With the rapidly worsening of the material conditions of the general population in the 'west', will we see a rerun of the early 20th century? I feel we are approaching the point where the bourgeoisie are so desperate to cling on that the 'democratic' institutions of today might be in danger.
It's already here; it just doesn't affect the settlers yet.
Everyone is kinda just saying that fascism is already here and, while I agree, I think that it deserves explanation since there are obviously some big differences between the NATO countries in 2024 vs the Axis Powers in WW2.
The state and governance must be understood as a multimodal mechanism that is capable of simultaneously incorporating various modes of operation to fulfill its functions. Currently, the hegemonic ideology in direct control of most state organs is neoliberalism, which is distinct yet compatible with the marginal ideology of fascism. They both form a symbiotic system, where neoliberalism promises economic development and financial freedom, while fascism smashes workers' organizations and keeps them divided enough for hegemonic rule to continue. I think this is a topic that's very vast and I think Gabriel Rockhill has done a pretty good job at investigating this dialectic, I recommend his lecture Are Fascism and Liberalism Partners in Capitalist Crime?
Right, it's a more subtle form
Rather than goose stepping through the halls of power, it's the people writing bills in those same halls getting the text for a legislative bill wholesale from some crypto-fascist think tank
In the formal state institutions it's subtle as you said, but in a lot of other material manifestations of state power it's not subtle at all. It's widely known by now that a major portion of cops are literal klansmen and neonazis, and they are the living state, its arm with which it manipulates social reality.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
American fascism is unique from its European manifestations in that it has firmly consolidated itself in the bourgeois state apparatus and civil society. When European fascism seized power it needed a paramilitary force, dictatorial strongman, and violent purges of "undesirables" because the regime had not consolidated power.
In US society that consolidation happened long ago though. The US regime keeps its "undesirables" in a constant state of precarity, ghettoization, and incarceration and only occasionally ramps up the genocide to mass killings. It's paramilitary base has been incorporated into the state as it's police force. The US regime allows a carefully controlled facade of Democracy because it does not need a strongman. The US regime allows limited leftist ideas to proliferate and act as long as they do not constitute a threat.
Many leftists who claim to worry about the "threat of fascism" are actually worried about the existing fascism burning hotter than it currently does - and they're not necessarily wrong to do so - but any analysis that worries about some incoming fascism on the horizon without realizing the disease is already here will be fatally flawed.
Fascists have been securely in power in the US for some time now. Decades and decades. Fascism never went away after the peak imperialist era of the US. Ideology is a flexible tool for fascists, a skeleton key to deny reality and push will to power for them and compliance for everyone else, with some cheap concessions. They behave differently when out of power, gaining/losing power, or securely in control. And they are fractious beyond belief. People on here were joking about fascist ideologue Tucker Carlson claiming the left knows how to unite, but it is as ridiculous to claim the same thing about right ideologues or the bourgeoisie.
If you feel threatened by the fascist infighting, may I recommend stepping out of the way? Instead of following the call to arms coming from NGOs which exist to sop up radical grassroots energies and channel them into a structure defined by financial backers which can obliterate NGOs whenever they aren't worth maintaining?
If you are a member of a marginalized group of people living within the imperial core, you are in constant danger from the sharp edges of Actually Existing Fascism. I think it's important to remember that most of the residents of the early fascist states were not huddled terrorized masses. They were indifferent or satisfied with the fascist regimes. Germans especially - in the post-war period, the Nazis were discredited not because of their atrocities, but because they brought war and defeat to Germany. A think similar conditions have existed for decades in "the west" today. We haven't seen a conflagration on the scale of WW2 since then, but there have been plenty of wars of similar intensity and depravity (the decades of wars of decolonization being the major example).
the 'democratic' institutions of today might be in danger
american democratic institutions have been deader than dogshit for longer than most people here have been alive, insofar as they ever existed
I think it depends on where you're talking about and whether you mean old-school fascism or the current far-right.
I’d argue visible minorities are already under fash conditions and have been for centuries.
Sooner or later they will come for invisible minorities, and then Foucault’s boomerang will also mean that even the very people fascism wants to “help” will be hurt too sooner or later.
Facts. Only a fool would think that after the civil rights act, all the racists were like “well shucks, what were we thinking? Let’s step down and replace our leaders with non-racists from politics to business.” So when someone points out something is racist, the go-to rebuttal is “not everything is racist. In fact, there’s no such thing as racist anymore! You guys won already!” the KKK claimed they weren’t racist in the 70s.
Something something big trick devil proved convince world he no exist.
Since everyone is saying "Fascism is already here" I ask the group how do we as leftists resist it? When fascism was rising in Germany and Italy, communists would literally fight in the streets against right wing class traitor mobs. In the US now, those class traitors are formalized as the police and have the power of the state backing them completely. We have different material conditions than interbellum Europe, therefor our methods must be different.
Of course, but it's no threat. It has already happened. Our leaders are committing genocide right now. Fascism has already won.
like others have said it's very much already here if you're part of a marginalized group, especially immigrants. i would say broadly speaking we are in more of a 1924 than a 1974 or even 2004 and full on European fascism is on the way. I fully expect overt cooperation between the liberals who hold hegemonic power in my country and the up and coming fascists within a couple of election cycles. whether the left is prepared for these things is another conversation.
Neoliberalism is
the empire is feeling invincible and its mind control is working and people are enslaved everywhere in the worldFascism is
the empire falls and the mind control fails and the power projection leaks and people all over the world free themselves from the empire
