I strongly disagree with how a lot of forum members throw around the term fascist/fascism and also nazi/nazism and I feel kinda compelled, both as a Kraut and as a historian, to clear that up.
You're kinda tripping if you don't think the 60+ million Americans who voted for Trump are basically Nazis. Haven't they demonstrated they have no limits yet? If Trump started shipping Democrats off to the gas chamber they'd stand up and cheer.
Just for the historic background: Nazi is primarily a slur coined
after WW2. Actual nazis back then did not call themselves nazis, they called themselves national socialists. So, a nazi is by definition a national socialist and an anti-semite, because that is truly at the heart of the ideology. Nazism cannot exist without its specific brand of anti-semitism. Nazism could be viewed as a subset of fascism, though that is disputed. I severely doubt that most of Trump's supporter are anti-semites in any meaningful way, if anything they support Israel and want to hellfire bomb the living **** out of the middle east (or any brown people in general). They're racist. Most definitely authoritarian. But rarely fascist. And almost never nazis. Proper nazis are a real thing, and it really doesn't help to mislabel people.
Nowadays people use fascist almost exclusively as a synonym for "authoritarian", or for someone who sucks up to authoritarinism, a "bootlicker". That is not a proper use for that word. Fascism has certain tenets. Most important of all, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism (!), the necessity for an out-group, "perpetual" war, certain aesthetics, protectionism and so forth. Most Trump voters probably don't know what corporatism is, nor do they care about brutalism.
Mussolini said fascism was "the merging of state and corporate power". He coined fascism, more or less. I would go as far and say that a majority of Trump voters are strictly against the idea of government interfering with business, they are anti-corporatist and therefore also anti-fascist in a way. Some of Trumps policies were definitely fascist, like his protectionist policies for example.
Roger Scruton on fascism and corporatism:
The economy was divided into associations (called ‘syndicates’) of workers, employers and the professions; only one syndicate was allowed in each branch of industry, and all officials were either fascist politicians or else loyal to the fascist cause. According to law the syndicates were autonomous, but in fact they were run by the state. The ‘corporations’ united the syndicates in a given industry, but made no pretence at autonomy from the state.
Mussolini himself, though obviously ghostwritten by Gentile:
Fascism desires the State to be strong and organic, based on broad foundations of popular support. The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporative, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in their respective associations, circulate within the State.
Corporatism (corporatismo as it was called in Italy) is way, way different from current free-market neoliberal economies. In Corporatism it is the state that rules business, in reality it is the other way around.
Fascism is just conservatism when the established order is, or seems to be, in crisis.
This is somewhat true. Fascism itself, while it is an authoritarian system, draconic, and almost always dictatorial, is in fact a very volatile system of governance. So volatile in fact that it completely relies on both an out-group to blame for everything and a neighboring enemy to rally against. These are fundamental to fascism, without these counterpoints it could not exist.
Fascism is in many ways revolutionary and active, so I completely disagree that it is like conservatism. Fascism (or national socialism if you want to go there) is, after all, the counterpart to anarcho communism, revolutionary socialism, maoist communism and so forth. But yes, they do both share the idea of the established order being in crisis.
