As the United States and many other countries of the world start tipping towards fascism, it becomes important to define it if we, as writers, seek to address and combat its influence in real people. Most people simply think of the Nazis or governments of Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain in the mid-Twentieth Century. However, its echos remain and are gaining strength in the Twenty-First Century. Will liberal democracy fail this century? To prevent this, we must examine how even in a country like the United States, which claims to value democracy, is actually using its own institutions to subvert and destroy it.
Definitions of Fascism
What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".
A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.
Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, it referred to a totalitarian political movement linked with corporatism which existed in Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Many scholars use the word "fascism" without capitalization in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology (or group of ideologies) which was influential in many countries at many different times. For this purpose, they have sought to identify what Roger Griffin calls a "fascist minimum"—that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political movement must meet in order to be considered "fascist".
"Ur-Fascism" by cultural theorist Umberto Eco
Fourteen general properties of fascist ideology. It is not possible to organize these into a coherent system, but that "it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it":
"The cult of tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
"The rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
"The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
"Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
"Fear of difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
"Appeal to a frustrated middle class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
"Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society (such as the German elite's "fear" of the 1930s Jewish populace's businesses and well-doings; see also antisemitism). Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
"Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
"Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
"Everybody is educated to become a hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
"Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality".
"Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept to de-legitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".
"Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
Emilio Gentile
Italian historian of fascism Emilio Gentile described fascism in 1996 as the "sacralization of politics" through totalitarian methods and argued the following ten constituent elements:
a mass movement with multiclass membership in which prevail, among the leaders and the militants, the middle sectors, in large part new to political activity, organized as a party militia, that bases its identity not on social hierarchy or class origin but on a sense of comradeship, believes itself invested with a mission of national regeneration, considers itself in a state of war against political adversaries and aims at conquering a monopoly of political power by using terror, parliamentary politics, and deals with leading groups, to create a new regime that destroys parliamentary democracy;
an "anti-ideological" and pragmatic ideology that proclaims itself antimaterialist, anti-individualist, antiliberal, antidemocratic, anti-Marxist, is populist and anticapitalist in tendency, expresses itself aesthetically more than theoretically by means of a new political style and by myths, rites, and symbols as a lay religion designed to acculturate, socialize, and integrate the faith of the masses with the goal of creating a "new man";
a culture founded on mystical thought and the tragic and activist sense of life conceived of as the manifestation of the will to power, on the myth of youth as artificer of history, and on the exaltation of the militarization of politics as the model of life and collective activity;
a totalitarian conception of the primacy of politics, conceived of as an integrating experience to carry out the fusion of the individual and the masses in the organic and mystical unity of the nation as an ethnic and moral community, adopting measures of discrimination and persecution against those considered to be outside this community either as enemies of the regime or members of races considered to be inferior or otherwise dangerous for the integrity of the nation;
a civil ethic founded on total dedication to the national community, on discipline, virility, comradeship, and the warrior spirit;
a single state party that has the task of providing for the armed defense of the regime, selecting its directing cadres, and organizing the masses within the state in a process of permanent mobilization of emotion and faith;
a police apparatus that prevents, controls, and represses dissidence and opposition, including through the use of organized terror;
a political system organized by hierarchy of functions named from the top and crowned by the figure of the "leader", invested with a sacred charisma, who commands, directs, and coordinates the activities of the party and the regime;
corporative organization of the economy that suppresses trade union liberty, broadens the sphere of state intervention, and seeks to achieve, by principles of technocracy and solidarity, the collaboration of the "productive sectors" under control of the regime, to achieve its goals of power, yet preserving private property and class divisions;
a foreign policy inspired by the myth of national power and greatness, with the goal of imperialist expansion.
"The Anatomy of Fascism" by Robert Paxton
Fascism is "A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. "
Fascism's foundations lie in a set of "mobilizing passions" rather than an elaborated doctrine. These passions can explain much of the behavior of fascists:
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 to it;
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 chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical 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.
