I have published this video this morning. In it I argue that no one wants to talk about fascism, but unless we do, and realise what is required to beat it, then we are all in the deepest of trouble.
The audio version of this video is here:
The transcript is:
It's time to talk about fascism.
I hate to have to bring it up. It's not a subject that one wishes to raise in polite conversation. But in reality, it's with us. Alongside us. And we have to deal with it.
It is a major factor in three current elections.
I have no doubt at all that Trump is a fascist in the USA.
He fits the stereotype. Let me explain what the stereotype is. The stereotype of fascism is the strong man who comes in and says, “I am able to deal with the threat to you, the ordinary person, from “the other”” (who they define as the enemy) “and I will deliver you into salvation.” But in practice, what they will do is organise the economy for the benefit of the very rich, who are the people that they really serve? That is what fascism is really all about.
And Trump typifies the role.
There are others who try to do that in the world. For example, there are questions about Modi in India, and Oban in Hungary. But we're now also seeing, of course, the rise of fascism in France.
There is no doubt that Marie Le Pen's party is fascist in orientation, and the threat that they make, based in particular on pure Islamophobia, is fascist in style.
Have we got fascism in the UK? It's a question that is uncertain as to the answer at present.
Have we got neo-fascism? Yes, quite clearly we have.
So let me explain what I think fascism is, and for this purpose I'm going to use the definition created by Jason Stanley in his 2020 book on the subject, because I think it's more accessible than some of the other lists created by people like Umberto Eco, which are often cited, but tend to be a little dated now.
In his list, Jason Stanley said that there are ten characteristics of fascism.
The first is a mythical past. The claim is that there was an ideal to which we will aspire. It's not a chance that all right-wingers love a military parade. Some are particularly dedicated to D-Day in the UK.
Then there's propaganda. The whole point about fascism is propaganda. It's there to attack your enemy. The enemy may not be real. For example, migrants are not actually a threat to anyone in the UK. But there's always an “other” created by the fascist who is the person who has to be undermined by the propaganda machine.
This creates the other who must be attacked. You are part of us, and then there's “them” who are undermining you.
The whole of this is, of course, anti-intellectual. Experts are questioned.
“We're going to drain the swamp.”
“We're going to clear the politics out of Westminster.”
“We're going to challenge the role of universities in education because they “poison the minds of our young people.”
This is anti-intellectualism.
And then a lack of reality: an unreality. It's all about conspiracy theories, that there are these “others” who are threatening us, and they create these theories to support that idea.
The “people in boats” claim is one of those conspiracy theories, and the idea that this is all down to “smuggling gangs” is another one. Of course, there are smuggling gangs, but there needn't be. We could provide legal routes for people who wish to seek asylum in the UK with ease and solve the problem of smuggling gangs overnight. But, it's much better for those who are enabling fascism, or something close to it, to claim that there are smuggling gangs, because then there's an “other”, which there won't be if people are coming over on a boat called a cross channel ferry.
What else is there? There's hierarchy. The whole purpose of fascism is to promote the idea that we live in a structured society where there's an organization of power which we should respect. Very, very male-orientated, of course. Very traditional. Very conservative. Very doff your cap, and everything else. It's all about that, but it's also about the morality of hard-working, law-abiding people, and that there are these who don't comply with that. And they become the threat. You then become the victim.
And of course, that is the corollary of this us and them idea. Because the whole story is that people are being “victimized” by those who are the “other”.
And, to follow on from that, there's always law and order. The idea that there's a breakdown. The claim is that there's only Sharia law in Birmingham, according to some people. There isn't only Sharia law in Birmingham. There actually isn't Sharia law in operation as a legal system anywhere in the UK. It's all utter nonsense, but it's claimed, nonetheless.
And there's a high degree of sexual anxiety implicit in the fascist story. If you're straight, you're okay. If you're gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans or queer or whatever else, you're a threat. You're not normal. And whether they say it or not, that's one of their clear messages. It's all about compliance. And they are threatened by people who are not compliant. And so they create this tension.
Which is, of course, also deeply misogynistic. They claim they're protecting women from trans people. No, they're not. They're just using the opportunity of claiming they're protecting women to actually constrain the rights of women in the process of doing so. That's what that's all about.
And then there's an appeal to the heartland. What does that mean? Well, the appeal of the fascist is very much to the rural community. Look at where Reform is popular in the UK. Deeply rural Lincolnshire. Deeply rural East Anglia. The heartlands of the East Coast port, Great Yarmouth, and so on. Places which are alienated from most of the country by being different by being rural and different by being peripheral, i.e. on the edge of the country, and different by being poor. But they appeal to that as though “you are the common folk and we will deal with your needs”. Which is a compelling story for those who live in these places, because the main parties aren't.
