An esoteric, death-worshipping cult? The inward turning of colonialist violence? Goose-stepping Nazis? Throughout contemporary American cultural-political critique, it’s common to see various aspects of modern life derisively labeled as “fascist” (I myself have engaged in this plenty!). The military-industrial complex, Elon-y tech-bros, the police, and a myriad of other aspects of our liberal capitalist existence fall commonly into the categorization and, largely, for understandable reasons. However, like so many terms we throw around in the “marketplace of ideas,” (yuck) do we actually know what we’re describing when we say it? What IS Fascism, anyway?

Well, before we can answer what it IS, it makes sense to understand what it WAS. The term “fascism” originated in Italy, with the dictatorial, totalitarian rule of Benito Mussolini–but where did he get the idea, exactly? And what makes his system of governance specifically “fascist?” Following his ousting from the Italian socialist party for his support of Italian involvement in World War I, and a resultant injury that sent him home from said war, Mussolini set out on a new ideological project. This project, aesthetically, drew upon the motifs of popular socialism at the time (of which Mussolini had been well-versed in the years prior to his disillusionment), but disavowed much of the core ideological commitments of Marxian socialism; those being ideas of class-conflict, the revolutionary purpose of the proletarian class, and eventual dissolution of “the nation.“ Instead, the supposed “vanguard” party was, to Mussolini, to be led by citizens of a particular nationalist fervor, rather than a class identity. And, its role was not the eventual dissolution of national identity, but it’s strengthening, typically, through both external and internal loci of violence. Conveniently, this new state of affairs would also result in himself being sat at the head of the proverbial table. This appealed to the reactionary, nationalist sect of post-war Italy (whom would go on to make up much of the “black shirts”), as well as the teetering land-owning class–after all, given that the new path forward offered by Mussolini’s fascism contained an outward hostility to the primary class enemies of the land-owning capitalists (those being the socialists), the Italian bourgeoisie saw an opportunity to stamp out the increasingly-revolutionary spirit that had begun to grip much of post-WWI (and post Russian revolution) Europe.

But what does this mean for us in the “now?” If we take Mussolini’s Italy to be the first truly fascist state, then we can draw some rudimentary ideas of what exactly fascism is: namely, we can imagine fascism to be a sort of violent social reaction to perceived societal upheaval (in this case, by socialist threat) by nationalist, rightist social structures (such as the police, military, etc). Does that describe our current moment here in the U.S? Ehhhh, I’m not so sure, your mileage may vary–not that the current government is not wholly awful, I would never argue to the contrary of that–but, there does not seem to be any sort of leftward pressure on the social fabric of the United States to empower the stakeholders of capital to rev up the fascist-murder machine as they did in post-war Italy. And yet, they certainly seem to be revving, no? Perhaps the conditions of liberal capitalism have eroded to such a point that the societal upheaval that is eliciting a fascistic response in our society is merely capitalism in decay. Who’s to say? Or, maybe those in power are so whacked-out that they perceive “communism” (a meaningless signifier of “other,” to them) everywhere they look; like little Don Quijotes, endlessly crusading against woke, DEI pronoun windmills.

This has been part one of a multi-part series. Next issue, we’ll explore a different approach to the analysis of Fascism in modern society, and take a short trip to Germany.