Stanley G. Payne
A. Ideology and Goals:
Espousal of an idealist, vitalist (e.g. willpower, qi, soul), and voluntaristic (political authority is will-based) philosophy, normally involving the attempt to realize a new modern, self-determined, and secular culture
Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state not based on traditional principles or models
Organization of a new highly regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist
Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence and war
The goal of empire, expansion, or a radical change in the nation's relationship with other powers
B. The Fascist Negations:
Anti-liberalism
Anti-communism
Anti-conservatism (though with the understanding that fascist groups were willing to undertake temporary alliances with other sectors, more commonly with the right) [e.g. dismantling institutions that have maintained societal and political norms, such as democratic processes]*
C. Style and Organization:
Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass single party militia
Emphasis on aesthetic structure of meetings, symbols (e.g. red MAGA hats), and political liturgy, stressing emotional and mystical aspects
Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing a strongly organic view of society
Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of the generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation
Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective
* a prediction I made in early 2024
* Personal Observation: there is a difference between "government" and "state". Should Trump take office, he will most certainly take all of the executive power that the recent Supreme Court debacle granted 'the Presidency' in 2024 to be absolutely unprosecutable for any action taken as an 'official action' of that office. He and his Project 2025 administration will become 'the State' whilst proclaiming themselves technically 'small government'. And thus, by eliminating whole departments (e.g. Departments of Education, Labor, etc.) and deregulating whole industries, they will appear to be doing the whole Reaganesque 'small government' thing while also concentrating power into one, small man. Trump, and all who swear fealty to him, will become the State, which will swiftly and brutally suppress all who oppose him/it.
"Fascism Anyone?" by Laurence W. Britt
A list of 14 defining characteristics of fascism:
Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism"
Disdain for the importance of human rights
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
Rampant sexism
A controlled mass media
Obsession with national security
Religion and ruling elite tied together
Power of corporations protected
Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
Obsession with crime and punishment
Rampant cronyism and corruption
Fraudulent elections
Ian Kershaw
The difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism...is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population.
Consider the 2016 slogan "Make America Great Again" when reading the following quote.
Fascism's message of national renewal, powerfully linking fear and hope, was diverse enough to be capable of crossing social boundaries. Its message enveloped an appeal to the material vested interests of quite disparate social groups in a miasma of emotive rhetoric about the future of the nation. It touched the interests of those who felt threatened by the forces of modernizing social change. It mobilized those who believed they had something to lose – status, property, power, cultural tradition – through the presumed menace of internal enemies, and especially through the advance of socialism and its revolutionary promise of social revolution. However, it bound up those interests in a vision of a new society that would reward the strong, the fit, the meritorious – the deserving (in their own eyes).
... Fascism's triumph depended on the complete discrediting of state authority, weak political elite who could no longer ensure that a system would operate in their interests, the fragmentation of party politics, and the freedom to build a movement that promised a radical alternative.— Ian Kershaw
The Narrative
Heroic Victims, the Heroic Quest, and the Übermensch:
"Action for action's sake" (Umberto Eco) in which reason, thinking, and intellectualism is inferior to "feeling" and emotion.
Conservatism is defined (Arthur Brooks) by passion.
"They (whomever is the most popular enemy) want to destroy you and your family, and only I can stand in between you and them." These "others" are considered solely responsible for the nation's troubles. This justifies a never-ending holy war against these "evil, perverse, corrupt, degenerate, treasonous elements" by dehumanizing them, allowing for the "heroes" of the state to use violence against them.
In fascism, the state is the highest form, which gives meaning to its citizens. So to be against the state is to be against the people, so "we need to get rid of those who pose any threat, challenge, or critique of the states." It promises to bring about unparalleled "heaven on earth" to all its citizens (which will be "all" after they deport, detain, and execute anyone against them). Heroes of the state and a holy war used to bring about this utopia become the nationalistic dogma, and any evidence to the contrary are seen as "lies created by the enemy". But its the emotional morality provides stability, guidance, purpose, and identity. Facts are optional to the fascist. Anything that contradicts it, even facts, is considered treason by "those wanting to destroy morality itself."
an identity and life that is defined entirely by the state
a cult-like worship around a sacred narrative of a holy war
a promised paradise, which cannot possibly ever come thus justifying the holy war and so never ends
an aesthetic rooted in the past, iconized and idealized by hero worship
a belief in stability over truth
a duty to destroy any deviation or representation of that deviation from the narrative.
whole categories of people whose life has no value (service workers, immigrants, homeless, etc.)
Remember: Fascism tells people: "It's not about facts. It's about how you feel."
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