What is "Fascism"?

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I was going to address a few of the points supplied, but the first one of them (noting that a condition was for ANY of them to be true (so just 1 is all that is required) "Then YOU'RE LIVING under Fascism!"), piqued my curiosity.

As far as government goes in the United states, you have 3 components: The Legislature (makes the laws), The executive (carries out the laws) and the Judicial (Evaluates the laws). (see https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government)

Given the limited role the Judicial branch has, and the (theoretical at least) neutral position it should hold, its role in the "control" of government is minimal.

This leaves us with the Executive (the President) and the Legislature (consisting of 2 houses: Senate and Representatives). Should a single party have control of both houses, as well as the Executive, that would appear to meet this requirement, given the members of their party in the Legislative branch are unlikely (except in extreme circumstances) to try and limit the executive branch, as they would both be working towards the same goals.

With this in mind, looking at the history of both houses and the head of the Executive branches, it would appear that there have been a number of times where this "condition" of "One leader who has nearly absolute control of government" have been met:

In fact, looking back at the most recent 5 Presidents, all (Mr Biden, Mr Trump, Mr Obama, Mr Bush, and Mr Clinton) have had this level of control at some point during their time in the role suggesting, according to this point, that all must equally have been Fascists - And of these, Mr Clinton, and Mr Obama have had the highest level of "control" by their party over the houses within the Legislative branch (and so over government as a whole) during the time they ruled...Mr Bush, had the longest duration of this control (equivalent to 1 term), with the other 4 each having it for 1/2 a term.

I think that you are being a bit hyperbolic, with the idea that fascism should only be measured by how much control might be put in place by one side of the political aisle, granted by election. Just because a party might even be unpopular by the general percentage of the population, does not mean that they have to be less fascist than one that might be more popular, with even a more diverse base. It is kind of playing with definitions, when it is better to understand the intention.

The intention being putting a single leader up as the one who gets to make the decisions, and you can see this with Trump in the Republican party when so much of it was about a cult of personality around Trump, with him treating things like the Attorney general as his personal lawyer instead of supposed to be for the people. He went through two of them in stating that he did not think they did enough to protect him, when that was not their job. The man had to make everything about himself, never shut up about his electoral college win in 2016, and when he went to other countries he got jealous of how other fascist leaders could force everyone to stand when they entered the room, and have military parades in their honour.

That is the type of thing meant when it mentions a single leader with absolute control. It is that fascists love so called "strong" men that have to make their leader look infallible.

What is "Fascism"?

Fascism is a term used primarily by those on the extreme political left as a pejorative against, well, virtually anyone who isn't on the left of politics.
Usually, the words 'Fascist', 'Nazi' and 'Neo-Nazi' are interchangeable, with the intent of using the negative connotations to psychologically influence the members of the political group using this sleight.

There are those who criticise the usage of these 'loaded descriptives' and point out the exploitative nature involved.



Seemingly, the same strategy was used in the 'Climate Change Debate', also.
I only bring this up to point out a pattern of behaviour.

Using demeaning terminology encourages a partisan mindest that is ruled by emotionalism, rather than rational objectivity.
Such words create a psychological climate of hate which devalues the opposition and invalidates their position and their very humanity.



Dehumanisation was used by the Nazis pre-WWII against certain ethnic groups.
Are the strategists of left-wing policies using Nazi methodology?
I will let you be the judge, but if they are, it would be quite 'ironic'.

The point is: This was using a "metric" provided by another member (not something hand picked by myself, nor even by someone who presents the same side of discussions in general as I do), which claims that a given responce indicates a specific result, but when used can turn up results that may be unexpected.

The fact that some may disagree with the result of the metric helps demonstrates that there is no universally agreed definition (meaning) of the term (much like there wasn't in 1944 when the essay in the first post was written), making the use of the term "meaningless" - Each person will place their own "meaning" to it, making it use as a universal metric\adjective of no use - Even the modern reference to the "cult of personality around Trump" used above as a proxy pointing towards "fascism" could equally be countered from the "other" side looking back to the "cult of personality around Obama" when he was running for election and held power.

As Magz' post noted, "bully" would be an appropriate synonym for "fascist", given that is generally how the person using it subjectively sees those they target they use it on.

If we look back in history again (1949 - Around the same time as the essay in the original post), we even have the following from John T. Flynn:

Source: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/748710

Should you be interested in looking at the term from a different point of view, the source of the following extract (written in 2011) was interesting, given it shows a completely different understanding of what the term means, along with the reasoning used to reach that understanding:

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/09/01/obama-hitler-and-exploding-the-biggest-lie-in-history/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Horseshoe theory is under heavy criticism, it tries to draw comparison of social programs to things like national supremacy. Often they are parts of shallow observations, such both having criticism to, but they generally have different motives and answers. Fascism empathy is generally limited to the best for a nation or ethnicity, it often wants to make out its group as both powerful and a victim. While socialism empathy extends further, often concerned with groups that are actual minority victims. Of course it is not out of the question that a socialist society can turn fascistic as a focus is placed on national pride and different people might game the system for their own benefit.

