Blurts & Spasms

You could say that a large number of populist movements throughout history have arisen from very similar conditions and narratives — and that holds true of current fascist movements around the globe. These shared conditions and narratives include:

• Enduring and increasing economic inequality and lack of economic mobility.
• Anxiety over a perceived loss of status and influence among groups who formerly considered themselves to be among society’s more privileged.
• Frustration with the status quo, and mistrust of existing methods of remedy, equalization, and empowerment (i.e. government, civic institutions, political leadership, democratic elections, etc.).
• Deteriorating economic conditions — or fears about deteriorating economic conditions.
• Deep mistrust — usually racist at its core — about outsiders polluting or corrupting an otherwise “pure and good” society.

What makes fascism unique in its response to these common factors is that fascist movements tend to make fundamental errors about the underlying causes of these undesirable conditions and narratives. For example, fascism tends to blame a particular group in society — such as immigrants, or a “corrupt elite,” or certain racial, religious, or political groups — for all undesirable conditions and felt realities, without establishing a factual bases for those accusations. But the false narratives are extremely effective in uniting angry adherents in an “Us vs. Them” influence campaign of nationalistic and often religious fervor. Historically this can spread like wildfire across society without mass media, but today mass media and especially social media effectively fan those flames and accelerate the spread of fascist ideology.

It should be noted that fascism has never been spontaneous — it is carefully cultivated through disinformation and emotional appeals. Yes, the conditions (the frustrations, the inequity, the dissatisfaction, the fears) are real, but they are manipulated with carefully crafted misleading narratives and false promises to empower opportunistic leaders.

There is also usually a central leadership figure — often a pedantic strongman gifted in hateful rhetoric — offering themselves as the “only solution” to society’s woes, and constantly keeping folks angry, fearful, and motivated. These fascists leaders have nearly always promoted overly simplified solutions to complex problems, and successfully vilified certain members of society as scapegoats to take the blame.

We see all of this being replicated around the world today in various movements — and in the style and rhetoric of what are most often populist far-right political leaders. In the U.S., the strongest fascist tendencies were traditionally held by white supremacist groups, but we have now seen those tendencies infect and overtake the Christian nationalism in the MAGA movement as well.

I hope this was helpful. Here are some links to explore this topic further:

https://www.theindiaforum.in/society/why-fascism-rise-world-over

https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/news/fascism-rise-where-does-it-come-and-how-stop-it-common-european-response

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17847110/how-fascism-works-donald-trump-jason-stanley

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/what-is-christian-nationalism.html