So, are we headed toward fascism or not?

Like bulk historians of Modern Europe I have studied fascism as it developed in the s and s I have even developed and taught a curriculum on the subject over the years most of lately in the fall of A question that comes up in class often is whether fascism can happen this day in the United States This question became prominent after the elections and as one can imagine became even more topical in my fall class What is fascism This is a tough ideology system of executive to define clearly in part because of its plenty of variations Italian Fascism differed from German Nazism and both differed from Romanian fascism etc In short there are a great number of kinds of fascism and there are a number of attempts to explain it One of the best definitions of fascism is provided by the historian Robert Paxton who in his book The Anatomy of Fascism calls it A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with society decline humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity vitality and purity in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restrains goals of internal cleansing and external expansion Even a casual reading of the above reveals that most of of the elements Paxton enumerates have been present in segments of the American people especially the sense that our country has been taken away from us by the other and the willingness to use violent methods to achieve certain goals such as take our country back It appears then that what motivated segments of the Italian and German people in the s and s is also present in the United States in contemporary times The above definition fits numerous of the actions and pronouncements of the current administration We have already witnessed the preoccupation with decline and cult of unity ability and purity as well as collaboration with traditional elites what we are only now seeing emerging is redemptive violence aiming at external expansion The external expansion part is still limited to verbal threats on Panama Canada and Greenland but the violence portion is taking place even as we speak this includes past attacks on the U S Capitol but also the latest assassinations in Minnesota which are also characteristics of fascist regimes when aggrieved individuals feel empowered to acts of violence Several of my students have noted that unlike classical fascism MAGA has neither its own party nor its private paramilitary force While that might have been true in by now the Republican Party has been taken over by the MAGA movement Senators are voting exactly as the White House wants often against the interest of their constituents and a number of GOP elected leaders lost primary contests because they were not close enough to the ideology and its leader And while there is not a private MAGA paramilitary force yet let s not forget that the fascists once in power weaponized and used elements of the state prevention forces to achieve their ends This appears to be similar with the use of federal law enforcement agencies the present day to achieve the administration s goals especially what Paxton calls internal cleansing not only by arresting immigrants who are in the country illegally but also in order to spread fear by arresting legal immigrants and even U S citizens by mistake One could argue that the president was duly elected and thus his administration differs from fascist regimes We should remember here that fascist regimes took power not by coup but by legal means Once in power fascists used the courts and the legislature but especially exigency powers ordinarily reserved for special times to gain more power Eventually they took over the country by such means as outlawing opposition parties jailing dissidents of any kind etc We should also remember that various of the means used by fascism were illegal before it gained power but were legalized either through crisis powers or the capitulation of the legislative branch of the establishment John Mazis Fascism is also an all-encompassing system seeking control of the state s administrative apparatus educational and cultural institutions and the media Fascist regimes even forced private businesses to act in a particular pro-government way or face adverse consequences At present we see the administration taking over the state administrative apparatus by firing thousands of civil servants and replacing them with individuals faithful to MAGA ideology and its leader The administration also uses threats to take direct or indirect control of educational and cultural institutions and the media It also uses the federal powers and the threat of establishment interference to force businesses to help its policies We are left then with the task of deciding is the current administration fascist To be sure as of now it has not openly disobeyed court orders thus the abandons democratic liberties mentioned by Paxton has not come to pass Can one claim though that this country under the current administration is on its way to becoming fascist My job as a professor is not to tell people what to think but rather to bring issues to their attention explain them and let individuals decide for themselves Read the definition provided by Paxton and others compare it with the actions and pronouncements of the administration and its allies and draw your own conclusions John Mazis is a professor of European History at Hamline University The post So are we headed toward fascism or not appeared first on MinnPost