Sam Goldman interviews Federico Finchelstein, Professor of History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College and Director of the Janey Program in Latin American Studies at NSSR.
Dr. Finchelstein is the author of seven books on fascism, populism, Dirty Wars, the Holocaust and Jewish history in Latin America and Europe. His new book is A Brief History of Fascist Lies and you can follow him on Twitter @FinchelsteinF.
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Transcript [Excerpt]
Sam Goldman: Amongst fascism scholars, you have a particularly strong grasp on where the fascist movement is at globally, including the role America has historically played in installing and propping up fascist regimes. And I’m wondering, how do you see Trump’s removal? How has it affected the rise of fascism around the world? What impact has his removal made?
Federico Finchelstein: I mean, I think this is a key question. And perhaps before that was a kind of frame of reference. Let me tell you a little bit more of how I see fascism historically. Because basically, fascism was many things, but at least it was four things. I mean, I’m now generalizing, but mostly students of fascism will agree that fascism stood for 4 key things that without that you don’t have basically fascism empowered, and do things for the glorification of violence and the militarization of politics, number one.
Number two, racism, and xenophobia. I mean, without racism and xenophobia, probably, we are talking about something else. I mean, all fascisms were racist and xenophobic. What changed where the groups that were targeted like German Social Democrats, you know, very many, many years ago, they would refer to this kind of politics as the socialism of the imbeciles. I mean, replacing, you know, egalitarian concerns with an explanation that says, you know, what, all your problems are because of this minority or another one or that other one. So basically, element number one, again, violence, number two, racism and xenophobia.
Number three, what we talked about before, this kinds of extreme way of lying, this kind of total denial of reality, almost total denial of reality, and even worse, this attempt to change reality in order to conform to the lie. So this propaganda base exemplified by someone like Goebbels was a rather more extended and typical of fascism. And number four, dictatorship. You don’t have fascism without dictatorship. I mean, it doesn’t mean that all dictatorships are fascist, but basically all fascisms, when they are in power are dictatorships. Basically the way I address this, historically is that after 1945, there were fascists and dictators that realized that because of the emerging bipolar war, the kind of option like what they call the third option, or the third way, between capitalism and communism, or socialism, and liberalism, was not [inaudiable]. And these people, basically did the opposite of what the fascist did.
As you know, in the cases of Hitler and Mussolini, they use elections and other democratic procedures to basically reach power and eventually destroy democracy from within in order to create a dictatorship. Well, these people did the opposite. And I’m now talking about someone like Juan Domingo Peron in Argentina, after 45, the same with Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, and many other people in Latin America, but also in the U.S. that try this one. Someone like you might say, like George Wallace, or other people, but in Latin America, they reached power. And what they did is left these four elements: violence, racism, dictatorship, and lies behind. They started lying like all other politicians. I mean, there is no politics without lying [inaudiable] talked about this, even you can go back to ancient times where, you know, politics and lying were together, but not in the extreme way that we have been talking about. So these early people that I call modern populists in power, after 1945 reformulated fascism in a democratic key. And that’s why many scholars, myself included, we talk about that as populism.
So basically populism, which should not be confused with emotional views, emotional understanding of populism, certainly in America, not in the rest of the world, but certainly in America, because in America, sometimes populism is conflated with a politician who caters to popular demands. And basically, that’s a politician who caters to popular demands, not a populist. A populist, someone that is an authoritarian leader that believes that he generally he or she personifies the will of the people and divides the world between elites, and these kind of combo of people and leaders. So basically, these populists reshaped these four elements of fascism, and that’s how modern populism was born. Trump, when he came to power was still part of that tradition.
So I see Trump as a kind of case study, they say as a kind of process. He’s part of a process in which eventually he has been morphing from, let’s say, populism into perhaps more properly a fascist state. But this has started before because in a way, it is started before he even came to power, because what you see in people like Trump and Bolsonaro and you might say the same of Narendra Modi in India, or people like Orban in Hungary, is that basically they started doing populist politics, meaning authoritarian politics in a democratic key, by going back to these four elements, that most populous in the history of populism have reshaped, which are these kind of, as I said, four elements, racism, violence, total lies, and dictatorship. So basically, people like Trump and Bolsonaro, they went back to three of them. They went back to violence and the militarization of politics, they went back to this kind of fascist way of lying. And certainly they were putting racism and xenophobia at the center of their politics. So, they were really reconnecting populism to fascism in ways that we have not seen before.
And then you have January 6. In January 6, you see Trump doing a coup d’etat, in which he is attempting to reach element number four, meaning to reach a fascist stage. Before that, I was not the only scholar of fascism, warning of this danger, a fascist danger that we could see in Trump because once you see these three elements, it was perhaps expected that he might look forward to complete the circle, so to speak, and reach element number four, which is dictatorship. So, this is the kind of connection that I see between fascism and populism and Trump and his closeness to fascism. Because he failed, probably we should talk about Trump as a kind of wannabe fascist sort of failed fascist.
