Chris Doss
I don't think it makes sense to call something "fascist" unless it incorporates the central tenant of Fascism, the Total State, and I think we can agree that whatever the Confederacy was, it was not totalitarian. Maybe for the slaves it was. I'd have to think/learn more about that.
I think it is valid to consider Nazism to be a variant of Fascism that added a virulent racist component to the ideology. I don't see how the Confederacy could be so considered, unless one is employeeing some kind of circular "virulent racism = fascism" argument, which would have the counterintuitive result that the Mussolini was not a fascist.
^^^^^ CB: You responded to my mention of the KKK and neo-Confederates, by saying they were inspired by the Nazis. I responded that the Confederacy ( a likely inspiration for the neo-Confederates and KKK) predated the Nazis. In other words, the neo-Confeds have an earlier and more local inspiration than the Nazis. Anyway, I'm not saying the original Confederates were fascists. I'm saying American fascists are "inspired" by the Confederacy , a pre-fascist, reactionary form. Confederates were defenders of capitalist slavery.
One might say the Bonapartists were ancestors of the fascists.
I say a central tenet of fascism is the open terrorist rule of the most reactionary, chavuinist, bellicose sector of finance capital/ imperialism, after Dimitrov. So, Fascists were fascists, by this definition. The Confederacy and the slave system were not, as it was pre-imperialism/finance capital.
As far as racism and fascism, they are very compatible. One might say "made for each other". It doesn't make any sense to try to make out that a particular group of racists are not fascists because the Italian Fascists didn't have as much emphasis on racism as the Nazis did. The Italian Fascists were extreme nationalists and chauvinists. Ultra-nationalism is a close cousin of racism. As someone pointed out the Italian attack on Ethiopia was virulently racist.
The important point for USians is that American fascism is rooted in the virulent American slavery and racist tradition. The nooses popping up all over today are an American fascist symbol.