What We Don’t Understand About Fascism
Using the Word Incorrectly Oversimplifies History—And Won't Help Us Address Our Current Political Crisis
At the moment, fascism has to be the most sloppily used term in the American political vocabulary. If you think fascists are buffoonish, racist, misogynist despots, the people who support them are deplorable, and a political leader who incites paramilitary forces against protestors is not much different from Mussolini unleashing his black-shirted thugs against unarmed workers, you may be tempted to call the current president of the U.S. a fascist. But then the president, too, has taken to labelling his enemies fascists. And who wants to argue about semantics in …