Sam Goldman: I’m wondering, now that his coup has failed and he’s out how does that impact the Bolsonaro’s and the Modi’s? Do you see any impact with his departure? Or no?
Federico Finchelstein: Well, certainly, this is not something good for them. Because I mean they, all these leaders were not created by Trump. Even to the extent that that they are mini Trumps in their own way, these are not outcomes of Trump. I mean, we should not certainly understand Trumpism as the originator of all things. In fact, as opposed to what Trump says, he’s not that original. I mean, the originality was that he reached power in the most powerful country in the world, making him even more dangerous than these other guys – these other autocrats. But, in fact, Bolsonaro and Modi and Orban and Salvini in Italy, existed before him, and they will continue to exist. But, he in the same way that he was enabled by conservatives, he also enabled these wannabe fascists and autocrats. So, he, you know, he was a big fan of dictators. He kind of felt more at home with these kind of leaders and the fact that he actually made it with a campaign that was explicitly racist and violence and he even attempted a coup d’etat, he was good for all these people. Now that he failed, probably, it sends some warning signs. But the point is that these people will not disappear because Trump disappeared, they are still out there, and actually, they might learn from Trump’s own mistakes.
But I think that – and perhaps even Trump’s own lack of courage – because as you might recall, he promised he will join the coup d’etat in Congress, but he did not. And this was not exactly other fascist leaders brought at some points, this kind of sacrifice for the followers and the program. This is something that perhaps or more, and that’s why I agree with some people when they say, yeah, I mean, if Trump had been a little bit smarter, perhaps democracy would have been destroyed, because what we should remember that how and why he made it so far even reaching the possibility of a coup d’etat in the United States. I mean, the situation in which you have these domestic terrorists inside the chambers of our Congress. But, going back to the global dimension of your question, I think it certainly, it is not something good for them. And it shows for the position that these wannabe fascists can be defeated. I have been in Brazil many times. I talk a lot with my Brazilian colleagues, and I was talking with them about the fact that I think that this anti-fascist coalition, should we a model for Brazil, and although it’s very, very hard. I mean, you know, the Brazilian context is very complex. And there are a lot of understandable misgivings.
But at the same time, Bolsonaro represents something that is beyond the famous title of Steven [inaudiable], the major historian of on fascism, said that fascism is neither right nor left, but rather an extreme form of the right, which incorporates into propaganda, some elements of the leftist vocabulary, of course, nothing left about fascism. Between the right in Brazil and the left in Brazil, even as contested and has conflictual as that relationship is they have more in common, perhaps the most in common than with Bolsonaro who is a wannabe fascist like Trump. And the same you could say about, you know, some somebody like Mitt Romney, or [inaudiable] in the US that when fascism was defeated people from the right were also incorporated and rather than becoming enablers of fascism, they became critical of fascism.
Sam Goldman: You wrote recently in a piece I think, called ‘Trump Leaves, but the Seeds of Trumpism Remain’, you wrote that in pursuit of the wishes of its leader, Trumpism has created a new and mobilizing map. Thinking of his future triumphant return, Trump presents himself not as the loser that he really is, but as a victim of treason to the Fatherland that he clearly is not. And, I’m wondering, in the US right now, how do you see the threat of American fascism? What should people who care about democracy, about humanity? What should people be thinking right now?
Federico Finchelstein: I think the threat is real. I mean, it’s hard not to call these people, domestic terrorists, people that want to overthrow the elected government of the US and attack institutions. So these domestic terrorists, these extremism fanatics, you could see, see them in with their military toys, and dressed as if they were soldiers all over the place. In the history of fascism, these are called paramilitary formations, which is like people playing as if they are playing toy soldiers. And, Nazis were having these pseudo military uniforms. In fact, they were not soldiers in their capacity as Nazi politicians. And I think at this point, what should be part of the situation is a clear message from the position of the law. I think two days ago, and even today, in the New York Times, there was an article, where we learned that in Germany, the main party of opposition, which is an extremist party, a really Trumpist party if you want to apply to the kind of America metaphor. I mean, that party, which is the main party of opposition parties, much connected to fascist is under surveillance by the state. And I think the Department of Justice needs to prosecute all these people that committed all these crimes. That will send a clear message of: these things are not allowed in our democracy. I think we’re at a kind of crossroads where, I mean, it is very important, the responses to these fascist attempts that we hear from the new government. I mean, this needs to be addressed. I mean, this is not an unimportant matter. And I think it’s a it’s a clear and present danger.
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