What you are describing here is the United States of America over the last 30 years or so. Yet look around you now.
There are certain cognitive biases we share. The bias against the Other is very strong. Intolerance of those who are afraid of the other is pushing the barrow uphill. Intolerance of the Other is not.
You get to remove/restrict/abuse all those undeserving/worthless X* who are the source of all of your life’s evils/problems.
*The X scapegoat changes depending on any particular rant but can include the multi-headed hydra of: Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, foreigners, Muslims, Homosexuals, feminists, liberals/leftists, “elites,” nebulous shadowy organizations, etc.
Look how infuriating modern, multicultural/sodomite society is. Sign my newsletter/petition. “They” are, undeniably, the source of all your life’s ills. Give me money. Your heritage built this nation/world while they get fat off your rights/entitlements. Buy my tapes/books/etc. You need to stop them.
Right. Franco’s biggest supporters were Falange (fascists), but he wasn’t a believer at all, any more than he believed in Carlism (traditionalists - the other big group of supporters and the reason the RCC was so powerful under his regime). For him(/his government), sending the Blue Division to join the Nazis had the double purpose of being a sup to Hitler (who wasn’t happy with Franco at all) and of getting Franco rid of a bunch of True Believers who apparently hadn’t had enough with one war. To rise under him you needed to be good at saying the right slogans at the right time, but also at not saying them at the wrong time.
Have you ever had to deal with some bureaucratic mess and thought, “If only someone could cut through all this red tape”?
Have you ever seen unfair situation and thought “Why can’t someone in charge just fix this”?
Have you ever had a criminal get away with something and think, “I don’t care about technicalities, he needs to be punished”?
Have you ever thought, “Why can’t we stop arguing and fighting about all this petty stuff and work together as Americans (or whatever)”?
Have you ever looked at the politicians running things and wished that there was one bold, decisive, effective figure that spoke for you and you could actually admire?
Congratulations! If you have had these kind of thoughts, you know the appeal of Fascism.
The feature that distinguishes Fascism with plain old garden variety dictatorship is that the Fascism includes a component of a popular movement. The dictator isn’t in power just because he controls the traditional levers of power, there’s also an ideological component. The exact beliefs of this movement aren’t that important, just that the dictator has an additional lever of power, the ability to mobilize popular mobs and to infiltrate civil society with true believers.
To whatever extent a dictator can do this they are higher or lower on the fascist spectrum. With a fanatical social movement behind you, you have Nazi Germany. Without it, and you’re just another military dictator who rules the country because you control the army, and the army obeys orders because the dictator provides generous donatives to the army under the age old Praetorian system.
If you want a country that will promote a certain “purity,” a superiority, stand up for itself militarily (and also aggressively conquer or at least thwart enemy attack,) fascism may be for you. That is very appealing to many.
I also imagine that, for many WWII Germans or Japanese, there must have been a feeling of exhilarating destiny, “We’re on a ride somewhere - we’re accomplishing something historic, and in mere months, too.” That must have been like psychological cocaine, at least during the first half of the war.
Fascism grew out of syndicalism and militarism.
The critique of society was that people were wasting their lives and effort on frivolous things. Think how much time and money is wasted on trying to get people to drink Coke instead of Pepsi and vice versa. Then contrast that with what a country can accomplish if they get all on the same page.
Before WW2 there was the great depression with millions of people living in poverty and being malnourished and ill clothed. During WW2 in the US there was no unemployment, very little crime, and a great feeling of everyone being on the same team. By the end of the war the US had produced over 100,000 tanks, over 2.3 million vehicles, 324,000 airplanes, 124 aircraft carriers, and 245 submarines. That was all in 4 years from almost a standing stop. That was because the government was guiding production instead of everyone competing against each other. Just imagine what that same economy could produce if is was directed toward building things for peace instead of war. Everybody could get a good job if wasteful competition was eliminated and poverty would be a thing of the past. Every coach says a good team will always beat a collection of individuals, just think of what a united country could accomplish if instead of every individual wandering around guessing what is best there was a government that was leading everybody toward a common goal.
A common quote about Mussolini’s Italy, but it is factually incorrect. They didn’t run on time. But it was bad for your health to complain about it.
I do think that besides that popular movement component there is that part that includes most of the powerful industrialists that also supported the fascists.
The best thing about fascism is that you can stop thinking.
Sure, but there are plenty of garden variety dictatorships where the business elite are part of the circle of insiders. It has to work that way, because the dictatorship has to either bring them onboard or replace them. You can’t have the richest people in the country opposed to the regime.
In fascism you can have the former private businesspeople kept on to run things, or they might get a bullet in the back of the head, just like in non-ideological regimes.
