I believe the fact that a week after the election they're floating a "generals purge" to neutralize the one group of people they think is capable of taking power from them more or less validates the thesis on its own.
One thing that fascist regimes often do is set up institutions parallel to the regime ones that slowly overtake them. The SS became a second Wehrmacht, the Gestapo a second police. Putin's myriad security agencies have various levels of direct loyalty and clearly overlapping briefs. Seeing anything like that - an America Force that's like a gendermarie but responsible directly to the executive without the military leadership - would be a sure sign. ICE could be used for this, in the same way that Ben Gvir now has control of the Israeli police as a parallel military, which had the Magav built in already.
It's hard to tell if Elon's ridiculous DOGE thing is an attempt to set up a parallel structure or just a convenient place to park Elon harmlessly, but if it expands to military/policing structures it's very concerning.
I think the traditional concept of 'propaganda' breaks down in the age of social media. Musk's account or Vance's is propaganda, but is the algorithm itself? Is the platform? It still has plenty of dissenting voices but they're disfavoured through technology. Most communication is users sharing what they see in a way that didn't have precedent.
They certainly have it perform the function of propaganda, but it does so in a very modern way. You can't really have a Gleichschaltung or a Völkischer Beobachter in the age of Twitter, and even our communication is moving to the far more walled-off Discord or Telegram.
I think we have a few organs that are comparable to them, like Newsmax, ONAN and Fox is larger but there are outlets in its network that function to direct their supporters on how to think about political issues. They don’t reach the entire or majority of the constituency subscribing to Trumpism, but they seem important and to function similarly.
But I think this whole convo is looking for forms that are too defined. Why couldn’t propaganda be conducted in more or less of an open forum if it meets the most basic definition of a sustained concerted effort to capture and distort the political discourse into a form that reliably favors one party?
The reference to Ben Gvir made me think of "constitutional sheriffs" - elected county officials -in the US. Their whole deal, as I understand it, is that they believe they have the right to ignore federal laws. Since that only applies to laws they don't like, they'd have no problem acting as an arm of Trump's vengeance.
Don't forget the Space Force, which Trump spun off from the Air Force during his first admin. No doubt he handed out many promotions in the process of creating that service, and I'm sure the promoted officers have feelings of personal gratitude that could be leveraged.
Also, the Space Force is led by ex-USAF personnel, and the USAF has had a significant far-right presence in its officer corps since the days of LeMay. (The numerous Air Force Academy scandals strongly suggest that continues to the present day.)
If I wanted to get extra tinfoil I could speculate that the upper officer ranks of the Space Force were specifically selected for their political leanings in order to create a cadre of loyal officers that could be called upon if needed.
Are mobs/paramilitaries that necessary for fascism? They were a tool to gain power but then got promptly purged. If Americans give power to fascists voluntarily and without coercion, what's the point of paramilitaries then — just a nuisance, federal bureaucracy is more effective.
Yes, and I wonder to what degree the altered terrain for propaganda (X, public "voices" generated by bots from outside the US public, etc.) makes mobs and paramilitaries a lot less relevant to 21st fascism. Mobs might not be needed if you can have virtual events that do the same work of making the populace feel widespread sense of disorder ("they're eating the cats, their eating the dogs") that generates a desire for state crackdowns among some, and intimidates those who want to dissent.
It depends on the willingness of Blue states and Blue cities to go along with outlandish commands. Miller's talking about using National Guard troops from Red states if New York or California don't roll over for deportations. I could see that accompanied by Red Hats turning their F150s into technicals to carry out pogroms.
And after reading Pishko's book on constitutional sheriffs, I would point out that the line between a sheriff department and a paramilitary group is pretty thin.
Does capital's capitulation or alliance with a reactionary party / leader fit into the criteria here? All the billionaires dutifully falling in line behind the great leader hoping their wealth will insulate them from any negative downstream effects? The Silicon Valley guys were furious that the FTC was actually enforcing antitrust law again and preventing them from forming early stage monopolies.
And to piggyback onto this: the use of the state to reward “loyal” firms and punish “disloyal” ones. The universal tariff is going to provide ample opportunity for this type of corrupt “state-controlled” capitalism.
Isn't capital capitulation and allying with whoever is in power simply evidence that it is still alive? It says more about capital than politics. In fact, doesn't everyone to some degree just fall in line with whoever they think is in power? What is special about capital? Seems to me they just follow the wind.
