The Calling Cards of Fascism

Posted on by Llewen 2 Comments

How do you know that what you are looking at is actually fascism? The calling cards, the “tells” for fascism, are very clear:

  • institutionalized and state wide corruption
  • an utter disregard for truth
  • the use of murder and torture to maintain political power
  • military aggression

This is how we know when we look at Russia that we are looking at a fascist state. This is how we know when we look at Donald Trump that what he truly desires for the U.S., is fascism. This is what the U.S. would fall into, if Donald Trump gained the power that he seeks, and it is more and more what the Republican Party in the U.S. is striving for.

Understanding Fascism

Posted on by Llewen Leave a comment

The political centre is missing the mark when they attempt to fight “the enemy” because they don’t understand who the enemy is. The enemy isn’t white supremacy. The enemy is fascism. Those two things can work together, but they are not the same thing. Fascism is more dangerous than white supremacy because it has a much broader appeal. Fascism includes people of all skin colours under it’s tent, all faiths, every demographic, every culture, and every sexual orientation.

That is what moderates do not understand.

The three defining characteristics of fascism are:

  • extreme beliefs not based in truth
  • a desire to replace democracy with dictatorship
  • a belief in the use of force to achieve it’s goals—the “fasces”.

Fascism will also tend to target the “other”, but the “other” can be anyone or anything, it is not limited to brown people, or homosexuals, or even Jews, even though those have all been traditional targets. Those targets can be extremely slippery, difficult to define, and are constantly changing.