If there really is any distinction between fascism and garden variety authoritarian government, it’s this bottom-up component. Plenty of top-down authoritarian regimes in the world, what makes fascism different is when the rulers have that bottom-up ideological legitimacy.
IIRC Hitler just managed to get a plurality, not a majority. One reason why Hitler wanted in the end to see Berlin burn is that besides showing that they did not deserve to continue (as they failed over a so called inferior opponent) Hitler did remember that Berlin was one city that overwhelmingly did not vote for him when they could.
As for Mussolini, IIRC he began his road to become the dictator in Italy by buying the support from both the working class and the industrial bosses.
I know, but my version was funnier.
etasyde totally nailed it as to fascism proper.
What’s popular today in the USA that’s currently being mis-labeled “fascism” is simply authoritarianism.
You may recall a line from a Dirty Harry movie: “Nothin’ wrong with shootin’. … As long as the right people get shot.”
Once the people in the alt-right monoculture can convince themselves they’re really the vast national majority, then it becomes real easy to support Dirty Harry’s maxim as applied to politics: “There’s nothing wrong with strong man rule … as long as the right people get squashed. And it sure won’t be us.”
For a whole lot of square miles across this entire country the almost entirely white, almost entirely Christian, almost entirely under-educated, almost entirely economically insecure *are *in fact the only kind of people present. Those people see each other every day, have each other as neighbors, co-workers, etc.
In their personal experience, they and their kind aren’t a plurality. Or a shrinking majority or even a growing majority. Instead they’re substantially everyone. Of course any strongman would be on our side. Because our side is the side of everyone except the few brown baddies concentrated in a few small cities we’ve never been to. Round up the brownies and the baddies once, defend the borders against all crossers, and suddenly the all-white all-good America of the 1950s will pop into view. It’s that easy.
Od course they’re deluded. But when substantially everyone you’ve ever met in your life looks like you and thinks mostly like you do it’s hardly surprising you believe authoritarianism is easy and will work for you and your same-thinking pals.
Fascism has positive qualities, but only if you psychological identify with those qualities.
Fascism is about showing strength on both the individual and collective level, and being strong in the face of impurities and threats on both the domestic and international level.
For a lot of us (thank god), we do not perceive multiculturalism as a threat. But to people who like fascism, multiculturalism is a massive threat. So is leftist politics. So for many people the idea of leftist politics, leftist ideas, LGBT rights, non-whites, non-protestants, independent women, etc. running around freely in society and inhabiting positions of power and influence in the socioeconomic system is perfectly fine. For a fascist, these are seen as a threat to both their individual identity and the social order, and fascism removes these ‘impurities’ via legislation and force.
Basically, if you value maintaining the purity of the tribe you associate with, fascism is appealing because fascism represents strength and purity in the face of impurity. But many people do not value that.
Fascism is awesome, if you are the one in charge.
The uniforms are pretty cool.
But seriously, the one area I agree with Fascism is on nationalism. A sense of national unity and pride. In fascist countries, this tends to become racially based. But that’s because the overall culture of the fascist society is built on hatred of the other.
But nationalism where one is proud to be an American, where one believes in Americanism? I can get on board with that.
So yeah, cool uniforms and a sense of national (not racial) pride.
it would be possible, but multiculturalism would always be an uneasy fit in a fascist ideology. Fascism is inherently nationalistic, and values unity over diversity. Unity is strength. There have been attempts to merge nationalism with multiculturalism in the US, but they to be more on the left than the right and/or to emphasize assimilation rather than true multiculturalism. Fascism almost requires some conceptualization of a “true [American/Italian/German/Japanese/etc.]” whose will is embodied in the strong leader.
If you combine multiculturalism with absolutism, you are more likely to end up with something like communism, which at least in theory espoused the unity of the workers of ALL nations and ethnicities and an eventual end to the state and nationalism. The differences of values implicit in multicultural diversity are less troublesome to communism because it’s legitimacy isn’t based on some idealized “will” of the “true [national]” but on doing what is best for the people whether they recognize it or not (and trusting that success will bring the proles around in the end, and until then the gun will).
When capitalism implodes you have a choice between protecting the markets, property, and the business class by siding with fascists, or transform society by accepting socialism. Entrenched interests side with fascism when given the choice. Better to blame the failure of markets on lazy moochers, minorities, conspiracies, and agitators. Doesn’t help that liberals usually sell out to fascists. The centrist neo-libs talking about the alt-left up until a week ago, have a fainting spell whenever antifa breaks a window, play dumb about UHC, and denounce white supremacy while voting for mandatory minimums, the drug war, and private prisons will be the first in line to kiss the boot.
