This was an excellent read and summary of Fascism in our world today. Your mention of Putin is short, and I believe that he has played a much larger role in Trump's conversion than other historical characters. I lived and worked in Russia off and on for 20 years, and became bi-cultural in this process. This provided an inside-view of Russia's conversion of a communist-socialist country to their current state of dictatorship. Thanks for this great background - Elizabeth
I will look for the two other books you referenced and have been proselytizing your book "Strongmen" as it is so well written and presents the sequence of ascension for these types so clearly. I hear many people talk about how "all this will go away when Trump goes away" and I have been trying to correct that thinking. he is an integral part of it, but just like a seed in the ground, he needs fertile ground and people willing to believe and support. I used to think, like many others in the US, that we were too smart to allow an authoritarian to bring our system of government to the brink of a disaster, and we had weathered other similar threats. Clearly I was underestimating the power of a movement like this and overestimating the ability of the average American to resist it. Apropos of the season, i am reminded of an April fools joke perpetrated by the BBC some time in the 50's in England, where they aired a documentary about pasta growing and being harvested on trees in Switzerland.. the number of angry UK citizens who were fooled by the documentary was stunning. People are susceptible to falsehoods, and especially if those falsehoods lay the blame for their circumstances at the feet of others.
When I was in Italy last spring, any number of Italians seemed to be treating the rise of the neo-fascists and the premiership of Meloni with a sort of weary resignation - that expressive shrug, chin lifted, head cocked. And the AN has a lot of support in Sicily, which was not notably pro-Fascist during the Mussolini period.
The Italian media is, of course, giving her a pass. Their obsequious treatment of Berlusconi after his death was nauseating.
Thank you for addressing this famously slippery question and for your work in general on authoritarianism.
I see all authoritarians as fascists, because they require everyone to think and act the same; and eliminate those who refuse. So Stalin and all totalitarians were fascists. Ostensible differences in economic structures are irrelevant... in the end it's always *a gang with a gulag* .
Diametrically opposed to these fascists are the liberals. Another simplification but useful in keeping the big picture straight for me.
Ruth, thank you for this in-depth, considered dive into what fascism is. I would very much appreciate a newsletter on Christo-fascism, since those are the people behind 45. I'd enjoy your perspective and scholarship.
After reading this article, I am still confused about exactly what fascism is. The only parts that are not confusing is that Donald Trump embodies fascism and that we need to expect even more violence. I hope the voters all wake up this year, and get out to vote him down.
Dear Ruth, you are one of the few courageous writers willing to name what Brecht once called "the serpent's eggs (fascism). see https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/13/everyday-fascism-brechts-warning-about-the-serpents-egg/ I am positing the note below in response to what I think is an utterly misguided assessment of fascism in the United States. I am referring to Andrew Marantz's article in The New Yorker. His article reminds me of a comment by James Baldwin who once remarked that liberals will recognize fascism only when they get the knock on their door. My comment follows:
Liberal Delusions: I am having a hard time with liberalism in its old and new forms. Liberals are utterly wedded to capitalism, regardless of the massive damage it inflicts on the planet, and cannot relate to how it provides the foundation for an updated fascist politics. Their view of the virtues of individualism is deeply indebted to a regressive notion of choice, character, and social Darwinism. Yes, for liberals all problems rest solely with the individual as larger systemic considerations are left to rot in the tsunami of evasions and erasures. This argument is loved by Goldman Sachs and its followers. It also undercuts any viable notion of the social. Third, they have no argument for understanding education as central to both politics and the rise of a fascist culture in the United States. Moreover, in the face of an emerging fascism, liberals cling to the notion that it is a period frozen in history and that it simply cannot emerge in different forms in the current historical moment. Andrew Marantz in a recent issue of The New Yorker buys into this ideological nonsense and political retreat from the obvious fascist threat facing the US, though he glosses it over with bland language of both sideism. My response, humbly, is to read Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy, co-authored with Tony DiMaggio, to recognize the utter limits of the dead language of liberalism and its refusal to come to grips with the pedagogical and political threat of fascism.
Ruth: I'd like know more about the warping of the Evangelical movement into a major alt-right tool. I read somewhere that in the 1970s the hard right needed a new dog-whistle / crusade when race became taboo. Abortion suited as a target but too few people cared; including Evangelicals since the Bible has nothing about it. So a push began to convince Evs to care and after decades of that... they do. This brought the right a powerful ally entirely willing to see a christo-fascist nation and the explosion of success in advancing both components of that.
This article provides an excellent summary of fascism for my high school students, which had been previously difficult to find without an obvious Antifa lean. I am surprised that Pinochet was not mentioned in the New Authoritarian Age section.
Not all news is created equal. In particular, political or economic news must be Fact-checked more than any other news.
A simple key lessons of the history of fascism is that racist lies led to extreme political violence.
