On Fascism and Demagoguery and This Moment

Are we in a neo-Fascist moment? Is a demagogue in the Democratic or Republican Party running for office?

This is an alarm sounded every decade and it is easy to become numb to it. The “boy who cried wolf” was naughty and deserved what he got. The town who ignored him was foolish and lost sheep.

We must answer the warning cry regardless of how many times it may have been made in vain and let’s face it: we are in an age of crying “wolf.”

Social media tempts one to use nuclear verbal weapons just to get attention. So many people became Hitler or were compared to Nazis early on in the growth of social media, that an entire law was created to described it. Nobody should be compared to Hitler, because nobody but Hitler reached such a unique level of evil. Unless you are overtly rooting for his ideas, like some alt-Right folk on Twitter, then you don’t deserve the label.

Hitler may have been a fascist, but he was not the only one. Some fascists were “less” bad, though no fascist regime has been worthy of a good person’s support. Since World War II, few people announce they are fascist, so unless one intends merely to insult a foe, I prefer neo-fascist to avoid attributing the horrors of the War and the Holocaust directly to the person or candidate.

There is a danger, however, that we will not recognize this particular evil unless it comes goose stepping and waving a copy of Mein Kampf. Nobody is Hitler, but then Hitler could not be Hitler until he had power.

What is a fascist? He or she has (at least) these five characteristics:

1. Extreme nationalism or Jingoism: a man is a patriot if he loves his country, but love of country can become jingoism. In the United States of America, love of country has been rooted in our founding documents, ideas, and shared history. The Founders believed anyone in the world who agreed with us was an American! A nationalist or jingoist believes the nation is inherently exceptional (not just because of what we do). The nation for the neo-Fascist is based on blood ties or the boundaries. Nobody can be a “real American” who was not born here.
2. Authoritarianism of a Supreme Leader: a neo-Fascist party is organized around the will of one leader who will “cut the red tape.” He embodies the state and represents the people. Traditionally, fascist groups believe there is only a need for one party, since the will of “we the people” is found in the Party. Other parties represent “evil” interests and cannot be trusted with power. Parliaments get in the way of the will of the leader and are ignored. Written constitutions become scraps of paper from the past keeping us from solving big modern problems in the mind of the neo-Fascist.
3. Fear of Decline: neo-Fascist parties always tell a story of national decline with outside and inside enemies. There was a golden age to which the nation must return.
4. Demonization of Some “Other” to Motivate Extreme Action: because the nation hangs in the balance, the neo-Fascist will call for extreme sacrifices or ethical corner cutting. He or she will postulate some “wreckers” or people in the system who must be stamped out at almost any cost. They are not true citizens (not “Italian” or real “Spanish”) and so must go.
5. Corporatism:  the neo-fascist will reject pure capitalism and extreme socialism. He or she will develop a synergy between big business and big government. This people will be protected from both by the virtue of the leader.

Forms of these ideas can be valuable and many great American leaders (Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan) have made use of ideas or programs that in isolation from the rest of their thought are similar sounding to neo-fascism. Sometimes nations are in decline and need to revive founding ideas. There are (occasionally) enemies in the gates.

However, the combination of all these ideas (in someone like Franco of Spain) is always dangerous and fatal to republican forms of government.  The neo-Fascist leader tends to be a demagogue. This is not (just) an insult, but a term to describe any political leader who appeals to the people (good!) using emotion and not reason.

A good emotional appeal is helpful to motivate action, but must come in the context of worked out political philosophy. The danger of emotional appeals is that the republic would begin to submit to the impulses of the party leader and not to evidence or argument. “If the leader says it, then I believe it” never works unless the leader is named Jesus.

A demagogue will not care to learn facts or arguments because skills at moving people emotionally get rid of this need.  Most politicians in America that are neo-fascist do not have a worked out political philosophy. They are “accidental” neo-fascists.

Can a demagogue with neo-Fascist ideas seize control in the United States? It isn’t difficult to imagine him being elected, but the checks of the Constitution will tend to slow down any move toward a one party state. As long as free and fair elections continue, with other parties allowed to compete on equal terms, then the Republic should be able to withstand a demagogue with neo-Fascist tendencies.

Of course, nobody should want to make the test.  I might be able to survive a heart attack, but I hope not to try. Each voter must look at all the candidates (Clinton, Johnson, Stein, Trump) and ask if any are neo-Fascist and a demagogue. We must do that job every election lest we enter a time of peril without precedent in our history, but not, sadly, in the history of many other great nations.

We must not throw around neo-Fascism or demagogue as a mere “devil word” to smear a foe, yet if we have a fear, we must express it. A neo-Fascist and demagogue in power is so frightful that caution, keeping far away from the problem, is vital.

More deadly than crying “wolf” too often is forgetting that we must cry “wolf” at every danger sign because once the wolf is in the sheepfold, the result is death. The shepherd so afraid to be wrong, to “cry wolf” too often, kills a great many sheep. Townspeople must fire an unworthy shepherd who uses alarms as mere smears, but we must always take the charge seriously. We must come to the call of “wolf,” because better to miss some sleep to a prankster than to lose sheep to a wolf. 

Put another way: it is too late for Lady Liberty to diagnose that she is contracting a fatal disease after she is dead. Dealing with a demagogue is too dangerous to put off that diagnosis.

Do it now.