Ian Baruma explores in today's Observer whether the Tangerine Tyrant is a fascist (and the US is becoming a fascist state).
He concludes that (as always) its difficult to finally & firmly define racism, but if not fascistic then the difference is only really a matter of degree....
[The Observer are claiming the whole article is free to read (in front of their paywall) so you can access it here:
https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/the-age-of-american-fascism ]
I didn't agree with his definition of fascism (for example it entirely misses the fact that it arises in reaction to the reality or fear of the left winning elections) - but it is interesting that this is still a question to be discussed in UK mainstream media - while Mastodon came to the same conclusion about Trump literally years ago.
Yes, although as I noted in a reply defining Fascism is not so easy.... but yes, Baruma *does* seem late to the game in relation to discussions here
Any politicised term is likely to be a site of conflicting interpretations. If the concept ‘table’ was political people would be engaged in endless arguments over whether or not legs are essential. But terms are conflicted in interesting ways. Definitions of fascism that enumerate its ideological and cultural characteristics suit those thinking inside a ‘liberal democracy’ framework, in which politics is experienced as a perpetual ‘battle of ideas’ in a public sphere imagined as something like an Oxbridge debating chamber, an abstraction stripped of economic exploitation, power, and historical change, in which it would be bad manners to ask ‘who is paying you to say this ?’
Think instead of politics as the expression of conflicting economic interests and the historical context in which fascism actually arises moves to centre stage. In Spain in the 1930s and Chile in the 1970s it was the actual election of radical socialist governments; in 1920s-30s Italy, Germany, Austria, etc, it was the fear that capitalism was collapsing and the left about to take over, as it just had done in Russia.
What are the policy implications of understanding the current rise of fascism from the perpetual ‘battle of ideas’ perspective ? Not many, I would argue – even in education, learning the lessons of history seems pointless if fascism is always lurking somewhere in an abstract a-historical realm of ideas; may as well carry on as we are, into the holocaust... But understanding it in historical context makes the best policy choices clear: if fascism is a reaction to the actual or feared disintegration of capitalism, and imminent fundamental economic change (in the past to socialism, now eco-socialism), then policies that minimise the inevitable social disruption of that change, protect the vulnerable, and positively manage the change become obvious choices.
interesting point(s); I would of course always agree with inserting the economic into the discussion....
But, I do wonder whether all political positions are not about the concern for the end of the current economic settlement - politics being about power, and power be always articulated in one way or the other in the economic realm, would seem to indicate that even if we look at the origins of (modern) democracy it was about the maintenance of political economic elite power?
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
GeofCox