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Thomas M Gregg's avatar

There's a lot in this, for sure. Particularly useful is the distinction drawn between fascism and contemporary left- and right-wing populism. The term "illiberal democracy" is apt. So is "Caesarian Democracy"—for those familiar with the career of ancient Rome's man who would be king.

A few words about Donald Trump. It's certainly true that he rode the wave of American populism, but surely he was no true believer. In assessing his political career, one must bear in mind that Trump the politician was a product of America's celebrity culture. He never shook off the persona of the game show host; recall his performance as ringmaster of the daily pandemic briefings. Recall as well how quickly the parade of cranks and clowns that followed him into the White House were sent away again. The presidency of Donald J. Trump was all about—Donald J. Trump. He certainly had illiberal impulses, but he had no illiberal principles.

Besides, if you look at his actual record as president up to 2020, you'll find that his administration was a pretty conventional Republican one. He did some dumb and objectionable things, as did the presidents who preceded him, not to mention the one who followed him. But it wasn't until he lost the 2020 election that Trump really fit the profile of an illiberal democrat and that, I'm convinced, was the product of sheer adolescent egotism. It was a disturbing and dangerous moment but the insurrection, if such it was, came to nothing.

I believe that America is armored against Caesarian democracy by the sheer weight, complexity and inertia of our political system. There's no central point, no commanding height, that if seized by a group of putschists would give them power. I'm not suggesting that America has complete immunity from the virus of illiberal democracy. But we do have strong antibodies—as, I believe, the events of late 2020-early 2021 showed.

As it happens, I took up the question of fascism's definition last May on my own little corner of Substack. For those who may be interested, here's the link:

https://unwokeindianaag.substack.com/p/what-is-fascism-anyway?r=dibcs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Treeamigo's avatar

Good luck with the book!

I would argue that Mussolini’s roots lie in Socialism- state control of the economy, as well as the view, fairly widespread amongst educated elites in the early 20th century, that advances in scientific reasoning allowed an informed elite to make all the right decisions for the ignorant masses. Communism was nominally about rule by the proletariat and committee but devolved into “scientific” decision making by an elite. Mussolini started with the view that the elite should command the economy and added the militaristic/patriotic angle to keep the masses in line. Wilson and FDR and many American socialists weren’t far off Mussolini in their view of the wisest course for management of an economy (elite decision making and planning) but thankfully weren’t particularly oppressive Or censorious (well, at least FDR wasn’t), perhaps because there wasn’t a lot of grass roots appeal in America for “order” having been spared the massive changes and wars in Europe late 1800s-WWI. I see communism, state socialism and Mussolini’s fascism as labels enshrining the concept that a few smart people at the top could plan for a whole country and should be given maximum leeway (by vote by law or by force)and relieve the ignorant, inferior masses of any decision-making responsibility. Different countries/leaders tried different ways to impose elite/“scientific” planning and decision-making- communism, fascism, socialism. Before his alliance with Hitler, Mussolini was sometimes envied by many western socialist elites (akin to Tom Friedman’s envy of the PRC’s command and control decision-making).

I agree there aren’t many fascist parallels with today’s populist authoritarians. They are after political power and patronage but don’t really seek to control the all aspects of the economy or “manage” anything except staying in power. When they can, they use state power or imprisonment to silence the opposition (or sometimes use corporations run by their donors to censor the opposition and their “inappropriate” thoughts), but every authoritarian leader (and sometimes every pol who can get away with it- Adams, Wilson, Nixon, GW Bush, Obama, Biden) tries to silence opponents. This doesn’t make them fascists- merely pols.

To me a populist is someone who picks an enemy, others them, and either blames them for all of ones troubles or portrays them as a threat to the nation. Often they promise to “get” or punish this enemy. The enemy could be the Chinese, illegal immigrants, Muslims, egghead elites, the Woke, the unvaccinated, white supremacists, MAGA republicans, members of parties who wish to “put Blacks back in chains” or launch “a war on women”, the 1 percent, big pharma, Pfizer, Fauci, the Supreme Court, CRT, Evangelicals, big oil, tech tycoons, etc.

In the US, most of the practitioners of this sort of hate mongering (from Obama, Biden, Sanders and Warren to Trump and the new right) are merely craven and are following this strategy because it works politically and because hate mongering and division is quite easy to implement using digital and social media. Obama was the first to realize and leverage this from 2010 onward. If we want to stop hate and division from being the winning strategy we have to call it out (and call out demagogues who rule and bait via “wedge” issues). Most people have only one eye open, focused on their political opponents.

I don’t really equate the trend of craven pols in the US trying to pick winning messages and leveraging social/digital media for hate mongering (or censorship) as having much overlap at all with the Orbans and Erdogans of the world, who rule countries with no real tradition of democracy and human rights. One election, one time, is a saying for a reason.

The US pols are going to stick to their current strategy until it stops working, and then they will try something else. Meanwhile, does anyone really believe Trump hates elites (having hobnobbed with them for decades) or Bernie hates the 1 percent (of which he is a member) or Warren hates tycoons? They are all merely picking opportunistic strategies that resonate with us (we are the problem). Erdogan and Orban, on the other hand, are true believers. I don’t see any Erdogans on the horizon in the US- not even Trump. He is impulsive and unhinged, to he sure, but also unserious.

I’ll read your book, though, to see if I am wrong.

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