Is Fascism a Real Concern in America—or Just a Lazy Insult?

[rangerrebew]

Is Fascism a Real Concern in America—or Just a Lazy Insult?
October 1, 2025 by Dave Chamberlin

Some Americans deploy the word fascist like a verbal flash-bang—stun first, define later. If the label means “policies I hate,” then everyone’s a fascist by noon. If it means a specific, historically grounded phenomenon, the conversation gets harder—and more useful. This piece takes the serious route: define fascism using respected scholarship, then stack that definition against U.S. government actions since 2000. Where the shoe fits, I’ll say so. Where it doesn’t, I’ll say that too.

What Scholars Actually Mean by “Fascism”
There isn’t a single, one-sentence definition, but the field clusters around a few anchors:

Paxton’s stages and behaviors. Robert Paxton treats fascism as a process that evolves from movement to power to radicalization, marked by mass-based nationalism, hostility to liberal norms, a cult of violence/redemption, and collaboration with conservative elites [1].

Griffin’s “palingenetic ultranationalism.” Roger Griffin distills the ideological core to a myth of national rebirth (palingenesis) through revolutionary ultranationalism—think phoenix-nation rising after cleansing decay [2].
Eco’s “Ur-Fascism” checklist. Umberto Eco catalogs recurring traits—cult of tradition, anti-intellectualism, fear of difference, obsession with order, and the primacy of action over thought [3].

These frameworks converge on a regime type that fuses mass mobilization, ultranational myth, and authoritarian power, often backed by security services and compliant elites, while dismantling pluralism and the rule of law.

https://havokjournal.com/nation/is-fascism-a-real-concern-in-america-or-just-a-lazy-insult/

[Kamaji]

Fascism, like always, is a concern from the left

[Free Vulcan]

As the woke Left uses it, it is a dog whistle for heretic at anyone who isn't pavolovian for the ideology.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Lazy insult ... to deflect from people asking liberals questions like, 'What's so great about you?', 'What are you doing for me?', or 'What so great about what you're selling?'

All Government trends towards authoritarianism.  Some slow simmer, others roiling boil.  Who wouldn't want to be the king?

[The_Reader_David]

Mussolini had a definition:  fascism is the union of corporate and state power.

By that definition, it's definitely a concern, as we have two fascist parties, one with a noisy, influential cultural Marxist wing, the other with a small classical liberal wing, but both having an overwhelming majority of their officeholders deeply in love with the idea of uniting corporate and state power for some purpose or another.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The strongest case for facism exists in the form of Antifa.

These people want to control the rest of us by violence.

[berdie]

IMO, it's a fashionable insult without most even knowing the meaning.

[Fishrrman]

Facism...??
That don't amount to nuthin' more than a bunch of sticks.

communism...??
Now, that's something to be concerned about:

[the OlLine Rebel]

Mussolini had a definition:  fascism is the union of corporate and state power.

By that definition, it's definitely a concern, as we have two fascist parties, one with a noisy, influential cultural Marxist wing, the other with a small classical liberal wing, but both having an overwhelming majority of their officeholders deeply in love with the idea of uniting corporate and state power for some purpose or another.

I like your definition best.

Technically, fascism is another economic system.  Simply put, allows private ownership of property, but state regulates it to death and tells people what to do with it.

Sound familiar?  It’s what “leftists” have been building all along.  They are communists at heart, but know they can’t do that via major revolution, so they take the “progressive” route and go through fascism to get what they want.  Then they call everyone else fascists with their typical projection.

I also do fear Trump is a bit of the fascist.  Complete with the Mussolini permanent serious frown.  (Never mind his policies often align more with Dem tacs, and not helped by the fact he keeps rewarding Dems with major positions.)

Dems have always been fascist.  I don’t want our side going that way.

[Kamaji]

I like your definition best.

Technically, fascism is another economic system.  Simply put, allows private ownership of property, but state regulates it to death and tells people what to do with it.

Sound familiar?  It’s what “leftists” have been building all along.  They are communists at heart, but know they can’t do that via major revolution, so they take the “progressive” route and go through fascism to get what they want.  Then they call everyone else fascists with their typical projection.

I also do fear Trump is a bit of the fascist.  Complete with the Mussolini permanent serious frown.  (Never mind his policies often align more with Dem tacs, and not helped by the fact he keeps rewarding Dems with major positions.)

Dems have always been fascist.  I don’t want our side going that way.

[Smokin Joe]

Somewhere along the line authoritarianism is needed to govern.

Whatever form it takes, whatever handle you put on it, Government, ultimately, is power: Power to make rules and power to enforce them.

Without that you might as well have a knitting circle.

The Founders recognized this and have attempted to channel that power from the consent of the governed through a system replete with limiting Constitutional constraints and few, narrowly specified duties.

If absolute power corrupts, it is best to limit power to limit corruption. As governmental power grows (outside the constraints) the corruption continues and expands, and ultimate power means ultimate corruption (and a heavy hand to enforce it) yielding totalitarianism.

It matters not which -ism (communism, Fascism, Socialism, Islamism, etc.), the net effect of all is the same; that being the concentration of power in the hands of a few, and the disempowerment of the many.

While some isms give the illusion that the people are getting more power, as soon as the mobs are dispersed (through whatever means), those -isms reserve the power to a few and brutally enforce the wishes of those in power. That includes abusing, enslaving, and  killing off opposition.

Our precept, our fundament as a system was to thwart the development of such -isms as viable political forces, to leave those options off the table, to have an educated populace which would reject them out of hand. Unfortunately, over the past half century, our entire system of education has been subverted, even hijacked, to program its students to believe that those -isms are truly attractive, without providing the historical context of the inevitable endgame of those systems, the systematic slaughter, enslavement, and subjugation of those who think they have anything to gain.

When we let down our guard (like we did when Communism was declared 'dead', even as its roots were infiltrating our own culture), we become vulnerable to the deception necessary to emplace such systems.

Yes, we are ever at risk. There will always be those who seek to gain at the expense of others, who lust for power, and who will not care how deep they stand in the blood of fellow humans to achieve it.

Those being thwarted in emplacing those -isms will be the first to point the finger of accusation at those who seek to retain their freedom and continue to practice their God-given Rights and claim that they are the very thing they, themselves seek to impose on the rest of us.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.