Foundations of Fascism
Historian Robert Paxton lists various “mobilising passions,” which serve as the foundations of fascism. These include:
- Efforts to construct popular notions of “crisis,” in order to cultivate public support for concentrated political power;
- Portrayals of specific groups as “victim[s]” in a larger national cultural and political “decline”;
- The elevation of “a purer community” to the top of national discourse and aspirations, which typically excludes racial, ethnic, and economically disadvantaged groups;
- Embrace of specific “natural leaders” and “a national chief” as inherently “superior” in their political “instincts”;
- The idealisation of the “beauty of violence” — particularly via efforts to “dominate others without restraint.”
“Fascism has become a permanent feature of American political culture. It is not going anywhere, because it has been incrementally nurtured and fed by the far right, particularly by conspiracy-laden reactionary media, for decades. With the rise of Donald Trump to national power, American fascists now have one of their own in office and can look to him for inspiration moving forward. Even if Trump is defeated in 2020, his influence is unlikely to disappear from public discourse. Nor are the tens of millions of fascists who made his rise to political power possible going to simply go away.”
But it will be fought back against and resisted, in order to stop what has happened previously in the 1930s from occurring. It remains to be seen how successful that fightback becomes.
Counterpunch (2019), “The Shutdown as Fascist Creep: Profiling Right-Wing Extremism in America”, 4th January 2019. [www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/04/the-shutdown-as-fascist-creep-profiling-right-wing-extremism-in-america/]