I think this is a possibility, too. It's a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem. Although when fascists come to power it is always with at least the consent and usually the support of capital. In Weimar Germany, much of the capitalist class supported the Nazis in part in opposition to the unions and more explicitly socialist political parties. Of course, once the rest saw which way the winds were blowing, most fell in line (a la Bezos although that may be giving Bezos too much credit), so as not to make an enemy of Hitler. And once they were in power there wasn't a major industry that was led by people who at least pledged loyalty to the Fuhrer.
Musk and the techbros and the rest of the capitalist didn't just fall in line with Trump this time around, though, they dumped about a trillion dollars into the election process. I think it was mostly to get Lina Kahn off their backs and maybe tax cuts, but they paid for the other impacts of Trump's election as well.
Another indicator: an aggressive strategy of Gleichschaltung targeted at institutions of higher education. A super-charged version of what we are already seeing at public universities in red states (anti CRT, anti DEI, state monitoring of the curriculum, etc.) but applied broadly at the national level by the federal government, including to private institutions.
I would add a "working towards the Fuhrer" prediction, where sheriffs and red state politicians start implementing fascist policies without explicit direction from Trump.
To what extent do you view Erdogan/Orban type regimes as having "solved" some of the tension points between historical fascism and the particulars of the modern world that you raise in this piece?
I think a lot of the differences between 20th century fascism and the modern one can be attributed to the different starting condition — before it came to the countries badly wounded by wars while today it's coming to the countries arguably at the peak of their historical prosperity — hence the general docility.
Modern democracies of Western vs Eastern Europe (not even talking about ancient Athens) came to being under quite different circumstances and in the different epochs and yet there is not much contention there.
Mostly I’ll be looking at how, if at all, the population responds to Trump’s reconfiguring of the state (there will be illegal orders) and in turn how the police and military respond to the population’s response. If there is compliance and people are gunned down in the street on executive orders, it’s a no-brainer. In the case of mass protest, I think this scenario is fairly likely. If, on the other hand, citizens just stay home, it may be a kind of Orbanian resolution, as someone mentioned, with a sort of pseudo-democratic authoritarian stasis. A fully coercive state with no functional democratic outlets or effective expression but, yes, still fascist.
Promised pardoning of convicted January 6 offenders will liberate top leadership of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and could be a step toward legitimizing paramilitaries
Due to the earlier Papen coup against the Prussian government, the key Prussian ministries had become part of the Reich government. This allowed Hitler to appoint Göring as the Interior Minister there, giving him control over the Prussian State Police, a massive professional power center. With this tool, Hitler had a legal arm to go after perceived enemies almost immediately after gaining power, and even before even the Reichstag fire (I think).
In our modern scenario could this possibly play out with Sheriffs or even governors who are not obviously directly appointed but through fealty, or perhaps having gotten elected through Trump’s political support, essentially pledge their state police, national guards, etc., to Trump’s projects of squashing any type of organized peaceful dissent or unrest challenges in their states?
Maybe it’s a stretch or too close to one of yours above, but it struck me as a more nuanced type of control over the monopoly of violence than what he may do with federal resources.
This state security apparatus would not only go after dissent but other targets of the regime like immigrants, generals, judges, Intel agencies, prosecutors, doctors (abortions, gender reassignment), etc. State AGs and local DAs could wreak a TON of havoc without explicit direction from Trump - getting so many opponents tied up with the justice system that it reinforces the notion of a "swamp" that must be drained but whose bottom cannot be found.
I think your paragraph on the paramilitaries encapsulates and demonstrates the effective use of auxiliary hypotheses. Some bullet points may be tweaked or modified, or even fall away, while new ones will be added. It’s a good approach as we venture into the unknown.
In terms of paramilitaries/street violence. We already had that and maybe it's just in the rear view mirror after 1/6, BLM 2020? So much of the purpose of the 20th century SA-men and the like was contesting communists on the streets. There's less need of that in this context and thus less brownshirting (at the moment.) The Nazis and Fascists got power not through coups but playing ball in the political systems of their times. Violence was key to that of course but for me Trump's win has actually persuaded me more of the f-thesis especially considering he has only intensified his commitments to using state violence against internal enemies.
Nice piece, but I would have preferred a discussion with or before today’s post, discussing why it matters whether Trump (and his party) are fascist. As opposed to, you know, focusing on what they do whatever they are.
If I sound dismissive of the issue of whether Donny’s a fascist, I don’t mean that. Just that it feels, without more, *maybe* besides the point.
As for the alt-Republican, neoliberalism-supporting, corrupt post-Clinton DNC: they’re not our ally. Their talk is all empty talk. (Buzzing in my head is Biden’s dismissive responses when the masses complained about inflation. An extractive economy can look great even as it fails a huge percentage of the populace.)
