“Fascism” is a word that gets tossed around a lot, these days–but how many know what it really means?
Let’s try to know what we’re talking about. Fascism is a real thing, and here are its basic ingredients.
*A big, strong, highly centralized government. The bigger, the better.
*A small group of business oligarchs, corporate bigwigs, who control a disproportionate share of the unfortunate country’s business.
*A charismatic leader is just about indispensable to any fascist enterprise. Failing that, modern technology may be able to create such a leader. That’d be cool if The Leader didn’t really exist. (Note: In the World War II era, Japan’s fascism got by with a small group of leaders, gathered around Hideki Tojo. There was no Japanese Mussolini.)
*Wide popular support. People forget that fascist governments are usually greeted with enthusiasm by the unsuspecting populace.
*A Great Enemy, greatly feared, from whom The Leader and The Party will protect the people. Try “white supremacists” on for size.
*Now, if you want to refine your fascism into Peronism or Obamaism, simply add a few favored unions into the mix–public employees’ unions, already closely linked to government, are great for this.
Put ’em all together, season with a continuous flood of bad and alarming nooze (fake news will do just fine, if no real crisis is available), and, voila! You’ve got real, historical, 100% pure fascism!
I think the only thing our country’s missing is the charismatic fascist Leader.
First, they will break as many as possible with a failing economy, let the people suffer for long enough to make them desperate, then any leader who has the “fix” (think hitler) and when the people are hungry enough, they will go for almost anything, like “buy your guns and provide funds for food?”
People who scream “fascists” at small-government conservatives usually forget that fascism is about big government. It’s very much like socialism, except that the government doesn’t own the means of production directly but brings large corporations into partnership with itself and regulates nominally privately-owned smaller companies into submission to itself.
Which is why Communist China would more accurately be called Fascist China.
And for sure it is not Joe Biden. FDR was a good fascist. He and Mussolini were great friends and with similar goals. FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court. A younger Senator Biden said that was a bone-headed idea. Today Biden wants to out-fascist FDR.
Fascism is used so much by the left as a term to slander others but without any real understanding.