i’m not going to hazard a guess at percentages but i want to add some perspective.
as gets said time and time again by crusty old leftists in discussions such as this one, fascism refers to a very specific ideology and moment in time, in the first half of the 20th century. its descendant ideological strains can’t really be called fascism as much more than as a derogatory remark toward them, evoking the now well known consequences of the 20th century fascist movement, namely a global war and the deaths of untold millions of innocents. nowadays, many of these descendant ideologies don’t really see themselves as being aligned with 20th century fascism, and in fact will proudly defend their own beliefs by pointing out that they stand in opposition to the capital f Fascists of yesteryear. and they earnestly believe they are on the opposite side of some sort of spectrum, choosing to define themselves by their obsession with personal liberty in contrast to the authoritarianism of the National Socialists. in their mind, the parallels are coincidental.
there are some clowns like Patriot Front who deliberately invoke the aesthetics of the fascists, being more honest about the roots of their belief and not deluding themselves into thinking they stand in opposition to fascism. they are a minority of modern reactionaries. the evangelical homeschooling parents who are convinced public schools are communist indoctrination camps, the small business owner Qanon cultists, the MAGA-hat Floridian retirees— these are the base of the modern reactionary threat in America. their ideological has become more North American centric, built on an obsessive and misguided preoccupation with ‘liberty’ and skin color than on the fleshed-out history of absolutist monarchist rule and virulent antisemitism that European Fascism was centered around a century prior. when they call Joe Brandon a dictator for forgiving student loans or saying that some pitiful tax increase to fund cops is going turn impressionable children into hiphop-loving transsexual antifas, they may be exaggerating but they aren’t arguing in bad faith. they actually believe this shit, just as most of the high ranking Nazis earnestly believed communism was a disease caused by christendom’s inaction on cleansing the festering wound that was the existence of jews.
in that sense, i’d say less than 1% of americans are ‘fascists’. but the majority of republican voters believe nowadays in a loosely defined ideology that is not direct continuation of European fascism, but a twisted rats nest of Nazi anticommunism and the same hysterical white bourgeois land owner brainworms that led to the southern ruling class saying shit like “slavery is a necessary element of freedom, and trying to stomp it out constitutes tyranny” and seceding in a suicidal fit of Jeffersonian yeoman-independence-idolosing rage. that same delusional worship of capital with local brainworms and peculiarities baked in that led to the Final Solutional and the American Civil War are rearing their bead again in the Republican party during the Trump era. it was always there, especially among southern Democrats before the ideological realignment of the US parties made these kinds of people coalesce around the GOP.
the way that this modern post-fascist movement will affect America is very different than the way the rise of the Nazis affected Germany and Italy, because our two party political system is so vastly different than Weimar Germany or the Italian constitutional monarchy. its hard to what will happen going forward as a result of this, but the gist of what i’m getting at here is that a distinctly north american reactionary ideology that sometimes gains enough self awareness to deliberately emulate the aesthetics and policies of 20th century european fascism is already here to stay and growing stronger. your Qanon uncle might not be a fascist because that historical moment has already come and pass, but he and millions of others have become something roughly analogous to fascism. if we go by that metric, the majority of republican voters could be seen as “fascists” already.
For fascism, I tend to use the criteria of whether there’s a descent from fascist movements, or whether there’s an outright claiming to be fascist. That works for most European and international groups.
Now, for American movements in particular, they often fail those tests. One approach is to give it a special carve out, on the basis that Manifest Destiny was a proto-fascist movement. It and other American policies inspired the fascists of Europe. In a sense, America was the modern ur-fascist state.
