Can you smell that stuff you shovelling?
Fascist is one of the modern buzz words, bandied about by folks who have no real arguments, but realise that simply pinning the fascist label on your political opponents is better than doing nothing at all. And often works.
It’s easy to see why.
Definition of fascism
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Needless to say, fascism has a bad track-record and an even worse reputation and press. If anyone cares to lump themselves in with Hitler and Benito Mussolini, go right ahead, it profits you not. Therefore calling someone or their ideas fascist has great appeal. Apart from being a cheap-shot: it ensures that everyone knows exactly where you stand on an issue. The imprecision we’ll leave for the moment.
A quick look at the ubiquitous Google will bring up a surprising list of countries with some fascist elements either now or historically, including the UK and the USA. The usual suspects are, of course, there: Italy, Nazi Germany and Spain. Add Romania, Greece Montenegro, France, Hungary and Norway to the list and the picture is more complete.
The current government of the UK with its central autocratic government bent of using immigrants to shoulder the blame for the mess that Brexit has mired the UK economy in easily fits the classic definition of fascist. The USA in WWII with it’s forced removal of its own citizens (of Japanese descent) and FDR’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court so as to pass socialist New Deal measures sure smells like fascist to me!
As shorthand for evil, ill-begotten, brainless, smelly rats, Fascist had a lot of attraction as a label for your political opponent. It’s short, catchy and sufficiently obtuse and imprecise so that you don’t actually have to deal with the substance of an argument, just label it fascist and move on. Very attractive to real fascists who never actually want to engage in an argument based on facts. Why would they?
Just sling the fascist label on you opponents and be done with it! Sounds like Trumpism neatly described. If the policies of Donald Trump aren’t a classic definition of fascist ( blame the immigrants, be a dictator, usurp the political process, and suppress the opposition with lies, falsehoods and general BS) then I don’t know what else to call them?