And back to fascism: if the US is first now becoming a fascist state, what was it during the past five decades of supporting an extractive economic system and a few decades of gerrymandering and serial attacks on voting?
This is a good list of possible predictions. I'd add something about kleptocracy. While it's in no way unique to fascism. it's always a part of fascism, and fascist kleptocracy includes individuals looting the wealth and possessions of a targeted minority, which is a specific form of thievery that would to me lean in the fascism direction.
I would look for a decrease in even lip-service given to the notion of loyalty to the Constitution and the law being distinguishable from loyalty to the person occupying the office of the Presidency.
Having spent the past 20 minutes or so perusing a Wikipedia entry titled "List of fascist movements" it appears to me that one of the defining characteristics of Fascism is "belonging to the first half of the 20th Century." The Franco regime survived until mid-second-half when SNL spent months assuring us that he was "still dead" making one wonder whether we were ever actually fighting fascism but rather fighting those who chose to attack us. Is fascism a legitimate category or just a version of authoritarianism characteristic of the historical span between the end of WWI and the end of WWII. Perhaps it is best to speak of modern forms of wannabe authoritarianism as analogous to Fascism and have a good healthy argument over how well the analogy holds up. You won't have to wait long for the answer. The initial cabinet nominations are going to be unacceptable to the few remaining sane Republican members of the Senate so the tactics that Trump might use to get his nominations approved, should be all the answer that you need. It's not how he treats his enemies but how he treats his friends that matters.
I’d always thought fascism emerged in the 20th century because it requires mass media, which makes nation-scale cults of personality possible.
It may be that the quirks of media today versus are so different from then that “fascism” is no longer an appropriate term. But I would take the other side of that argument. Just put a neo- in front of it and call it a day
I believe the fact that a week after the election they're floating a "generals purge" to neutralize the one group of people they think is capable of taking power from them more or less validates the thesis on its own.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-draft-executive-order-would-create-board-to-purge-generals-7ebaa606?st=kFHtez&reflink=article_copyURL_share
One thing that fascist regimes often do is set up institutions parallel to the regime ones that slowly overtake them. The SS became a second Wehrmacht, the Gestapo a second police. Putin's myriad security agencies have various levels of direct loyalty and clearly overlapping briefs. Seeing anything like that - an America Force that's like a gendermarie but responsible directly to the executive without the military leadership - would be a sure sign. ICE could be used for this, in the same way that Ben Gvir now has control of the Israeli police as a parallel military, which had the Magav built in already.
It's hard to tell if Elon's ridiculous DOGE thing is an attempt to set up a parallel structure or just a convenient place to park Elon harmlessly, but if it expands to military/policing structures it's very concerning.
Very interesting. Also is X a regime propaganda tool?
Yes, de facto. It’s one of the organs of Trumpism.
I think the traditional concept of 'propaganda' breaks down in the age of social media. Musk's account or Vance's is propaganda, but is the algorithm itself? Is the platform? It still has plenty of dissenting voices but they're disfavoured through technology. Most communication is users sharing what they see in a way that didn't have precedent.
They certainly have it perform the function of propaganda, but it does so in a very modern way. You can't really have a Gleichschaltung or a Völkischer Beobachter in the age of Twitter, and even our communication is moving to the far more walled-off Discord or Telegram.
I think we have a few organs that are comparable to them, like Newsmax, ONAN and Fox is larger but there are outlets in its network that function to direct their supporters on how to think about political issues. They don’t reach the entire or majority of the constituency subscribing to Trumpism, but they seem important and to function similarly.
But I think this whole convo is looking for forms that are too defined. Why couldn’t propaganda be conducted in more or less of an open forum if it meets the most basic definition of a sustained concerted effort to capture and distort the political discourse into a form that reliably favors one party?
The Guardian obviously thinks so...check out its reasons for no longer posting on X.
The reference to Ben Gvir made me think of "constitutional sheriffs" - elected county officials -in the US. Their whole deal, as I understand it, is that they believe they have the right to ignore federal laws. Since that only applies to laws they don't like, they'd have no problem acting as an arm of Trump's vengeance.
I think there are already these institutions in place - 3%ers, Constitutional Sherriffs, etc. Claremont and Heritage themselves.
let's not leave out the Sovereign Citizens.
Don't forget the Space Force, which Trump spun off from the Air Force during his first admin. No doubt he handed out many promotions in the process of creating that service, and I'm sure the promoted officers have feelings of personal gratitude that could be leveraged.
