Fascism is not a single, monolithic philosophy susceptible to a simple, all-encompassing dictionary definition. It varies from country to country, and from time to time, and it adapts and evolves. Certain characteristics remain stable, or may appear in various manifestations, but there is no simple questionnaire that can be checked off to determine whether a philosophy is truly fascist or not. There is no single thing you can point to prove whether a political program can be called “fascist” or not.

To help us understand whether the political ideology currently evolving in the USA under the leadership of President Trump and his Republican allies is indeed fascist, I have excerpted some Holyoke college class notes on European Fascism so you can decide for yourself. Most of these comments and observations refer to European fascism in its “Golden Age”
(early to middle 20th century) but I suspect most of you will find them hauntingly familiar. What is happening in the USA today is historically unique, but it must be viewed in context. We have all been here before, and there is a certain element of deja vu involved. Fascism (nor any other political movement, for that matter) does not repeat itself historically or geographically in a precise manner, but the general patterns and outlines are clear. Certain social and economic conditions tend to repeat themselves, and certain societal responses tend to follow. They are predictable, and because of the lessons of history, we have some confidence in predicting how things will turn out.

It is my conviction that social conditions in the post-war world have come to resemble some of those conditions that were recognized in Europe between the World Wars. A growing and progressing middle class suddenly feels itself alienated and threatened, both culturally and economically, by modernity, and they seek a return to an idealized past (which may have never actually existed!). Demagogues sense this, and devise a program that addresses these concerns. I call it the “Dictatorship of the Middle Class”, but that is my conceit. But I believe it has happened before, and unless we are on guard against it, it may happen again.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist151/lectures/Lecture17AFASCISM%20rev.htm

The term comes [from] fasci, an Italian or Latinate term meaning “bundle” and representing in political terms unity, or a closely knit band, as opposed to a bureaucraticized party.
Facism: New interpretation by Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
March on Rome in 1922

Fascism not limited to Italy and Germany, but it succeeded to acquire power in both countries :
Hungary was one of the birthplaces of fascism.
France: two major movements in the Action française and the Jeunesses patriotes (founded by the champagne magnate Pierre Taittinger in 1924 as a direct-action squad of students and youths).
Romania had its National-Christian movement devoted to strikebreaking, disrupting liberal professor’s classes, and campaigning to restrict the number of Jews in universities and the professions.
Britain: Oswald Mosley’s fascist movement was significant in the late 1920s and 1930s.
Spain under Franco
Portugal under Salazar

Common origins and character (based on historian George Mosse, “The Genesis of Fascism”):
A general “revolutionary” movement of the 1920s and 30s with common origins: attack on liberalism, faith in science and reason
reassertion of individualism based not on reason but on emotion, instinct, and “the soul.”
a response to shared feelings of alientation from the modern age or “modernity” (1890s to 1940s), working for the restoration of what was deemed “traditional,” be it morality, ethnic composition of a nation, etc.
emphasis on action as opposed to thoughtful contemplation, reasonable debate, planning, etc.
appealed to World War I veterans, who sought to re-experience the élan of the battlefield through activism, comraderie at home, action in paramilitary bands.
a movement of youth, mainly bourgeois whether veterans or not, in rebellion against the existing social order
key political element was directing the “revolt” into political crusades to realize the binding together of the ‘true nation’ and to restore the dignity of the individual though his re-uniting with his fellows who are part of the “race,” “the Nation,” or the “Volk.”
Fascists believed that the struggle for unity of the Nation was the best way to overcome class divisions and hostilities, grown more intense after the Russian Revolution and the victory of one communist party.
Sought to oust the “Old Guard” and existing elites while preserving order and property (contrast the communists.)
Racism: not a major element in fascist movements in Britain, France, and Italy (Italy turned to anti-semitism in 1936 with pressure from Hitler).
Racism: a core feature of fascist movements in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.

FASCISM AS The NEW RIGHT on the political spectrum but it was in many ways different than the “Old”
Unlike the traditional right, fascist movements
were selectively anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois.
emhasized passionate action as opposed to reasoning, rationality, or contemplation; tended to espouse insurrectionary action when it suited their aims.
were passionately anti-communist, anti-Marxist.
promised relief or elimination of class struggle but without abolishing private property.
encourage mass participation, as opposed to the traditional conservative parties that strove to limit such participation and preserve or restore “rule by traditional elites.”

But like old guard conservatives, fascist movements
were ardently nationalist,
invoked “enemies of the people and Nation” to inspire collective feelings of national solidarity. (In Germany and eastern Europe, ethnic and racial enemies were predominant.)
were “authoritarian” not in holding traditional loyalty to king or aristocracy or existing elites, who were now often despised, but holding loyalty to a new leader who promised security, hope, comradeship, and power through obedience. Rise of the Cult of Personality.

19th [century]Roots of Fascism
1. Liberal intellectuals declining faith in progress, growing pessimism about human nature (Freud), spread of racialism, challenges to liberal order. (compare Hobbes.).
2. Rise of mass electorates sanctioned by conservatives, sometimes conservative authoritarians like Napoleon III and Bismark who cultivated popular support and devised ways of controlling it.
3. Rise of salaried middle class as the largest segment of the population, who felt unrepresented by traditional liberal parties and longed for a new way between organized big business and organized labor. Economic insecurity and cultural uneasiness with the feeling of decadence.
4. Sharpening of exclusivist nationalism hand in hand with increasing popularity of racial ideas as explanations for human diversity (rediscovered via Imperialism) and as justifications for ethnic and racial unity. Led to growing anti-Semitism, pogroms in Russia, Dreyfus, etc.
5. Darwinism vulgarized in the form of social darwinism: struggle for the survival of the fittest.

Crystallization of these elements in the War
1. Intensified the disillusionment with liberalism, liberal and conservative regimes. Most visibly among disenchanted veterans.
2. Proof of human irrationality, human evil (Compare the 17th crisis and Hobbes.).
3. War time and postwar inflation undermined or destroyed the economic security of the middle classes.
4. Threat of Bolshevism in the Russian Revolution and Soviet State.

Nazi Party Platform of 1920:
Nationalist in calling for breaking the Versailles Treaty and union with Austrian in Greater Germany that went beyond the 1914 boundaries.
Anti-Semitic: Jews to be denied citizenship and office.
Anti-capitalist: not socialist in the Marxist sense of abolishing private property, but aiming to redress the grievances of ordinary men’s against creditors and the rich: confiscation of war profits, abolition of unearned income, nationalization of corporate trusts (monopolistic businesses), and regulation of big business profits. Also called for conversion of some land and some department stores to communal purposes, and the prevention of land speculation.
Reflected the aim of appealing to lower middle class interests.

Radicalism of German National Socialism made it distinctive
1, Racism–elimination of the Jews.
2. Millennialism: Hitler was committed not only to overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles, regaining Alsace-Lorraine, but overturning the consequences of the great migrations of the early middle ages: re-conquering an empire for the pure Aryan race that stretch from the Atlantic to the Urals, from Finland to Egypt. Not merely a delusion: he was willing to breed people to do so, and to destroy any resistors, Jews and otherwise.
3. Hitler was always able to find obedient people and institutions that would carry out his will.
4. His followers believed as did Hitler that this program served a higher “moral” purpose.