George Will has a column today where he says fascism was more a mood than an ideology.
I think the idea that Trump populism is a mood is very accurate, and I had never thought of it that way. Trump himself seems to not have strong moral convictions. But he recognized a burning desire by some to pwn the libs. He doesn't particularly like enlightenment, he reallly likes strongmen. He's pretty much captured the anti-modern mood. Mussolini and Hitler were both anti-modern. When Hitler first started, the handful of people who wanted the Kaiser back thought Hitler wanted to return to a Kaiser led Germany. Of course they quickly backed away from Hitler when they saw that wasn't in his plans. But rather he appreciated the days when there were not democratic institutions like a parliament or congress and a single leader could do whatever they wanted.
I think will grew a bit fearful at the end and backed off. no, Trump is decidedly not Hitler. But Mussolini? Franco? Trump would fit right in. One can imagine Trump saying great things about them if they were contemporaries as he does strongmen today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...7ae76e-c208-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html
Fascism was entertainment built around rallies — e.g., those at Nuremberg — where crowds were played as passive instruments. Success manipulating the masses fed fascist leaders’ disdain for the led. Hitler described them as feminine, the ultimate fascist disparagement. Imagine the contempt a promiser feels for, say, people gulled by a promise that one nation will pay for a border wall built against it by another nation.
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Communism had a revolutionary doctrine; fascism was more a mood than a doctrine. It was a stance of undifferentiated truculence toward the institutions and manners of liberal democracy. “The democrats of [the newspaper] ‘Il Mondo’ want to know our program?” said Mussolini the month he came to power in 1922. “It is to break the bones of the democrats of ‘Il Mondo.’ ”
Will ends with this,...
Communism had a revolutionary doctrine; fascism was more a mood than a doctrine. It was a stance of undifferentiated truculence toward the institutions and manners of liberal democracy. “The democrats of [the newspaper] ‘Il Mondo’ want to know our program?” said Mussolini the month he came to power in 1922. “It is to break the bones of the democrats of ‘Il Mondo.’ ”
Donald Trump, an envious acolyte of today’s various strongmen, appeals to those in thrall to country-music manliness: “We’re truck-driving, beer-drinking, big-chested Americans too freedom-loving to let any itsy-bitsy virus make us wear masks.” Trump, however, is a faux nationalist who disdains his nation’s golden age of international leadership and institution-building after 1945.
Trumpism, too, is a mood masquerading as a doctrine, an entertainment genre based on contempt for its bellowing audiences. Fascism was and is more interesting.
Trumpism, too, is a mood masquerading as a doctrine, an entertainment genre based on contempt for its bellowing audiences. Fascism was and is more interesting.
I think the idea that Trump populism is a mood is very accurate, and I had never thought of it that way. Trump himself seems to not have strong moral convictions. But he recognized a burning desire by some to pwn the libs. He doesn't particularly like enlightenment, he reallly likes strongmen. He's pretty much captured the anti-modern mood. Mussolini and Hitler were both anti-modern. When Hitler first started, the handful of people who wanted the Kaiser back thought Hitler wanted to return to a Kaiser led Germany. Of course they quickly backed away from Hitler when they saw that wasn't in his plans. But rather he appreciated the days when there were not democratic institutions like a parliament or congress and a single leader could do whatever they wanted.
I think will grew a bit fearful at the end and backed off. no, Trump is decidedly not Hitler. But Mussolini? Franco? Trump would fit right in. One can imagine Trump saying great things about them if they were contemporaries as he does strongmen today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...7ae76e-c208-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html
