It was but it has now turned more inwards because material conditions in the West are getting worse. Plus I feel like fascist dare to be more out in the open in recent years. At least in Western Europe.
"Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary and chovinistic elements of finance capital" german fascism being the most reactionary version of it.
Under this definition, if we look at US and Europa policies as a whole (internal+foreign) we can definitely conclude they are fascist. Only if we separate internal policy from foreign policy amd evaluate them as distinct things can we make a case that these nations are not yet fascist.
Already happening. There are multiple far right militias emerging in Western Europe already. They do combat training and are developing a network that covers multiple countries, often attending eachothers actions. They receive funding from rich people and I suspect the CIA and openly share their visions of a white Europe.
Noticeable groups are Schild en Vrienden (an offspring of Vlaams Belang) from Belgium, Voorpost from BE and NL, Geuzenbond from NL and various German groups who frequently get together. To this day I have yet to see left wing groups like this emerging. I have expressed my concern on this topic to the party on multiple occasions without a result.
And then we have the standard far right parties who keep increasing in popularity, with the regular libs seeing it as a chance to move to the right.
the US has always been fascist toward indigenous and black people
I'd argue that some European countries are already fascist (e.g. France, based on its anti-Muslim laws and its militarized police brutalizing protestors, etc.)
Colonialism isn’t fascism on its own. No doubt its no less bad. Fascism is when a falling empire puts the violence of colonialism on its own citizens and neighbors, rather than overseas.
As an institutional phenomenon, neofascism differs from its predecessor in how it strongly favours neoimperialism over traditional imperialism: financial solutions over military ones (when possible), and formally independent states nevertheless depending heavily on their neoimperial masters. The original Fascist empires practised this as well, but to a smaller extent; the lack of nuclear weapons made classical military conquests and outright annexations easier.
The dissipation of the pseudodemocracy may be slower, too, but otherwise we can expect to see a great deal of what we saw with Fascism. Presently Rome, for example, is aggressing against the trade unions, though it has not yet annihilated them. Ukraine’s war on workers’ rights has been more successful, but even then it has not finished the job of defeating the proletariat quite yet. Should these ultranationalist régimes replace the trade unions with a bourgeois apologist organization, we’ll know that neofascism has become firmly established.
Should these ultranationalist régimes replace the trade unions with a bourgeois apologist organization, we’ll know that neofascism has become firmly established.
solidarność in Poland is basically that. A "union" that scabs other unions, and its political activity is supporting PiS, defending priest pedophiles etc. Even their "union" activity looks more like something between the usual yellow union and church rosary circle.
I don't think we will ever see new flags, new names for armes forces, new constitutions etc ... The laws and measures to repress workers and minorities are casually creeping in with no serious resistance.
This precise lack of resistance is, in my opinion, mostly allowed by the deep convictions that western institutions have the democratic potential to reform if upheld correctly by the right people. So basically, a regime change is less appealing to the bourgeoisie, because the old institutions have the power of pacifying the potential revolutionaries.
(Armchair philosophy LARPing in 3.. 2... 1..) I'd say that the West is currently is in a stage of boring fascism. We don't even have the aesthetics of evil, normality is just more and more brutal but nothing changes because brutality is more and more normalised
In Italy the post-fascist government is gifting us a lot of humourous memes for their inability to tackle even the smallest of the country's problems. It's like going to a comedy show without even paying the ticket.
They made a law allowing "alias careers" (Idk if that's the term in Angloland, they are a way for transgender professors and students to change their name w/o changing them on documents) and gender neutral bathrooms (she's prepping her own grave) let's say the day I woke up and read that was a confusing one.
Not all that different to today. More laws against criticising the fascists. Attempts at a more centrally controlled, federalised EU. Poverty rife and state shifting blame to immigrants etc.
At least that's in Europe. The US is much further along, it's easy to see mass violence approaching civil war. Are milita's on the increase there? I wouldn't be surprised if they were.
At least that’s in Europe. The US is much further along, it’s easy to see mass violence approaching civil war. Are milita’s on the increase there? I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
fascism never went away. Obvious examples are ex-communist states like the Baltics and Ukraine which have been turned into racist banana republics by intense "decommunization" and the revival of pro-nazi rhetoric of the second WW.
Ofcourse with the help of their Western allies.
all of the infrastructural manifestations of fascism are here: sweeping police state (bodily autonomy, crackdowns on anti-zionism), paramilitary infiltration (3 percenters, proud boys), dehumanization of the other (queer, immigrant, muslim, arab, jews especially anti-zionist ones), etc. is already here.
the last things left are explicit bans on proletarian organizations (unions, socialist parties) and sweeping restrictions on information (internet monitoring & censorship, especially of sexuality and anti-imperialism). oh wait, they’re already getting started on those (new york & antizionist social media, kosa/restrict, porn bans). fuck
It's already here in America and it takes three forms, largely based on aesthetics, geography, and class status. It's simply not coherent and it doesn't need to be. The state doesn't feel threatened. Nothing exists in America right now for a fascist response to be necessary. Standard imperialist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is working out just fine for them, but there are three political aesthetics right now that could very well morph into more direct fascist movements when the time comes:
There's the neoliberals, who take an aesthetic of respectability. They by and large are the chosen ideological faction of the bourgeoisie right now, because they've been good at extracting the most wealth from impoverished countries. The game is starting to wobble though with the fall of profit margins and how much of their domestic wealth comes from real estate scams sitting on top of more elaborate real estate scams.
There are the outright fascists, the boorish racists who aren't afraid to hide their racism behind platitudes. They're a mixed bag of internet influencers, evangelicals, white nationalists, confused conspiracy theorists, and jet ski dealership owners. Domestic petite bourgeoisie who vaguely understand the game is stacked against them in the form of finance, real estate, and investment. But they're so up their own ass they figure this is the work of a nefarious cabal of Jews or blue haired communists come to put gay drugs in the water. They don't recognize the material circumstances since their primary goal is protecting white imperialist privilege. This contingent has no idea who they are and lack coherent goals beyond inflicting misery. They don't recognize themselves in the mirror as fascists. They see themselves as playing a game on screens or fans of a sport. Only their most deranged actually try anything, often with prodding from federal agents.
The other group are right wing libertarians. They're the logical conclusion of American whiteness. Their ideology at its core is American settler pride and a vestigial desire to be a homesteader out in the prairie with land stolen from natives. It's a desire to be a little feudal prince with no social responsibility, and the only praxis this becomes is a warped, wobbly attempt at fascism with a coat of annoying contrarian pseudo-intellectualism. It's on the decline because it never manifested its goals and the capitalists have mostly come to an agreement with neoliberalism, which delivers the same thing but more efficiently.
A coherent fascist movement is only going to arise once a successful socialist movement exists as its contrary. That's how it always works. Fascism is socialism's shadow, it's capitalism's immune system.
The biggest change will be state approval of the xenophobia and homophibia.
Those elements have always been there, lowkey culturally normal but outwardly taboo (hence the right complaining that 'wokeness' is oppressing them).
But you can bet the fascists are carefully observing how the world is reacting to events in Gaza, and incidents like Suella Braverman getting sacked, as indicators of the change in what they can get away with.