{"id":47992,"date":"2020-02-19T09:04:51","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T09:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=47992"},"modified":"2020-02-19T09:04:51","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T09:04:51","slug":"fascism-a-technique-for-gaining-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/02\/19\/fascism-a-technique-for-gaining-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Fascism: a technique for gaining power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Danaher<\/a> had a powerful piece on fascism on Progressive Pulse a few days ago<\/a>. He published it under the title:<\/p>\n

Fascism as a methodology rather than an ideology<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Sean noted, fascism has had an influence on his life:<\/p>\n

My father attempted to do a PhD in Germany from 1937-39, but it became increasingly obvious that things were deteriorating rapidly in Nazi Germany and that war was coming. He returned to Dublin in July \u201939, a few months after the British navy finally withdrew from its occupation of Irish ports.<\/p>\n

He believed strongly that there was nothing intrinsically different about the Germans that made them more susceptible to fascism than other nations. He thought some form of fascism would return, but almost certainly not to Germany. I was instilled with the belief that \u201cEternal vigilance is the price of liberty<\/em>\u201d and that democracy was fragile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I like this thinking:<\/p>\n

The Yale philosopher\u00a0Jason Stanley<\/a>\u00a0describes fascism as a technique for gaining power \u2014 a methodology rather than an ideology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

I think of fascism as a method of politics. It\u2019s a rhetoric, a way of running for power. Of course, that\u2019s connected to fascist ideology, because fascist ideology centers on power. But I really see fascism as a technique to gain power<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So are the Tories fascist, given their focus on power? Sean says:<\/p>\n

Prof Stanley\u2019s framing of fascism is very interesting. It fits much of what has become manifestly evident in the UK over an extended period. I\u2019m not sure it will result in power being concentrated in one person as seems to be happening in the US with Trump.<\/p>\n

Certainly, we can now expect power to be more and more concentrated in the executive, with the judiciary, civil service and even parliament itself being sidelined.<\/p>\n

EU27 citizens living in the UK will very much be an outgroup made to feel increasingly unwelcome. Citizens rights for minorities will become a key testing ground as\u00a0Steve Bullock explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fascist methodologies are being used. Time will tell whether this will further develop into a full ideology and what havoc will result before it ends badly \u2013 it always has.<\/p>\n

It is not July \u201939 in Germany as yet, but I will keep an eye on things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So am I.<\/p>\n

I recommend the whole article and the reasoning within it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Danaher had a powerful piece on fascism on Progressive Pulse a few days ago. He published it under the title: Fascism as a methodology
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}