And finally, there is this idea that you should be able to look after yourself, because that's the image that the strongman wishes to project. You will wish to be like the strongman. Able to provide, able to support, able to deliver. Very male, of course. The whole of this is orientated towards men, and very often towards young men. But the aim is to dismantle the welfare state. It is to say, stand on your own two feet, or bad luck. In which case, this is also of course, a whole political philosophy that is opposed to those who are ill, who have disabilities of any sort, and who are unfortunate because of the circumstances that life has played out for them. That's what fascism is.
And we can hear those ideas resonate in far too much of the political campaigning going on in the UK at present.
I worry about fascism. I think it is a real risk.
I think Trump might deliver it in the USA.
I think Le Pen might deliver it in France.
I think it is where at least two of the UK's political parties are heading, and those two political parties are Reform and the Tories. They may not be there yet, but I think they're heading in that direction, and the success of parties in France and the USA will encourage them to go there, but this is a threat to the well-being of everybody, and it's a threat that we can't tolerate.
Over the next five years, we have to put in place robust systems to defeat fascism. If we don't, we are in the deepest of trouble in this country. We will by then have seen the damage that fascism will have caused in France and the USA. Maybe we will learn our lessons from that, but if not, heaven help us because we're going to have the most almighty fight on our hand to make sure that fascism does not take hold in the UK.
This is Jason Stanley's list of fascist characteristics:
1. The mythical past—used to invoke a nostalgia for a fictional time when the nation was great as it was not yet sullied by the “Other.”2. Propaganda—to attack enemies, to justify violence, to justify laws against “Them” and to support the authoritarian leader.3. Anti-intellectualism—to attack the media, universities, and scientists when they contradict the strong man's authority.4. Unreality—supporting conspiracy theories that tarnish the “Other” along with an outright denial of facts when convenient.5. Hierarchy—espousing a “natural order” where the “Us” are hardworking, moral, law-abiding and productive members of society, while the “Other” is not.6. Victimhood—casting “Us” as victims of “Them”, who are taking resources from “Us” and demanding special rights.7. Law and order—using laws to justify violence, oppression, and expulsion of the “Other”.8. Sexual anxiety—as the “Other” embraces non-traditional approaches to sexuality,9. Appeals to the heartland—as rural communities are often more homogeneous and conservative (more “Us”) while urban cities are often more diverse, cosmopolitan (more “Them”).10. Dismantling of public welfare and unity—by casting aside safety net programs as unfair giveaways to “Them”, who are not working, as opposed to “Us”, who are.
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A fine post. “Over the next five years, we have to put in place robust systems to defeat fascism”. This will not happen with LINO. If anything it will get worse due to Starmers authoritarianism (which nicley links to the post on Society and Thinkers – fascism does not like thinkers).
There are many ways in which fascism can rise – each will be different from the other, but one thing for sure, the scene is set for the UK, all the ingredients are there, including the reality that neo-liberalism is anti-deomcratic, & thus, arguably, the reverse side of the fascist coin & the UK media are very happy to go along with this.
I now know how Demosthenes felt.
Much to agree with
And thank you
I don’t believe “the scene is set”.
I believe we are well down the road to Fascism and I have been saying it for a number of years. I’ve lost / dropped friends over it.
I’m not sure how we escape it, I only hope the Scottish electorate see sense and separate Scotland from England’s present trajectory.
I’m of the generation which has always wondered exactly how the German population could follow Herr Hitler’s propaganda, wreaking havoc across Europe. I now understand everything.
One of the keys to the rise of fascism is No 10, “Dismantling of public welfare”. This is what we have seen to greater and lesser degrees for the past 40 odd years and in spades since Cameron and Osborne’s deliberate policy of austerity (as Krugman described in yesterday’s Guardian). People feel poorer, “dispossessed”, “left out”, “powerless” and look for answers.
There is real poverty, inequality as has been documented on here and elsewhere and those responsible are the actual Government. It’s our government, in cahoots with big business and those with the money, that have caused the problems that lead people towards seeking answers from the “strongman” and it’s the government which elaborates on the other 9 features above and says only they know what has caused people to feel alienated, helpless, impoverished and promises to fix it by drifting further and further towards fascism.