Today, lies are back in power. This is now more than ever a key lesson of the history of fascism. ─ 4 historic exemplars are below ↓
1. What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. ─Trump 2018
2. Since then, a struggle between the truth and the lie has been taking place. As always, this struggle will end victoriously for the truth. ─Hitler 1941
3. You must believe me because I have the habit—it is the system of my life—of always and everywhere saying the truth. ─Mussolini 1924
4. Believe me! ─Trump ongoing uninterrupted incessant shrieking 1988 to now
We need history to remind us how so much violence and racism happened in such a short period. ─ CRT & Intersectional Theory helps us analyze history of North America & other continents.
Fronczak has a transnational reinterpretation of U.S. modern Right origins in his “The Fascist Game: Transnational Political Transmission and the Genesis of the U.S. Modern Right.”
Joseph Fronczak, “The Fascist Game: Transnational Political Transmission and the Genesis of the U.S. Modern Right,” Journal of American History, 105 (December 2018): 563–588.
Definition → “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and … ↓ ↓
…by compensatory cults of unity, energy, & 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 & without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing & external expansion.”
The GOP stridently rejects the idea that they are fascist. Along with this denial comes the claim that the "left" is fascist. It's classic projection. Those that I've spoken with on the far right, have a serious misconception of fascism. They are really confused as to what fascism is, thanks to right wing media and their need to bamboozle their cult. Fascism has a bad connotation, so people do not want to be labeled with it. It's easier for them to deny that what tRump is selling is fascism. So down the rabbit hole they go.
I'll bet most Americans cannot imagine how their support for Trump's strongman vision of America would affect their comfortable lives. Under a "strongman regime", my sense is that no single person would be able to carry out their daily lives and routines without fear and distrust. (Exactly what a strongman leader desires.) Fear would be pervasive.throughout society: schools, churches, neighborhoods, government offices, even hospitals. I question how I would be able to carry out my daily life in such a world. Without rule of law, without free press, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, how could any of us trust our neighbors, strangers, even friends. Teachers, professors, clergy, scholars, librarians, bureaucrats, artists, media personalities would be in danger. The man in the orange hair promises retribution. His secret power would be his ability to keep his followers guessing: Who will be next? That frightens me. And shouldn't that image of imminent danger, fear, and retribution frighten all of us. I hope it frightens all of us enough to go straight to the voting booth and vote Biden and Democrat next elections. We must all do everything to prevent this "strongman vision" of America.
This was an excellent read and summary of Fascism in our world today. Your mention of Putin is short, and I believe that he has played a much larger role in Trump's conversion than other historical characters. I lived and worked in Russia off and on for 20 years, and became bi-cultural in this process. This provided an inside-view of Russia's conversion of a communist-socialist country to their current state of dictatorship. Thanks for this great background - Elizabeth
I wish all the right wingers would actually read and ABSORB this! But, apparently they’re not interested in facts!
I will look for the two other books you referenced and have been proselytizing your book "Strongmen" as it is so well written and presents the sequence of ascension for these types so clearly. I hear many people talk about how "all this will go away when Trump goes away" and I have been trying to correct that thinking. he is an integral part of it, but just like a seed in the ground, he needs fertile ground and people willing to believe and support. I used to think, like many others in the US, that we were too smart to allow an authoritarian to bring our system of government to the brink of a disaster, and we had weathered other similar threats. Clearly I was underestimating the power of a movement like this and overestimating the ability of the average American to resist it. Apropos of the season, i am reminded of an April fools joke perpetrated by the BBC some time in the 50's in England, where they aired a documentary about pasta growing and being harvested on trees in Switzerland.. the number of angry UK citizens who were fooled by the documentary was stunning. People are susceptible to falsehoods, and especially if those falsehoods lay the blame for their circumstances at the feet of others.
Thank you for this.
When I was in Italy last spring, any number of Italians seemed to be treating the rise of the neo-fascists and the premiership of Meloni with a sort of weary resignation - that expressive shrug, chin lifted, head cocked. And the AN has a lot of support in Sicily, which was not notably pro-Fascist during the Mussolini period.
The Italian media is, of course, giving her a pass. Their obsequious treatment of Berlusconi after his death was nauseating.
Thank you for addressing this famously slippery question and for your work in general on authoritarianism.
I see all authoritarians as fascists, because they require everyone to think and act the same; and eliminate those who refuse. So Stalin and all totalitarians were fascists. Ostensible differences in economic structures are irrelevant... in the end it's always *a gang with a gulag* .
Diametrically opposed to these fascists are the liberals. Another simplification but useful in keeping the big picture straight for me.
So education is the key to beating Trumpism. How are we doing?
Ruth, thank you for this in-depth, considered dive into what fascism is. I would very much appreciate a newsletter on Christo-fascism, since those are the people behind 45. I'd enjoy your perspective and scholarship.
After reading this article, I am still confused about exactly what fascism is. The only parts that are not confusing is that Donald Trump embodies fascism and that we need to expect even more violence. I hope the voters all wake up this year, and get out to vote him down.
