The Fascist Slander

Easily Spoken, Rarely Understood

1933 — Hitler In His Favorite Make Of Automobile

As the U.S. Presidential election approaches, baseless insults have reached a deafening crescendo. The Democrats have revealed topical desperation, comparing Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler and calling him a fascist.

The news media joined the choir of voices singing verses of the tired insult.

In an article in the New York Times Magazine, Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind, the author unconvincingly attempts to present a balanced argument. His primary source, Robert Paxton, one of the world’s most respected experts on the subject, is unwilling to provide an outright condemnation of Trump as a fascist. Although it doesn’t appear in the Times piece, Paxton’s core definition of the concept is revelational:

Fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, 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 restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Calling someone a fascist was not always derogatory. For two decades before World War II, Italy was ruled by the Fascist Party, and most analysts, historians, and leaders in that era agreed that it was a form of extreme capitalism.

Those who believed that it was the best form of government, promoted it openly:

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. ― Benito Mussolini

After World War II, the industrialists recognized that their central mistake was allowing too much power into the hands of sociopaths. Although controlled dictators are excellent proxies, they could never again be allowed to destroy an economic structure that benefitted the elites.

Fascism fell out of fashion because the unbalanced leaders of Italy and Germany led their countries into unwinnable wars. However, when viewing the defeat of the Axis powers as a corporate takeover, the driving force of fascism flourished in a new form.

The historical record confirms that Nazi collaborators, including intelligence officers and scientists, went into the service of their former enemies. The German economic miracle of the 1950s was only miraculous in that the corporations and manufacturers that served Hitler (don’t miss out on reviewing the companies in this link), many using slave labor, continued to thrive and expand into international conglomerates.

The leading fascists of the last century, Hitler and Mussolini, are known for how their megalomaniacal personalities turned the course of history. Comparing an individual candidate to these tyrants is an insult to those destroyed by their murderous regimes.

While it is ridiculous to equate anyone with the totalitarian leaders of the 20th century, the economic core of Paxton’s definition — effective collaboration with traditional elites — captures the impetus of political dynamics in the United States today.

The Harris campaign might look inwardly before calling anyone a fascist, considering the current administration's revolving doors with the corporate world. The elites populating federal agencies ensure the military, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries remain profitable. They are guaranteed lucrative positions when they return to the private sector.

In the guise of democracy, practices consistent with fascism are tolerated in the U.S. Token liberalism masks economic inequities while state authority is driven by business interests.

The Democrats overtly showed their allegiance to the corporate world with the advent of the COVID-19 debacle. Big Pharma suddenly morphed into an altruistic savior even though they had been peddling poisonous addictive drugs for decades with the government looking the other way. The White House was their unfiltered megaphone, insisting on the need for the public to trust their science and refrain from challenging dictates. This culminated in the leader of the Western world declaring without factual basis that we were in a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

The uneasy and corrupt relationships extend to all forms of media, where the Administration has exerted its powerful influence over news and social networks, attempting to dominate with their propaganda or censor their opponents.

The similarities to German and Italian fascism don’t end with corruption and repression. The gargantuan effort by the White House and its allies to extend economic dominance through military aggression around the globe can be compared with past empire builders that destroyed foreign realms solely for dominance and profits.

Paxton’s final key phrase of his definition — without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion — resonates with the direction the U.S. has taken. It is not close to reaching the internal cleansing attained by Nazi Germany; although there is a bold attempt to eliminate competitive thought while glorifying consumerism. Yet nearly a trillion dollars per year, the largest defense budget on the planet — is evidence of the greatest effort toward external expansion in history — a cause serving no one but the elites.

In the guise of democracy, profitability remains the measure of success. This results in elections where those seeking leadership who defy absolute corporate power are labeled an outlier, a bully, a danger, and absurdly — a fascist.

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