Also, the Space Force is led by ex-USAF personnel, and the USAF has had a significant far-right presence in its officer corps since the days of LeMay. (The numerous Air Force Academy scandals strongly suggest that continues to the present day.)
If I wanted to get extra tinfoil I could speculate that the upper officer ranks of the Space Force were specifically selected for their political leanings in order to create a cadre of loyal officers that could be called upon if needed.
sounds right to me.
Are mobs/paramilitaries that necessary for fascism? They were a tool to gain power but then got promptly purged. If Americans give power to fascists voluntarily and without coercion, what's the point of paramilitaries then — just a nuisance, federal bureaucracy is more effective.
yeah this is a good point
Yes, and I wonder to what degree the altered terrain for propaganda (X, public "voices" generated by bots from outside the US public, etc.) makes mobs and paramilitaries a lot less relevant to 21st fascism. Mobs might not be needed if you can have virtual events that do the same work of making the populace feel widespread sense of disorder ("they're eating the cats, their eating the dogs") that generates a desire for state crackdowns among some, and intimidates those who want to dissent.
Also easier for critics to deflect by claiming “it’s not real, go touch grass”
It depends on the willingness of Blue states and Blue cities to go along with outlandish commands. Miller's talking about using National Guard troops from Red states if New York or California don't roll over for deportations. I could see that accompanied by Red Hats turning their F150s into technicals to carry out pogroms.
And after reading Pishko's book on constitutional sheriffs, I would point out that the line between a sheriff department and a paramilitary group is pretty thin.
Does capital's capitulation or alliance with a reactionary party / leader fit into the criteria here? All the billionaires dutifully falling in line behind the great leader hoping their wealth will insulate them from any negative downstream effects? The Silicon Valley guys were furious that the FTC was actually enforcing antitrust law again and preventing them from forming early stage monopolies.
Yeah I should include more on this
And to piggyback onto this: the use of the state to reward “loyal” firms and punish “disloyal” ones. The universal tariff is going to provide ample opportunity for this type of corrupt “state-controlled” capitalism.
Isn't capital capitulation and allying with whoever is in power simply evidence that it is still alive? It says more about capital than politics. In fact, doesn't everyone to some degree just fall in line with whoever they think is in power? What is special about capital? Seems to me they just follow the wind.
I think this is a possibility, too. It's a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem. Although when fascists come to power it is always with at least the consent and usually the support of capital. In Weimar Germany, much of the capitalist class supported the Nazis in part in opposition to the unions and more explicitly socialist political parties. Of course, once the rest saw which way the winds were blowing, most fell in line (a la Bezos although that may be giving Bezos too much credit), so as not to make an enemy of Hitler. And once they were in power there wasn't a major industry that was led by people who at least pledged loyalty to the Fuhrer.
Musk and the techbros and the rest of the capitalist didn't just fall in line with Trump this time around, though, they dumped about a trillion dollars into the election process. I think it was mostly to get Lina Kahn off their backs and maybe tax cuts, but they paid for the other impacts of Trump's election as well.
Another indicator: an aggressive strategy of Gleichschaltung targeted at institutions of higher education. A super-charged version of what we are already seeing at public universities in red states (anti CRT, anti DEI, state monitoring of the curriculum, etc.) but applied broadly at the national level by the federal government, including to private institutions.
I would add a "working towards the Fuhrer" prediction, where sheriffs and red state politicians start implementing fascist policies without explicit direction from Trump.
To what extent do you view Erdogan/Orban type regimes as having "solved" some of the tension points between historical fascism and the particulars of the modern world that you raise in this piece?
That's a really interesting question.
I think a lot of the differences between 20th century fascism and the modern one can be attributed to the different starting condition — before it came to the countries badly wounded by wars while today it's coming to the countries arguably at the peak of their historical prosperity — hence the general docility.
some would say that makes it not fascism, but sure
Modern democracies of Western vs Eastern Europe (not even talking about ancient Athens) came to being under quite different circumstances and in the different epochs and yet there is not much contention there.
Mostly I’ll be looking at how, if at all, the population responds to Trump’s reconfiguring of the state (there will be illegal orders) and in turn how the police and military respond to the population’s response. If there is compliance and people are gunned down in the street on executive orders, it’s a no-brainer. In the case of mass protest, I think this scenario is fairly likely. If, on the other hand, citizens just stay home, it may be a kind of Orbanian resolution, as someone mentioned, with a sort of pseudo-democratic authoritarian stasis. A fully coercive state with no functional democratic outlets or effective expression but, yes, still fascist.