Dear Ruth, you are one of the few courageous writers willing to name what Brecht once called "the serpent's eggs (fascism). see https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/13/everyday-fascism-brechts-warning-about-the-serpents-egg/ I am positing the note below in response to what I think is an utterly misguided assessment of fascism in the United States. I am referring to Andrew Marantz's article in The New Yorker. His article reminds me of a comment by James Baldwin who once remarked that liberals will recognize fascism only when they get the knock on their door. My comment follows:
Liberal Delusions: I am having a hard time with liberalism in its old and new forms. Liberals are utterly wedded to capitalism, regardless of the massive damage it inflicts on the planet, and cannot relate to how it provides the foundation for an updated fascist politics. Their view of the virtues of individualism is deeply indebted to a regressive notion of choice, character, and social Darwinism. Yes, for liberals all problems rest solely with the individual as larger systemic considerations are left to rot in the tsunami of evasions and erasures. This argument is loved by Goldman Sachs and its followers. It also undercuts any viable notion of the social. Third, they have no argument for understanding education as central to both politics and the rise of a fascist culture in the United States. Moreover, in the face of an emerging fascism, liberals cling to the notion that it is a period frozen in history and that it simply cannot emerge in different forms in the current historical moment. Andrew Marantz in a recent issue of The New Yorker buys into this ideological nonsense and political retreat from the obvious fascist threat facing the US, though he glosses it over with bland language of both sideism. My response, humbly, is to read Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy, co-authored with Tony DiMaggio, to recognize the utter limits of the dead language of liberalism and its refusal to come to grips with the pedagogical and political threat of fascism.
Ruth: I'd like know more about the warping of the Evangelical movement into a major alt-right tool. I read somewhere that in the 1970s the hard right needed a new dog-whistle / crusade when race became taboo. Abortion suited as a target but too few people cared; including Evangelicals since the Bible has nothing about it. So a push began to convince Evs to care and after decades of that... they do. This brought the right a powerful ally entirely willing to see a christo-fascist nation and the explosion of success in advancing both components of that.
This article provides an excellent summary of fascism for my high school students, which had been previously difficult to find without an obvious Antifa lean. I am surprised that Pinochet was not mentioned in the New Authoritarian Age section.
Not all news is created equal. In particular, political or economic news must be Fact-checked more than any other news.
A simple key lessons of the history of fascism is that racist lies led to extreme political violence.
Today, lies are back in power. This is now more than ever a key lesson of the history of fascism. ─ 4 historic exemplars are below ↓
1. What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. ─Trump 2018
2. Since then, a struggle between the truth and the lie has been taking place. As always, this struggle will end victoriously for the truth. ─Hitler 1941
3. You must believe me because I have the habit—it is the system of my life—of always and everywhere saying the truth. ─Mussolini 1924
4. Believe me! ─Trump ongoing uninterrupted incessant shrieking 1988 to now
We need history to remind us how so much violence and racism happened in such a short period. ─ CRT & Intersectional Theory helps us analyze history of North America & other continents.
10 minute read ─► What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack? ─► https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05
A Brief History of Fascist Lies; © 2020 https://literariness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Literariness.org-Federico-Finchelstein-A-Brief-History-of-Fascist-Lies-2020.pdf
Fronczak has a transnational reinterpretation of U.S. modern Right origins in his “The Fascist Game: Transnational Political Transmission and the Genesis of the U.S. Modern Right.”
Joseph Fronczak, “The Fascist Game: Transnational Political Transmission and the Genesis of the U.S. Modern Right,” Journal of American History, 105 (December 2018): 563–588.
Definition → “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and … ↓ ↓
…by compensatory cults of unity, energy, & 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 & without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing & external expansion.”
── Robert Paxton, “The Anatomy of Fascism”, 2004.
The GOP stridently rejects the idea that they are fascist. Along with this denial comes the claim that the "left" is fascist. It's classic projection. Those that I've spoken with on the far right, have a serious misconception of fascism. They are really confused as to what fascism is, thanks to right wing media and their need to bamboozle their cult. Fascism has a bad connotation, so people do not want to be labeled with it. It's easier for them to deny that what tRump is selling is fascism. So down the rabbit hole they go.
I'll bet most Americans cannot imagine how their support for Trump's strongman vision of America would affect their comfortable lives. Under a "strongman regime", my sense is that no single person would be able to carry out their daily lives and routines without fear and distrust. (Exactly what a strongman leader desires.) Fear would be pervasive.throughout society: schools, churches, neighborhoods, government offices, even hospitals. I question how I would be able to carry out my daily life in such a world. Without rule of law, without free press, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, how could any of us trust our neighbors, strangers, even friends. Teachers, professors, clergy, scholars, librarians, bureaucrats, artists, media personalities would be in danger. The man in the orange hair promises retribution. His secret power would be his ability to keep his followers guessing: Who will be next? That frightens me. And shouldn't that image of imminent danger, fear, and retribution frighten all of us. I hope it frightens all of us enough to go straight to the voting booth and vote Biden and Democrat next elections. We must all do everything to prevent this "strongman vision" of America.