Good god, enough with this "fascist and nazi seem to have lost all meaning" nonsense. Let's call it the "No true fascist fallacy". I could bring the corpse of Himmler here and some people would regurgitate the same "Bu-bu-but that's not actually fascist enough!". OP was basically quoting the definition of Ur-fascism by Umberto Eco. Is that historically accurate enough for you? Or should we check beforehand if whoever he was referring to has ever took part in the Salo republic, before we commit the grave sin of not being taxonomically accurate?
The reason people focus on definitions like “oh, it’s really about toxic masculinity!” is because admitting the truth would make them look bad:
Fascism is a collectivist authoritarian system with regulated commerce rather than direct state control, often co-occurring with systemic racism.
The reason people don’t want to be honest about the definition is that it’s the platform of modern Democrats, who are gaslighting by calling everyone else a “fascist”:
Democrats are collectivist authoritarian.
Democrats are pushing for regulated commerce.
Democrats are rebuilding systemic racism, from rationing healthcare [2] and government aid [1] based on race to attempting to repeal civil rights laws in WA [4] and CA [3].
Democrats took to the street in acts of arson, violence, and murder to terrorize the public ahead of an election — the modern Brownshirts. [5]
I couldn't care less what oblique definition of fascism came out from some american think-tank in the 80s, narrow enough to not anger any of their thatcherian or reaganite friends.
I'm italian, my grandfather was drafted in the balilla first at 14 and the fascist army later. And his stories of the time were all about the violence, the machismo, the open contempt for the gay, the jewish, any other minorities. That's fascism, no matter if it doesn't match your clinical idea of what fascism should or shouldn't be.
And yes, they were as silly and ridiculous as the tiki torches guys or the Jan 6 coup guys. Until they were fully in power. Then everybody stopped laughing, or wondering if they were really dangerous or not.
And to be quite honest with you, worry not - I think we'll find very, very soon how close those are compared to US democrats to actual fascists(tm).
I’m paraphrasing what the fascists said their goals were.
If you read about fascism, their proponents viewed it as “Marxism 2.0” — where they could leverage the socialist ideas of collectivist authoritarianism without the problems encountered by the original Marxist revolutionaries with total state control of commerce.
A unified populace where “everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Well yes, the Goodwin point is now crossed very casually, just like people are using superlatives for the mundane things, such as "I ate the most amazing fries yesterday".
This makes for poor debates, where there is little nuance, fuzzy scales and hardly meaningful communication.
As I said in another post, I'm italian, and my grandparents had some direct experience on the matter. Their families were destroyed by nazists and fascists. My grandmother family was jewish, A have a few pictures of her relatives with a number tattoed on their arms. I never dared to ask where or how they got them.
No idea how fucked up my gramps were, but by their direct account, yes that "strong males" attitude we're talking about was quite a fascist trait.
