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The US has arguably been fascist since the 1940s.
Fascism always comes in the flavor of the country it installs itself in, because it always has some tie to “traditional values” and/or origin myths. And note that if your values have been about fair redistribution and equality and social justice for 50+ years, that’s almost 2 generations, so also “traditional” and may also be used for the purity tests that become so frequent in fascist societies e.g. “Oh, you didn’t go to the anti-<whatever injustice> protest? You just don’t care about improving as a nation.”. Then comes the very common “with us or against us” trope and of course, the most relevant element of them all, the enemy. Those who are not to be considered human and are stopping the country from reaching its full potential.
Right now for the US right that would be maybe illegal immigrants and maybe whatever ethnic/sexual/gender minorities and vulnerable populations there’s a conservative moral panic about.
For the US left of today that would be white males, the rich, right wing extremists, and maybe people who support the nation of Israel.
Fascism is already in the US. It’s just bipartisan.
Which is the dumbest?
America has already used all of the tools of fascism before, often to greater extremes. Lebensraum found its inspiration in Manifest Destiny, for example.
Expect to see things you have seen before, but now with clearer eyes. When Dems want to double their police forces and tighten preparedness of the national guard instead of maintaining or increasing social spending, recognize that the boots they are lacing are intended for your necks.
More like Russia probably. Oligarchic capitalism + christian fundamentalist values.
It’s gonna be pure American Fascism. Our leaders wrote the fucking book.
It’s better than that, they’ve let other countries have their go at it over the last century, and took detailed notes along the way. The benefit they have now is the widespread plethora and availability of networked technology that they absolutely will leverage in their quest for control.
Russian, he’s Putin’s GoodBoy
In the US? Probably Hungary, with a bit of Germany or Chile mixed in because Trump is too dumb to be Orban successfully.
The exact breakdown between the two is hard to say in advance.
Assuming Trump will be around. His cognitive decline has been steep, and he’s just been a convenient vehicle for others to gain power. I wouldn’t be surprised if they invoked the 25th Amendment.
Yeah, but which one gets to rule next? That’s why monarchy has been so successful - the king’s firstborn my be a moron, but there’s (roughly) guaranteed only one, and palace intrigue under a difficult-to-directly-challenge figurehead is a Nash equilibrium.
Unless he dies in the first year or two it doesn’t change the possible outcomes too much, I don’t think he’ll be immediately ousted and things go back to normal, which is kind of what you’re getting at.
Are there nations that used to be like Hungary? If any, what did it take to break out of that state of affairs?
Uhh, just in the sense of being a weak democracy that backslid? Lots. The OG fascists in Italy come to mind. In the really long run they tend to own themselves. If they survive, it’s by turning into the tried-and-true aristocratic autocracy.
Spain made the transition back to democracy peacefully, because Franco set it up to go that way once he died, and there was a lot of outside cultural influence to support it. That being said, I don’t know all the details there, and it’s pretty unusual. Italy got owned in war. Yakubu Gowon’s Nigeria, for one example, got owned by a series of coups.
The US is a new thing, though, in that usually the new dictator isn’t a crayon-eating moron, and never before has it happened somewhere with no living memory of authoritarian politics. It’s not going to be exactly like anything else. I answered how I did because Orbon was elected but doesn’t really have a clear ideological agenda beyond power, while Hitler used his executive power non-subtly to shut everyone else down, which seem like certain near-future features of the new America.
American. Fascism isn’t a model to copy, but a defense mechanism of dying Capitalism. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Could you elaborate a bit? A book is too much for me.
The first chapter of Blackshirts and Reds is the most important for understanding fascism, it will take maybe 20 minutes and would be far clearer than any Lemmy comment string. However, the broad running theme with fascism is that, similar to to Communism and Socialism, it rises with Capitalist decay. The difference is that fascism is supported by the Capitalist ruling classes against the rising organization of workers, and as such has institutional support. It isn’t a hard and fast ideology to be adopted, but a defense mechanism the ruling classes deploy to retain power, violently.