Promised pardoning of convicted January 6 offenders will liberate top leadership of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and could be a step toward legitimizing paramilitaries
Mike Pence has a lot of reason to be afraid, even if virtually no on here cares about him.
Due to the earlier Papen coup against the Prussian government, the key Prussian ministries had become part of the Reich government. This allowed Hitler to appoint Göring as the Interior Minister there, giving him control over the Prussian State Police, a massive professional power center. With this tool, Hitler had a legal arm to go after perceived enemies almost immediately after gaining power, and even before even the Reichstag fire (I think).
In our modern scenario could this possibly play out with Sheriffs or even governors who are not obviously directly appointed but through fealty, or perhaps having gotten elected through Trump’s political support, essentially pledge their state police, national guards, etc., to Trump’s projects of squashing any type of organized peaceful dissent or unrest challenges in their states?
Maybe it’s a stretch or too close to one of yours above, but it struck me as a more nuanced type of control over the monopoly of violence than what he may do with federal resources.
This state security apparatus would not only go after dissent but other targets of the regime like immigrants, generals, judges, Intel agencies, prosecutors, doctors (abortions, gender reassignment), etc. State AGs and local DAs could wreak a TON of havoc without explicit direction from Trump - getting so many opponents tied up with the justice system that it reinforces the notion of a "swamp" that must be drained but whose bottom cannot be found.
I think your paragraph on the paramilitaries encapsulates and demonstrates the effective use of auxiliary hypotheses. Some bullet points may be tweaked or modified, or even fall away, while new ones will be added. It’s a good approach as we venture into the unknown.
In terms of paramilitaries/street violence. We already had that and maybe it's just in the rear view mirror after 1/6, BLM 2020? So much of the purpose of the 20th century SA-men and the like was contesting communists on the streets. There's less need of that in this context and thus less brownshirting (at the moment.) The Nazis and Fascists got power not through coups but playing ball in the political systems of their times. Violence was key to that of course but for me Trump's win has actually persuaded me more of the f-thesis especially considering he has only intensified his commitments to using state violence against internal enemies.
Nice piece, but I would have preferred a discussion with or before today’s post, discussing why it matters whether Trump (and his party) are fascist. As opposed to, you know, focusing on what they do whatever they are.
If I sound dismissive of the issue of whether Donny’s a fascist, I don’t mean that. Just that it feels, without more, *maybe* besides the point.
As for the alt-Republican, neoliberalism-supporting, corrupt post-Clinton DNC: they’re not our ally. Their talk is all empty talk. (Buzzing in my head is Biden’s dismissive responses when the masses complained about inflation. An extractive economy can look great even as it fails a huge percentage of the populace.)
And back to fascism: if the US is first now becoming a fascist state, what was it during the past five decades of supporting an extractive economic system and a few decades of gerrymandering and serial attacks on voting?
as I said, it's a predictive framework
This is a good list of possible predictions. I'd add something about kleptocracy. While it's in no way unique to fascism. it's always a part of fascism, and fascist kleptocracy includes individuals looting the wealth and possessions of a targeted minority, which is a specific form of thievery that would to me lean in the fascism direction.
I would look for a decrease in even lip-service given to the notion of loyalty to the Constitution and the law being distinguishable from loyalty to the person occupying the office of the Presidency.
Having spent the past 20 minutes or so perusing a Wikipedia entry titled "List of fascist movements" it appears to me that one of the defining characteristics of Fascism is "belonging to the first half of the 20th Century." The Franco regime survived until mid-second-half when SNL spent months assuring us that he was "still dead" making one wonder whether we were ever actually fighting fascism but rather fighting those who chose to attack us. Is fascism a legitimate category or just a version of authoritarianism characteristic of the historical span between the end of WWI and the end of WWII. Perhaps it is best to speak of modern forms of wannabe authoritarianism as analogous to Fascism and have a good healthy argument over how well the analogy holds up. You won't have to wait long for the answer. The initial cabinet nominations are going to be unacceptable to the few remaining sane Republican members of the Senate so the tactics that Trump might use to get his nominations approved, should be all the answer that you need. It's not how he treats his enemies but how he treats his friends that matters.
Interesting.
I’d always thought fascism emerged in the 20th century because it requires mass media, which makes nation-scale cults of personality possible.
It may be that the quirks of media today versus are so different from then that “fascism” is no longer an appropriate term. But I would take the other side of that argument. Just put a neo- in front of it and call it a day
Neofascism as a term could make sense. I have wanted a way to distinguish more recent digital fascism from "classic" 20th century mass media fascism.