Jason Stanley’s book on How Fascism Works sets out various tactics politicians use to divide people and oppress those at the lower rungs of society. It serves as a follow-up to his 2016 book How Propaganda Works.  This new work is a powerfully written work, using plenty of examples of fascist politics around the world, with an emphasis on the USA and the politics of the Republican Party. There are 10 main chapters, setting out the ways that fascism creates its own mythology about the differences between people and how society needs to return to a time of former glory. They fight experts and academics to create their own truth, and claim that it is the dominant group that is the victims, that strict law enforcement is vital to the health of the state and the safety of the people. Stanley further emphasizes that the fascist state prizes traditional sex roles and traditional sexuality, and punishes deviation. Finally, Stanley sets out the push to rob working people of their rights, making them tools for the use for the state. This involves taking away welfare and worker protections, and outlawing labor unions.

Stanley never says explicitly that the Republican regime under Trump is a fascist state, but he does point out how similar their approaches are to fascist tactics. There is an open question to what extent the US and other countries have anything approaching a true democracy in which the government reflects the informed wishes of the voters, but obviously the US is far from being a dictatorship in the ways that the best known fascist states were.

One central question is about what purpose is served by labeling the politics of the Trump government as fascist. When I was growing up in 1980s in the UK, protestors against Margaret Thatcher’s government in their fights with the unions often called them fascists, and it had shock value.  We see similar rhetoric against the current US government, and it certainly alarming to think that US, the long standing symbol of liberty, is actually the opposite. It heightens our sensitivity to the problems of the policies of the Trump government.

But there are possible doubts about whether this label is really accurate or useful. Mussolini in defining fascism wrote

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage..

…For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. [Source]

It isn’t clear to what extent the current US government is committed to dismantling democracy or expanding its borders.  Other historians have defined fascism differently, and there is debate over the best definition. Dominic Green summarizes some of the problems of using the word “Fascism” in a 2016 article for the Atlantic.

So it may be better to remember what we see wrong about the ideology of discrimination that lay behind the current Republican agenda, rather than rely on labels that are not well defined and do not apply very clearly. Stanley certainly spells the wrongs in straightforward terms, making it clear how problematic it is, at the same time as using the label of “fascist.” How Fascism Works really highlights how values of equality, acceptance, liberty and dignity are under threat in many countries in the western world, and makes for alarming reading.

© 2018 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.