What is Fascism?
The Problem with Defining Fascism
Fascism is inherently hard to define. Fascism is often defined by pointing to the German and
Italian regimes. But this is very unsatisfactory, because even these major Fascist states differ
from one another a good deal in structure and ideology. Fascism always takes on the
individual characteristics of the country it is in, leading to very different regimes. Due to the
complexity of fascism, a definition will either be too specific leading to false negatives or too
general leading to false positives. Rather than a classical definition, it is more pragmatic to
provide a broad description of the ideology, a general model of how fascist movements
operate and a list of core traits to identify whether a movement or regime is fascist.
Fascism is an Ideology not a Form of Government
First and foremost, fascism is an ideology and a movement, not a form of government. Just
like how conservatism is an ideology and a movement but not a form of government. This is
not to say that fascism doesn’t alter the form of government. For example, the form of
government in fascist Italy was totalitarianism and the form of government in Nazi Germany
was authoritarianism within a constitutional monarchy. Therefore, a fascist movement is
still a fascist movement even if they don’t hold power in government or have yet to change
the form of government.
A Broad Definition of Fascism
Fascism is an ideology of far-right ultranationalism that relies on a mythic past to justify
traditionalism and a dominant hierarchy of people in a nation. Said nation is ‘reborn’ under
this traditional hierarchy. A fascist movement seeks to establish and legitimise this
traditional hierarchy by gaining political hegemony through force, democracy or both.
How the Fascism Model Operates
A humiliated nation drawing on a mythic past and being promised a return to greatness if
they follow a strongman populist authoritarian is the model of a fascist movement.
Traits of Fascism
Fascist movements rely on different mythic pasts and different scapegoats but share a set of
core traits. These traits include:
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Traditionalism
Militarism
Corporatism
Colonialism
Imperialism
Rejection of modern values
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An obsession with a plot
Hierarchal gender roles
Hierarchal in groups and out
groups
Focus on Law and Order
A fascist movement can still be recognised as fascist even if one or more of these features
are removed. Take Wittgenstein’s notion of a game as an analogy. A game can be
competitive or non-competitive. A game can require skill, luck or both. A game can involve
objects such as balls etc. or not. Games are different activities that display only some family
resemblance.
Salazar
What is Trumpism?
Trump never explicitly states when America was great.
It could be inferred by the way trump refers to police brutality and protesters that he is
referring to a time before the end of segregation.
I loved the old days, you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a
place like, they’d be carried out in a stretcher
The humiliation often comes back to Obama, the message is that they are victims of the first
black president and the end of segregation. The power of white America has been
decreasing.
Labelling trump as fascist causes trepidation among some political commentators as they
fear being alarmist, ignorant as to what fascism is and believe it only to be the most
extreme form and don’t believe that fascism can occur in liberal democracies. Others would
avoid labelling Trumpism as a fascist movement because they support trump and his politics
and would like to avoid relating their ideology to fascism.
Denial of MAGA and fascism