Thread by @JeffSharlet

Tom Nichols has an interesting thread on what he sees as the misuses of “fascism.” As someone who once argued that actual full-fledged fascism wasn’t possible in U.S.—and now sadly admits I was wrong—I think it’s worth reading even as I disagree. Here’s why…1/

https://twitter.com/radiofreetom/status/1647337035793833985

Most common error I see in smart “this isn’t fascism” arguments (vs. more numerous know-nothing cases) is conflation of fascism and *fascist regime.” Nichols is right: we don’t have a fascist regime, & Trump didn’t get that far. But Trumpism is a fascist *movement.* 2/

Related error is to contrast buffoonery of Trump, DeSantis, MTG, etc. with hindsight perception of fascist leaders as smart & strong. But of course nearly all of them began aa vain buffoons, & were vain & buffoonish. All were dismissed. 3/

This isn’t to say Trump or MTG are Hitler. But as Robert O. Paxton writes in Anatomy of Fascism, most fascist movements don’t succeed & thus never look strong & organized in hindsight. W/ work, ours won’t either. 4/

Third error is to overemphasize “ideology” of fascist regimes and underemphasize coherence of fascist movements. Social movement theory helps see beyond the finalized programs of fascist regimes… 5/

Social movements often look to outsiders like unified waves. In fact, they are unsteady, usually temporary convergences of streams that may not have even run parallel before mutual hopes—or mutual hates—brought them together. 6/

So too this fascist moment which aligns the once neoliberal Christian Right with a less-organized Christian nationalism with deliberately profane Proud Boys & rightwing libertarians & confused populists & Catholic right intellectuals… 7/

Fascism wants us to see it as a monolith. (And for some to miss its approach because they rightly recognize the movement before them isn’t monolithic.) Bad news is it marks a powerful convergence. Good news is coalitions can crumble. Let’s help this fascist one do so. 8/

But doing so requires that we recognize that fascism thrives not so much as a clear ideology in a sense recognizable by traditional politics but as an anti-politics. It is a purity myth. Most authoritarianisms gesture that way but only fascists make it central. 9/

& yet, our fascist movement does have an “ideology,” too. What else does Frank Luntz mean when he asks in the NYT how to advance Trump’s “agenda” without Trump? The “agenda” is fascism. “Just” a style? Yes, in a sense, but no “just” about it. Fascism is an aesthetic. 10/

Among elements of the fascist aesthetic is a perpetuation and expansion of a kind of corporate capitalism via state entanglement for loyal captains and punishment & demonization for enemies of “the people”—Soros, Disney, now Budweiser. 11/

Nichols insists that fascists are well-disciplined. I think this may be a conflation of the pre-existing militaries of some fascist regimes with fascism itself. In fact, fascist regimes are always a mess of hysterical infighting & intrigue. 12/

Which is good news. Fascist movements are melodramatic messes. Actual organization—real democracy—can beat them. But not if we tell ourselves fascism isn’t here because just look at those goofballs. The “goofballs” are running more & more states. 13/

Nichols seems to suggest that this movement can’t be fascist because it’s anti-govt & true fascists revere the state. But you know what? Mussolini didn’t actually make the trains run on time. A) this movement hates gov’t it doesn’t control B) by “the state” it means power. 14/

Mistake I think Nichols makes on fascist hallmark of “cult of personality” is believing fascist lie that the “personality” matters. That’s “Great Man” school of history. Right now the personality is Trump; what makes this fascism is the “cult,” which can shift its affections. 15/

I think of Pastor Hank Kunneman, rising star of the pro-civil war prophetic right, who says “Trump” will return, whether it’s the man himself or the spirit of Trumpism in the flesh of another. Cult? Check. “Personality”? Check. Trump himself? Maybe. 16/

But maybe the most important point of disagreement I have w/ Nichols is what seems to be his believe that fascism can only be what it was in mid-century Europe—as if it didn’t keep evolving, in, say, Suharto’s Indonesia, Saddam’s Iraq, Mobutu’s Zaire, Putin’s Russia. 17/

Nichols asks where are the fascist masses, thinking of 20th century European pageantry. Well, there is some of that—consider Waco, consider the Jan 6 Choir, definitely consider all the flags—but it’s changed. The masses are also online. That’s different, yes. Fascism evolves. 18/

For instance, I argue in The Undertow that the latest US contribution to fascism (as historian James O. Whitman write in Hitler’s American Model, it’s not the first) is to ditch its emphasis on racial or ethnic purity. 19/

American fascism is white supremacist, to be sure, but as historian @AntheaButler writes in White Evangelical Racism, the “promise of whiteness” seduces some people of color into its ranks—which then “inoculates” its white majority from acknowledging its racism. 20/

But these are also fault lines we can exploit. I don’t agree w/ Nichols that if this is fascism we might as well give up on politics & law. I *do* agree that we must & can defeat fascism in those arenas. I’m all-hands-on-deck, fight fascism however you can wherever you can. 21/

I’m also, when it comes to fascism, a “Which Side Are You On” guy. In that sense, @RadioFreeTom (whom I don’t know personally) and I are on the same side. We see the hope of democracy genuinely at risk. We see that the struggle is now. So, onwards, right? (End)