Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2026 7:44 am
We've operated under the assumption that fascism was over and done with so it snuck up on us. It seems safer to operate under the assumption that fascism is always kind of lurking there.
Well, I think we have to be clear-eyed about what causes fascism, and what erodes it.
Paxton's book, though now no longer new, is a good place to start.
It turns out that it's really hard to get people into fascism when prosperity is visibly rising— as in the
Trente Glorieuses. The lack of any real popular resistance in China in the 1990–2020 period is similar. Of course, it's also hard to keep up such growth.
The rise of fascism is overdetermined— there are a bunch of reasons, I'll note a few more below— but one of them is simply the dangerous
end of such growth periods. If incomes are not going up decade on decade... people notice. So it's not even a matter of actual hardship; a slowdown will do it.
rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2026 6:12 am
Humans naturally share resources. In times of hardship, they become more culturally and economically conservative.
Or they don't. In 1917 there was extraordinary hardship in Russia, and the result was a communist revolution.
It's also been known for a long time— Kropotkin talks about this— that people become conservative when they get
more prosperous. They stop seeing hardship as a universal problem requiring universal effort and egalitarian outcomes. They themselves are doing better, so they see no need for radical change, and even start to resent other people catching up to them.
Capitalism works through a penny pinching technique called "austerity" that's not necessary for physical reasons, only for reasons generated by rules of the game that were invented by humans.
That was absolutely not the case before, say, the 1950s. At any point in the previous 4000 years, you could lop off the rulers' heads, distribute all their wealth, and everyone would still be poor.
We've finally reached the point where a median global income is actually comfortable. Sadly the plutocrats are stronger rather than weaker.
Ares Land wrote:A few weeks ago, in another thread, I compared a number of indicators between 2000 and 2025. My point was that 2025 is disappointing, but you can't seriously argue there is more hardship and scarcity than in 2000. In fact the poverty rate is about the same. So why was MAGA a thing in 2025 and not in 2000?
If you want to count Gingrich and Bush as fascist, fine. Let's check France or Germany instead.
You'll find a huge rise in the popularity of fascism; In the meantime, yes, as in the US, the economy is disappointing, but we can't speak of hardship or scarcity. Not to say that 2025 was ideal, but neither was 2000 and yet the fascist vote was weaker back then.
Yeah, "hardship", even as a relative term, is not very explanatory. There are other factors in the US:
* A concerted effort to change from liberalism to plutocracy. I've been writing about this for literally decades. The strange bit is that it's not the most successful businesses that led this change. Successful businesses don't need to upend the system. It was mid-tier businessmen and politicians who felt that regulation, taxes, and redistribution made them less successful than they wanted.
* Racism. Turns out this wasn't dead either. Also turns out that Europeans aren't as immune to this as they thought.
* The culture wars got out of hand. The elite can't win elections on its own, it needs allies. Early-20C fascism provided a mass movement, but that is no longer a useful model. But it's just as useful to keep a third of the population incensed about race, feminism, hippies, colleges, immigrants, evolution, sexual liberation, trans people, etc. But now we have leaders who actually believe the crap they were feeding the proles.
* The invention of a right-wing media bubble, and later, social media that funneled people into it. There was less polarization when everybody watched the same three network news shows.
* The rise of evangelicalism in the 1980s or so. At one point they claimed 30% of the population— it's closer to 10% now. Though not all were right-wing, they nurtured the anti-government, anti-science mindset of the current fascists. It didn't hurt that they encouraged absolutism in belief, too.
* The decline of the coalition system in US political parties. Each party once had liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. Now they're sorted out so the rightmost Democrat is more leftist than the leftmost Republican.
* Newt Gingrich and allies. They didn't seem quite fascist in 1995, but they pioneered the scorched-earth tactics of Republicans since then: push out moderates, attack bipartisan conventions, deny the legitimacy of the opposition party.
* Fear of demographics. The Southern Strategy had chopped off the faction— Southern whites— that gave the Democrats ascendancy for 40 years. But minorities and women were rising in population and influence. The nastiness of 2000s conservatives comes out of terror: they feel that if they don't act
now, they won't have a chance again.
* The need to scam. Who buys ads in conservative media? People selling stuff no one really needs. Their job gets easier if the readers are kept in a state of fear and distrust of the establishment.
* Contingent, unpredictable stuff. Which mostly means Trump. Republicans do best with an elite guy who doesn't sound like an elite. His 2016 performance was a master class in propaganda: his very outrageousness dominated the news cycle. It's hard to imagine anyone else really filling his clown shoes.
* Finally, to be honest, a narrowing of vision among Democrats. The only improvement that they really united around was healthcare. Which is essential, but far from enough. A good contrast is what Mamdani is doing in New York: to wit,
a lot of things of immediate benefit to people.
This is off the top of my head, I'm sure it's not complete.
Also, assuming this is created by capitalism, how socialist do you have to be? Why do we see the same phenomenon in Western European countries where institutions are far more likely to be run on socialist lines? Or, in other words, why doesn't socialized healthcare make a difference? It certainly does relieve economical hardship!
That's an excellent question. You would be better equipped than me to examine why fascism appeals to many French people.
Unforunately, I don't think socialism prevents fascism, or is even incompatible with it. There's always been some churn between extremist parties: when you want to throw everything out, the throwing-out part becomes more important than the creating a better world part. And it's depressingly easy to imagine actual socialists embracing anti-immigration racism, sexism, dislike of science, and championing of "culture". (I mean, we don't have to just imagine it, we have tankies echoing fascist talking points.)