The way to “fix it” is to tackle poverty, invest in public services and infrastructure, take climate change seriously, be honest for a change – spend the money that only government can create to fix the problems they themselves, or their predecessors, have created. (and lets remember that Labour were complicit in supporting many aspects of the Cameron/Osborne austerity and are seemingly heading in the same direction because there aint no money)
Actually, I think these kinds of lists of the political characteristics of ‘fascism’ are a bit misleading. They numerate characteristics that can generally be found in any authoritarian political movement or regime – for example in absolute monarchies. But fascism in more specific because it is in essence an economic phenomenon – “the continuation of capitalism by undemocratic means”. It arises specifically in reaction to perceived threat to capitalism, generally from the left (revolutions and fear of a domino effect from them), or indeed the actual election of anti-capitalist governments in Spain in the 1930s and Chile in the ’70s. As Hayek (Thatcher’s guru, Pinochet’s advisor) said, if democracy comes into conflict with capitalism, it’s democracy that has to end.
My own view is that impending climate-ecological breakdown and the need to take steps to mitigate it are just such an existential threat to capitalism – and this is at bottom what is driving the current rise of fascism in ‘western democracies’.
Robert O Paxton , the American scholar says the Nazis who were a populist movement and rejected the Establishment. he did say that the traditional right wing parties would partner them. He distinguishes them from Franco’s Fascists who put into power a dictatorship of traditional interests, landowners, a small capitalist class, the military and the Catholic church who had a major role.
I think what we see today is an arrogant rich elite who sell a story to the masses whose living standards are increasingly challenged to get their support so the aims of that elite can be furthered advanced. It is a massive deflection and con. My hope is that it will collapse under its own contradictions ( that sounds Marxist but it’s not)
Hi Richard,
This is what Michael rosen wrote about Fascism, some time ago
“I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.
Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you…
It doesn’t walk in saying,
“Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.” ”
I would argue that it is already here, and has been for some time, but as Rosen suggests, has been hidden in plain sight
Regards
Michael was right
I’m not keen on the fascist ticklist either, as there are so many ways fascism has emerged.
Arendt saw the rise of fascism as taking place when authoritarianism (do as I say) became totalitarianism (think as I think).
There is no doubt that the rise of Hitler was assisted by a strong level of support in traditional rural Germany, especially sustaining his base support in the quiet years after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, until the German economy collapsed post Wall St crash when unemployment hit 6 million.
It was a massive rise in unemployment and poverty, so the loss of hope, and alienation, that allowed the rapid rise of the charismatic leader who can then solve all problems simply through loyalty to him.
Italy was very poor after WW1, and that assisted the rise of Mussolini, alomg with extreme nationalism..
The cult of militarism provides a massive push to any authoritarian power clique.
South American far right dictators have almost always enjoyed strong military support.
In the UK it might be so in rural East Anglia, but fascism has no special support in rural Wales or Scotland, or to my knowledge, the English South West or Pennines.
Perhaps proximity to the great unwashed in mainland Europe has allowed greater stigmatisation of those ‘others’ across the Channel. That and fear of invasion.
We have vast rural areas here, and there was a miniscule level of support for UKIP and ittle or no support for Reform.
We do have sectarianism to spare though.
Yes, we do stigmatise others, and have always looked down on townies, but in Scotland currently our ‘othered’ group are mostly silver surfers and other inconsiderates in motor homes clogging up our single track roads, parking in cemetery and school car parks, and pumping out their effluent into fields and layby ditches rather than paying at official disposal sites. (Irony font).
Thanks
One of the problems facing those opposing fascism is that the “other” is often plausibly presented as the cause of various real or imagined problems of society. Thus it might be thought that I can’t get a doctor’s appointment or my rent is so high etc. because people are coming here in small boats. Opposition to the “other” is then seen as a natural reaction to the state of society. However these claims are more or less irrelevant to the fascist agenda. If the problems are solved, then more can be found. If the out group becomes accepted, then another group can be found to serve as the “other”. Thus the antifascist can end up spending an awful lot of time arguing about issues that are, in the last analysis, peripheral to the fascist agenda.
The purpose of “othering” is made quite clear in the writings of fascist political theorists. As Carl Schmitt put it “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” Thus to hold power in a fascist is to be the one who decides who is unworthy of being treated as fully human. Note that this is essentially an arbitrary decision; arguments justifying it are post hoc. Thus to counter arguments for “othering” a group, it is necessary to show not merely that these arguments are wrong but also that they are made in bad faith.
Incidentally, except, perhaps, for (9), all Stanley’s criteria apply to the Chinese state.
