[lbo-talk] Fascism, right-wing populism, and contemporary research

[Chris Doss]

For the life of me I cannot see how Fascism could possibly be characterized as not having a coherent ideology. There definitely is a coherent ideology in "The Doctrine of Fascism," and another one, similar in some ways but different in others, in "Mein Kampf."
 
I think that by "fascist social movements" Chip does not mean actual fascist movements that actually called themselves fascist, but rather right-wing American populist groups that he has decided to call "fascist" for an unknown reason, despite their ideology having practically nothing in common with what the people who called themselves fascists thought. I've seen a lot of data on what Tea People answer when asked "is Obama a legitimate president?" but not what they say when asked "should society be organized as an organic corporatist whole under an all-encompassing state?" If you don't say "yes" to the second question, you are not a fascist.

----- Original Message ----
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Sun, February 21, 2010 11:06:23 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Fascism, right-wing populism, and contemporary research

On Feb 21, 2010, at 10:51 AM, Chip Berlet wrote:


> Fascist social movements are typified by an apparent ideological lack of a coherent ideology--full of "passionate intensity."

So fascist social movements don't necessarily lead to fascism, except in the few instances that they did?

This use of the word "fascism" is mystifyingly promiscuous. As I've said here about 40 times, the Tea Baggers have a lot in common with more than a century of right-wing petty bourgeois American populism. So did the militia movement of the 1990s (which, by the way, sort of met its end via Tim McVeigh, so seeing him as the culmination of the thing is somewhat strange). American political history is full of crazy right-wing shit. Why get so unusually exercised about it? It's a chronic affliction, about which we can do...what exactly?

But the word "fascism" is great for attracting attention, that's for sure.

Doug
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