The argument goes:
Fascism is a very imprecise term, and in the current context mostly used as a term of abuse. "Fascism" as a self-conscious movement does not seem to exist in U.S. society today. Fascism was a historical mass movement from historically contingent places and times. To use the term fascism for U.S. movements today, if it is not simply a term of abuse for extremists that you don't like, is either anachronistic or a very loose analogy.
I think those who are asking the question here "Why call X group or political tendency fascist?" are getting at a deeper question that they are not addressing. To what extent are political labels more than just ideological place holders? To what extent are political labels "structural" or beyond the historical moment.
For instance some in the Marxist tradition have pointed out that at least since 1940 the U.S. "imperial presidency" has taken on the aspect of a kind of a quadrennially "elected Bonapartism ". Now the term Bonapartism is a term many Marxists have tried to use in a structural sense, to describe the sort of "Great Leader" who balances between class forces. No one actually believes that the political coalitions behind Clinton or Bush are literally enthralled by Napoleon or his nephew, Louis. Yet if any particular movement or system deserves to be called a form of Bonapartism you have to _make the argument_ that this label is appropriate beyond its contingent historical circumstances. (Similarly, Gramsci generalized the idea of Bonapartism to a large trans-historical idea of Caesarism, which could come from either the "left" or the "right." Gramsci's idea, if I understand him correctly, Fascism was a special form of Caesarism, that cultivated a modern mass movement based on the petty bourgeoisie.)
The only sense I can make out of the demand "Why call it fascist?" is to demand that you give a structural-historical account of why this label should be applied to movements we encounter today or might potentially encounter tomorrow.
Jerry Monaco
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