The Fight Against Fascists (I Can't Believe This Exists)

[Dill]

(06-08-2021, 04:51 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I'm not sure what the scholars on fascism say, but one term I've heard thrown around with Donald Trump a lot is "proto fascist." Basically, a politician that normalizes and trends towards certain aspects of fascism such that someone can take up the reins and potentially lead to full fascism in the future.

This makes a pretty good case for "protofascism." 
https://theweek.com/articles/574097/donald-trump-leading-protofascist-movement

I don't think Trump could ever be a true fascist. It's just to much work and focus. 

It is easy to identify a lot of "proto fascist" organizations and movements in Germany's Second Reich after 1905, obsessed with preventing immigration and feminism, hating socialism and liberal democracy, demanding national expansion, etc.. But they had very little traction until after the WWI defeat. 

PF is a fuzzy term though, since it covers a lot of behaviors often exhibited by people one wouldn't want to classify as proto fascists. E.g., a politician committed to parliamentary democracy might still want to exclude Jews and women from the franchise.