As you’ve touched on, a key feature of fascism is borderline incoherency. It is not a coherent ideology, and the further you get from Mussolini, the less coherent it becomes. It thrives on the occult and conspiracy. That makes it difficult to draw a line between category 1 and category 2. I guess the best way is to put 2 in the ‘respectable fascists’ camp.
i’m not going to hazard a guess at percentages but i want to add some perspective.
as gets said time and time again by crusty old leftists in discussions such as this one, fascism refers to a very specific ideology and moment in time, in the first half of the 20th century. its descendant ideological strains can’t really be called fascism as much more than as a derogatory remark toward them, evoking the now well known consequences of the 20th century fascist movement, namely a global war and the deaths of untold millions of innocents. nowadays, many of these descendant ideologies don’t really see themselves as being aligned with 20th century fascism, and in fact will proudly defend their own beliefs by pointing out that they stand in opposition to the capital f Fascists of yesteryear. and they earnestly believe they are on the opposite side of some sort of spectrum, choosing to define themselves by their obsession with personal liberty in contrast to the authoritarianism of the National Socialists. in their mind, the parallels are coincidental.
there are some clowns like Patriot Front who deliberately invoke the aesthetics of the fascists, being more honest about the roots of their belief and not deluding themselves into thinking they stand in opposition to fascism. they are a minority of modern reactionaries. the evangelical homeschooling parents who are convinced public schools are communist indoctrination camps, the small business owner Qanon cultists, the MAGA-hat Floridian retirees— these are the base of the modern reactionary threat in America. their ideological has become more North American centric, built on an obsessive and misguided preoccupation with ‘liberty’ and skin color than on the fleshed-out history of absolutist monarchist rule and virulent antisemitism that European Fascism was centered around a century prior. when they call Joe Brandon a dictator for forgiving student loans or saying that some pitiful tax increase to fund cops is going turn impressionable children into hiphop-loving transsexual antifas, they may be exaggerating but they aren’t arguing in bad faith. they actually believe this shit, just as most of the high ranking Nazis earnestly believed communism was a disease caused by christendom’s inaction on cleansing the festering wound that was the existence of jews.
in that sense, i’d say less than 1% of americans are ‘fascists’. but the majority of republican voters believe nowadays in a loosely defined ideology that is not direct continuation of European fascism, but a twisted rats nest of Nazi anticommunism and the same hysterical white bourgeois land owner brainworms that led to the southern ruling class saying shit like “slavery is a necessary element of freedom, and trying to stomp it out constitutes tyranny” and seceding in a suicidal fit of Jeffersonian yeoman-independence-idolosing rage. that same delusional worship of capital with local brainworms and peculiarities baked in that led to the Final Solutional and the American Civil War are rearing their bead again in the Republican party during the Trump era. it was always there, especially among southern Democrats before the ideological realignment of the US parties made these kinds of people coalesce around the GOP.
the way that this modern post-fascist movement will affect America is very different than the way the rise of the Nazis affected Germany and Italy, because our two party political system is so vastly different than Weimar Germany or the Italian constitutional monarchy. its hard to what will happen going forward as a result of this, but the gist of what i’m getting at here is that a distinctly north american reactionary ideology that sometimes gains enough self awareness to deliberately emulate the aesthetics and policies of 20th century european fascism is already here to stay and growing stronger. your Qanon uncle might not be a fascist because that historical moment has already come and pass, but he and millions of others have become something roughly analogous to fascism. if we go by that metric, the majority of republican voters could be seen as “fascists” already.
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:order-of-lenin:
For fascism, I tend to use the criteria of whether there’s a descent from fascist movements, or whether there’s an outright claiming to be fascist. That works for most European and international groups.
Now, for American movements in particular, they often fail those tests. One approach is to give it a special carve out, on the basis that Manifest Destiny was a proto-fascist movement. It and other American policies inspired the fascists of Europe. In a sense, America was the modern ur-fascist state.
As you’ve touched on, a key feature of fascism is borderline incoherency. It is not a coherent ideology, and the further you get from Mussolini, the less coherent it becomes. It thrives on the occult and conspiracy. That makes it difficult to draw a line between category 1 and category 2. I guess the best way is to put 2 in the ‘respectable fascists’ camp.