biden has continued the salient policies that made liberals call him a fascist, such as extreme and horrible border policies (Dems actually outflanked the GOP on this from the right), anti-China policy, and extending militarism (like maximum pressure on Russia via Ukraine).
He's mostly just openly racist whereas the political class usually wraps itself in polite jargon bullshit before it fucks with a bunch of brown people.
Almost as if he is one and the definitions agree for a reason.
It's not perfect, but it's good introductory material for people who fell for the right-wing propaganda of “everybody's called a fascist now, there isn't even a definition”.
Yes, suckers, there are people with an understanding of what fascism is, and they agree for a reason about the dangers of things like calling people vermin, casting doubt on election integrity, and strong man rhetoric.
A much better read on how fascism inevitably arises out of liberal capitalism https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/