Horseshoe theory is another attempt to push a false narrative of "both sides being equally bad". By pretending that both sides are equally distant from the center, it gives the more extreme side the ability to create a false center.

In other words, if one side is twice as tinfoil looney as the other, and they claim that both sides are equally looney, it lets them "midpoint" a location closer to the more extreme side.

A visual representation:

extreme right -------------------- center --- extreme left
|----------------------------------------|----------|

"Nonono! Both sides are "equally" bad! Therefore the middle is actually over HERE!"

extreme right --- "new center" --- center --- extreme left
|---------------------------|-------------|----------|

And the more they push the right side to more extreme measures, and pretend "both sides" do it, they can keep sliding the "center" further to the right. Moving goalpost.

It's just "Godwin's Law" being extended to other words. Conveniently, if you "disqualify" all extreme words, then you lose the ability to talk about extreme behavior, even when the behavior IS extreme, which only lends to the "both sides are equally bad" illusion, since you have to use the same tame watered-down language to describe both sides. "Racism isn't racism, it's merely a differing opinion! Sexism isn't sexism, it's merely an alternative viewpoint! And EVERYONE has differing opinions!" Pay no attention to the content behind the opinion!

I think the word was hopelessly fuzzy from the start. My mother says that her grandmother (who emigrated from Fascist Italy) used to use the words "fascista" and "mafioso" interchangeably, as an emphatic insult directed at people she found morally despicable.

From what I've read about the evolution of fascism in Italy, it seems like both that fuzziness and that emotional charge surrounding the word weren't by accident. Fascists defining their ideology by refusing to define themselves was a major part of... what defined them. You can't be hit when you're pretty much just toxic smoke and mirrors. You're not accountable for anything when it's never clear what it is you're saying or promising to begin with.

It was very deliberately an emotionally-based movement. Unlike present-day authoritarians, who like to insist that they're "rational" and their opposition is "emotional", IIRC Mussolini actually promoted that emotionality as a strength instead. He did insist on not being labeled as either "right" or "left" though. Supposedly fascism was "the towering mountain in the center". Which obviously means nothing other than just an emotionally-charged image.

Apparently both "the media" and people in general back then already argued over what fascism is or isn't, just as much and in much the same vein as people do today. As far as I can tell, that current use of the word as an insult directed at "any person somewhere to my political right who I don't like" is actually consistent with its use (by a certain portion of the population) back in fascism's "original days". And that, in turn, was always a (mostly intended) reflection of the deliberately muddy, evasive and deflective nature of the original movement.

I don't think that means it's okay to just keep using the word that way though, because it does evoke a direct comparison between whoever/whatever is being referred to and Fascist Italy / Nazi Germany. I don't think that's helpful. It's like bringing "no u" and "you hereby stand accused of crimes against humanity" to the same level. Those are... slightly different things.

@auntblabby

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think it's good either to say or imply that US citizens have been living under a fascist regime. Has the country (both the political class and a significant part of the population in general) been flirting with totalitarian nationalism? Oh yeah, definitely. Has it been attempted? Well, I think certain recent events make the answer to that question pretty clear... But has the country actually been operating under a totalitarian nationalist regime? No. Elections took place, a new president was elected, and he's in power. He may not represent real opposition to "the establishment", but he definitely represents opposition to the previous government. That wouldn't be possible under a totalitarian regime.

I think that distinction is still important. When you call any kind or level of questionable or oppressive/suppressive political tactics the same thing, you end up playing their game. It's in their interest to stay objectively undefined and undefinable. So it's important to make distinctions, so you can hold people and institutions accountable and aim for incremental battles that can actually be fought.

at this point we can make a distinction between soft fascism [the informal setup we have in terms of corporations calling the shots but still having a rump of a moral conscience that gets activated only too late in the game [twitter cancelling trumpy]- and hard fascism [russia, turkey, increasingly china and myanmar].

That can be still a little too fuzzy in some contexts, but yeah, I think adding the adjective to it does make a big difference already. You draw the parallel (which is relevant), but you keep the distinction (which is also relevant).

the situation in russia and italy [also franco's spain] jibes most with FDR's definition of fascism [a strong leader giving big business free rein to run roughshod over the country, for a cut].

The word is used as a pejorative meant to dehumanise the other group.
Simples.

Simple. Anything the Left does not like is "Fascism"!

that is just like peeing on my leg and then telling me it's only raining. typical. IOW it's just a figment of my little imagination. a form of gaslighting.

Pardon?

denying that fascism exists or arguing over its precise meaning down to individual molecules is the equivalent of my late ol' man slapping my head off while laughing at me and joking, "WHOOPS! my hand slipped!" IOW i've seen this movie before and know how it ends.