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In recent years lots of people have been calling lots of other people fascists.<\/p>\nIn recent years lots of people have been calling lots of other people fascists.<\/p>\n
During the Trump Presidency, for example, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and others decided after careful reflection that Donald Trump qualified as a fascist.\u00a0 Trump himself seemed not to notice, and if he did, he most likely dismissed the label as just another pejorative hurled by his enemies.<\/p>\n
In contemporary Europe important political figures have been called fascists.\u00a0 Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and President Recep Tayyip Ergodan of Turkey sometimes wear the label.\u00a0 In France critics suggest right-wing leader Marine Le Pen is a fascist, but she complicated the labeling by expelling her father Jean-Marie Le Pen from their political party because he was a fascist.<\/p>\n
Fascist-labeling, to coin a term, has been rampant during Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0 Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russian government has long since ceased to be Communist, but in the opinion of some Putin is certainly a fascist.\u00a0 For his part, Putin has stated that the Ukrainian government is dominated by fascists, an allegation Ukrainian President Vodymyr Zelinsky has ridiculed since, as a Jew, he could not possibly be a fascist.<\/p>\n
Many of the allegations that somebody is a fascist amount to calling a person a bully or perhaps an autocrat.\u00a0 But what is fascism?\u00a0 Scholars have said it is a variety of political belief that is militaristic, nationalistic, committed to strong leader, biased against selected minorities, and tightly connected to business and corporate power.\u00a0 Once in power, fascists routinely direct the economy, dominate the media, and exercise wide-ranging social control.<\/p>\n
In their rise to power or attempted rise to power, fascists construct a rebirth narrative regarding their nation.\u00a0 In the past, the fascist story goes, the country had achieved greatness, but then the country was exploited and undermined by certain nefarious groups and forces.\u00a0 Now is the time to strike back and end a decline and decadent malaise.<\/p>\n
The abundant hurling of claims that somebody is a fascist is unfortunate.\u00a0 These accusations tend to obscure the political threat posed by fascism and the troubling mindset it invites.<\/p>\n
If we more carefully focused on actual<\/em> fascism, we could better appreciate its challenge to liberty and equality, two central values of democracy, our purported form of government.\u00a0 Fascists do not treasure liberty, that is, a freedom from oppressive authority.\u00a0 Their marginalization and persecution of minorities, meanwhile, is the opposite of equality.<\/p>\n On a deeper level, fascism calls forward feelings and renderings of experience that are anti-humanistic.\u00a0 These emotions, moods, and memories are of course more subjective than formally articulated values, but they are nevertheless real and culturally patterned.\u00a0 For a fascist, feelings of anger, resentment, xenophobia, and the hatred of scapegoats reign supreme.\u00a0 But wouldn\u2019t we prefer to experience life through an appreciation of beauty, a love of other human beings, and a commitment to the flourishing of humankind?<\/p>\n Overall, we\u2019d be better off reflecting on fascism and the dangers it presents than tossing the word \u201cfascist\u201d at people we find disagreeable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent years lots of people have been calling lots of other people fascists. During the Trump Presidency, for example, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and others decided after careful reflection that Donald Trump qualified as a fascist.\u00a0 Trump himself seemed not to notice, and if he did, he most likely dismissed the label 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