we revisit this question from time to time. here is historian heather richardson discussing a 1945 war dept pamphlet on the subject. May 29, 2023 - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) summarized here 1945 War Department pamphlet on “FASCISM” – TSP Smart (tspsmartinvestor.com) and explained by thom hartmann “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.” the pamphlet emphasizes3 aspects of fascism (unberto eco identifies 14 points) First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.” Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.” Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.” "we do not fight fascists because they are right wing. we fight them because they are fascists. " chris hedges
Fascism is not easy to define because it's not an ideology. The ideology is simply totalitarianism. But fascism can be defined, as you mention in your OP, by its characteristics. It can come from the left (Stalin, Pol Pot, Hugo Chavez, the Kims...) or the right (Franco, Mussolini, Pinochet, DeSantis...) Basically any totalitarian regime that seeks to establish itself based on racism and suppressing human rights can be comfortably catalogued as "fascist"
3 points in the link: 1. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.” 2. they would deny any need for international cooperation, 3. fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.” now, lets limit the sample set to known liberals on pf. does that sound like anything that i, or @Golem or @Lee Atwater would support? feel free to insert any actual description or definition of "fascism." "liberalism" fits none of them except some snarky jonah goldberg/d'nesh d'souza fantasy.
included in the "fascist package" is a tendency to kill off competitors. i expect good news, either way, from florida before the repub primaries.
DeSantis is more dangerous than the Cheeto Hezuz.....he'll kill democracy by 1000 cuts and posture sanctimonously through the entire fiasco. ****ing idiots destroying America.
No one here is genuinely interested in Fascism, and the reason why no one is interested in Fascism is that the reason it's 'hard to define' is because they look at it from their narrow viewpoints. Even though the spearhead of fascism wrote a literal book called the Doctrine of Fascism. And Gentile(also a very influential author on fascism) also had his own book on the topic. So, we can have a serious conversation about it, based on what it REALLY is or we can use this as a Trump/De Santis thing, even though none of them declared themselves fascist, nor have embraced fascist ideology. And to prove that point, to even the most thickheaded who think like the above, I give you this quote from Hermann Goering, a high ranking devout Nazi in the Nazi Government: So if the definition of Fascism is a government exerting control over the public sphere of daily life, or an assortment of weapons and uniformed men and women to enforce the laws, I have bad news for everyone. Short of an anarchy, you're living in the 'fascism' that had been defined.
Fascist is like racist. If an American conservative is mixed race and cannot be accused of racism then they are obviously fascist.
Now I know what it feels like to be a Christian seeing an Atheist point out the crusades and saying "This is what it means to be a Christian!" Or some **** like that.(I'm not a christian, for clarification. Just low hanging fruit.)