As fascists hate deep, penetrating questions which do not concur with their attitudes and beliefs, might two big steps towards overt fascism have been taken years ago in the sphere of education?
1) The 1988 Education Reform Act which made and makes students and teachers subordinate to the prescribed “official knowledge” and “official teaching methods” and directs students to answer/regurgitate official “knowledge” instead of asking analytical questions and being creative.
2) The penalising of those who, wisely and pro socially, seek greater and deeper knowledge, by charging them for doing so, plus interest, of course.
I think this is a really important issue
Rote learning creates unequestioning people
Rote learning is also very inefficient. I have come across people who have wasted years trying to memorise the 6000 most common Chinese characters by rote with little or no success. It’s much more efficient to study Chinese calligraphy and/or paleography and to allow yourself to become familiar with the characters. But this can seem a waste of time to those whose “only reason” for learning for the characters is to enable them to read Chinese newspapers and they can’t see that the true waste of time is rote learning.
The National Curriculum is actually a component in the accountability regime that has grossly disfigured and despoiled the idea of what constitutes education in a neoliberal society.
Under Thatcher the small shopkeeper mentality of the Tory party was given free reign and one of it’s perennial bugbears was teachers with their long holidays. The accountibility regime is responsible for the system-threatening levels of teacher shortages through over prescription in almost every aspect of the job – and it is a job, with few career prospects unless one follows the “enforcer”….sorry, management route, that means major decisions end up being made by people who have chosen to deliberately escape from the pressures of the
classroom.
The curriculum itself is another factor. It is inflexible and restrictive, and often massively irrelevant to the majority of children because it actually stifles or prevents the development of a love of learning, which is essential to create a truly civilized society.
And it has verifiably destroyed the foundations of the sort of skills base the country needs.
LINO are as bad as the Tories in this respect.
I left teaching in England because of the 1988 Education Act.
Thankfully I was able to build a different career in environmental project management.
To all intents and purposes, it destroyed enquiry method learning and wiped out my then main academic subject, Geology by assimilating it into General Science pre 16. .
I have yet to meet any organic chemist who really gets silicate chemistry and crystallography, and imo, most geophysics was dealt with by unqualified teachers, but that’s just my highly critical judgement.
I was disgusted. The curriculum was narrowed in many other areas, and teaching methods prescribed by some loathsome Tory politician pursuing dogma but with limited understanding of pedagogy. It was intended as political control for illiberal reasons, and that is what it achieved, only being matched by Gove’s retrograde reforms.
At the hustings in Lichfield last night the Tory, Fabricant, coughed out his usual litany of half lies and snipers. The real horror was the Reform candidate (Howard) who gave out increasingly fascist lines such as woke teachers polluting kids minds, NHS problems were due to greedy doctors and immigrants using the services, etc. His solution was deportation, benefit cuts, and rallying all behind the flag. He had a small group of highly vocal supporters, but the majority either remained silent or (in our case) shouted “Lies. Rubbish. Racist.” Several people called out we were stupid, deluded, etc. The vast majority remained silent……
I find the likes of Mr Fabricated and Reforms headbangers odd.
“Immigrants”. Less than 5% per year are illegals. The 95% that are in the UK legally are either studying or working. In the case of the latter, they will be paying taxes and thus entitled by the payment of those taxes to use the NHS – far from being “greedy” they work (often in the health sector) to keep the UK going. You are wasting your time trying to communicate with some people – one can’t reason with imbeciles. However, as I know from experience, there is often no point in trying to reason with people that have decided on a particular “belief” – which is the case on immigration – numbers, reality, no longer counts.
If there was needs based funding for public services and housing was built to match increases in population there wouldnt be the fertile ground for fascism to thrive.
But for the rich and powerful its a win-win to turn to fascism. They can keep their money and keep people down, by force if necessary.
Their biggest enemy has always been democracy.
Fascism: when the elite side with the mob.
What fascinates me about fascism is that it starts out as corporatism but mutates. In Italy, Germany and Chile business leaders believed they would benefit from the business friendly rules promised.
Pinochet, despite having the playbook from the Chicago boys in his hand disappointed the business crowd. Hitler did the same. Mussolini called fascism corporatism but I don’t think he made Italy that good for business.
Maybe a campaign against fascism would point out that once In power strong leaders rarely give their power away to corporations and the faux democracy of uni parties different in colour only is a better way for corporations to get their way. Actually I think ruling elites know this.
Corporate greed typically, like a spoiled child, wants everything now. It also over estimates its own power and does not learn from history that the fascist will turn on it too.