Fascist: Despite what you've heard, it doesn't mean "someone who disagrees with me"

Then again, what it does mean is still a matter for debate

Photo by Sushil Nash on Unsplash

The word fascist is getting tossed about these days like knickers at a Tom Jones concert. Donald Trump, say many, is one. So, too, according to others, is his nemesis Joe Biden. Israel, I hear, is a fascist state, and so too, according to Vladimir Putin, is Ukraine (a situation he is kindly rectifying on behalf of freedom lovers the world over). If you’re not anti-vax, you may be a fascist and not know it (at the very least you’re in bed with them), and it seems that JK Rowling and Posie Parker are the pinup girls for a bunch of fascist thugs hiding behind the label “gender critical”.

The power of the word fascist resides in the horrific actions of European fascists from the 1920s until the end of WWII. To call someone a fascist is to level the most serious and despicable of charges, up there with rapist and paedophile. Unlike those words, however, fascist doesn’t lend itself to a simple or widely agreed upon definition, making it an easy accusation to level against someone.

Fascist is a modern word, formed in 1921 from the name of Italian anti-communist group Partito Nazionale Fascista. The last word in that name is from the Italian fascio (group, association), which is from the Latin fasces, or bundle.

In Roman times the fasces symbol was a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes with the blade of an axe or two emerging menacingly from within its depths. It represented the power of the Roman ruler to punish his subjects, including by beating or removal of the head. You can get how such a symbol and word would appeal to a bunch of authoritarian thugs who not only had no problem with violence, but actually eulogised it.

A secondary meaning of the fasces symbol is collective, magisterial power, versus the limited influence of the individual. One fanatic with a gun is merely a nutjob (albeit still capable of causing immense harm); a fanatical ruling party with tonnes of hardware gets to invade entire countries and destroy populations with an air of legitimacy, however slight.

Between 1916 and 1945 the fasces symbol appeared on the back of the US dime. Despite rumours, the symbol did not signify the US’s support for fascism, but was there as a symbol of strength and unity. However, calls for it to be replaced because of the association with fascism emerged as early as 1926.

Fascism today comes in more flavours than your favourite ice cream brand. Those who aren’t full on, card carrying, old school fascists may still be proto-fascist, semi-fascist, post-fascist or neofascist. George W Bush’s war on terror was, in his words, a crusade against Islamo-fascism, and Donald Trump, in his words, is waging a war against left-wing fascism. No doubt other flavours exist, and there’s every chance even more are currently undergoing consumer trials with a view to being launched in the future.

The upshot is that unlike 100 years ago when fascists were not only scarce but easily identified by their armbands, shirts and jackboots, today there’s a fascist under every bed, and she may well be your mum in her civvies.

So what is fascism? Ian Kershaw, one of the world’s leading experts on Hitler and Nazi Germany, said trying to define it is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. Italian writer Umberto Eco, in an influential 1995 essay called Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, offered 14 key elements that appear in all fascist movements. Marxist theory holds that fascism (or, more specifically, Nazism) is the culmination of capitalism, which makes it potentially endemic to all capitalist countries, regardless of which party is in power.

Others, like historian John Lukacs, say there is no such thing as generic fascism, and that Nazism and communism are both manifestations of populism (which he regarded as the main threat to modern civilisation), and that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had more differences than things in common.

One reason that defining fascism may be so difficult is that its epicentre, Nazi Germany, was itself a little reticent on the matter. Kershaw believes that under Hitler, Germany was less a totalitarian monolith, and more an unstable coalition of several power blocs - including the SS, the Nazi Party and big business - vying for ascendancy. The winner, as it turned out, was not the bloc with the most cogent political theory, but the one with the meanest dogs.

So here we are in 2023 with Michael Bröning of Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party recently asking the pertinent question: “How can anyone be a fascist if everyone is?” His article is an exercise in level-headedness. “The ubiquitous fascism label,” he states, “eschews analysis in favour of moralism, turning a historical comparison into a hysterical one.”

That’s not to say we don’t have bad actors in our midst; we have plenty. But how many of them are fascist?

I don’t know the answer, but using that label to condemn anyone we find despicable or disagreeable debases the word’s meaning and impact. It also diminishes the credibility of those who are free with the word’s use. Finally, it shows a casual disregard, in my view, for those who experienced the horrors of Nazism.

I’m not saying no one should ever again be accused of being fascist. But like Bröning, I think the case for dialling back its use is overwhelming. That wouldn’t solve all the world’s problems, but it would certainly help us start to argue a little more civilly and coherently with each other. And that, surely, would be no bad thing.

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Quote of the week

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
Upton Sinclair