The Wannabe Fascist

Episode 201 The Wannabe Fascist with Federico Finchelstein

Mon, May 13, 2024 6:32AM • 50:41

Federico Finchelstein 00:00

What’s going on right now has a lot of relation to what fascism was before. These new populists of the 21st century, people such as Trump or Bolsonaro, they seem to be wanting to return to fascism. That’s why I call them “wannabe fascist populists.” Sadly, the lack of history and lack of memory in societies creates a space or an opportunity for this type of politician. In societies that protect the dissidents, protect protests, protect the independent press, fascism cannot win. You know, what stops them from becoming full-fledged fascists, as opposed to wannabe fascists, is us.

Sam Goldman 00:53

Welcome to Episode 201 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. Welcome new listeners, and I just gotta say I don’t always sound this congested, so thanks for for sticking with me.

Thanks to everyone who rates and reviews this show like Wick, who wrote over on Apple podcasts a review titled, I love the focus on SCOTUS, gave us five stars, thank you! and wrote: “This is a wonderful pod, which says what needs to be said. Sam takes on not only the right and their captured courts, but also the liberals who can no longer claim to truly be part of the left. How often have the Dems stood aside and allowed the status quo to remain while they had the power to enshrine abortion, voting and equal rights into law, while they did not make DC and Puerto Rico states, while they did not reform the corrupt and self defying SCOTUS. This is a pod which tells the truth. Thank you, Sam, and the rest of the volunteers of Refuse Fascism.”

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Today, we’re sharing an interview with Professor Federico Finchelstein. He’s returning to the show to discuss his new book, ‘The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy’. But first, as usual, we need to talk a little bit about some of the developments from this past week. Three and a half years after Trump led a violent coup attempt at the Capitol, Trump is, for the first time, being tried in a criminal courtroom.

What does it tell us that this case has nothing to do with that deadly day, or his even deadlier time in office, but is instead limited to a financial crime that happened and was exposed almost ten years ago; a case where even if he is found guilty, it’s very possible for Trump to be sentenced to probation; a case where any other defendant would already have been thrown in jail for contempt of court? The only case likely to be decided before the election six months away.

Trump’s crimes of a hush money payout and election interference, along with what amounts to new accusations of sexual assault — even if Daniels doesn’t use that term — are clearly in line with the public persona of a fascist strongman, but this case has no capacity to hold him accountable for any of that. Daniels’ testimony exposed Trump’s casually belligerent misogyny and the institutional misogyny of the cover up of men using money and power to both use women’s bodies and silence women’s voices, but none of that is what’s on trial here.

Yet here we find ourselves with the media glued to daily details of the proceedings, and all too many decent people misdirecting their hopes of accountability into a case which regardless of the verdict is just as likely to swing the election in his favor. In other courtroom news, what should not come as a shock but did to too many, Trumpist Judge Eileen Cannon advanced coup 2.0 by postponing Trump’s federal classified documents case trial indefinitely. Trump’s legal defense strategy of delay, delay, delay until after Election Day and then throw out the cases is working, and they’re doing it with the assistance of the Supreme Court, I should add.

It should now be pretty obvious to even the skeptic: Trump could be elected and take office before any trials about his election interference ever occur. Trump and the fascist movement he commands have proven repeatedly that they will not be restrained by any gag orders, legal conclusion, or criminal conviction, as they are hell bent on climbing the ladder to fascist rule. Trump has repeatedly violated gag orders that bar him from publicly discussing or debasing witnesses and jurors, despite warnings that he could go to jail. No, instead here, the villain plays the victim. After such a warning that he would go to jail, Trump said: “Our Constitution is much more important than jail, I’ll do that sacrifice any day.” While the judge accused him this week of mounting, “A direct attack on the rule of law,” he has been given a slap on the wrist, miniscule fines, and once more threatened with jail time if he continues to break a gag order that bars him from attacking jurors; a gag order that everyone knows he will violate. For more on how the fascists have succeeded in normalizing what no one can deny is fascist behavior toward public officials and elections with ominous implications.

Here we are six months away from the election and the seeding of election denial and the revving up of election subversion is accelerating, providing ample evidence that this is indeed a society where fascism can ascend. Trump has repeatedly made clear that he will not accept an election loss without a whisper of dissent or hesitation from the GOP. He has refused to rule out the possibility of violence from his supporters to achieve this aim. If he loses again, stating last month in a Time magazine interview, “If we don’t win, you know, it always depends on the fairness of an election” on the prospect of political violence. Tim Scott, VP, hopeful Republican senator from South Carolina, had this to say or not say in a recent interview,

Tim Scott 07:09

Four years of Joe Biden versus four years of Donald Trump, they’re really excited to get back to the Trump years. And so I expect the election to be fair, and I expect Trump Donald Trump to be our next president.

Kristen Welker 07:20

In terms of what he said he specifically said, if it’s not, it’s not fair, as you’re saying, you have to fight for the right of the country. And just this week, he said that he won Wisconsin, falsely, Senator. So again, to the point you voted to certify the election results of 2020 it’s the exact opposite of what you said and did after 2020. Why would you want to be on a ticket with someone where there’s such a fundamental difference?

Tim Scott 07:46

There’s clear facts here. President Trump himself said he expects this election to be fair, he expects it to be honest, and he expects to win. That’s what the presidential candidate should expect, and I expect the exact same thing. And frankly, the American people agree with him. This is an issue that is not an issue. So I’m not going to make it an issue.

Kristen Welker 08:09

But Senator, will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024? Bottom line?

Tim Scott 08:15

At the end of the day, the 47th, president united states will be President Donald Trump. And I’m excited to get back to the low inflation, low unemployment.

Kristen Welker 08:24

Wait, wait, wait. Senator, yes or no? Yes or No, will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?

Tim Scott 08:30

That is my statement.

Kristen Welker 08:32

But just yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024?

Tim Scott 08:37

I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president. Kristen, you can ask it multiple times. [KW: Senator, just a yes or no answer.] so the American people… the American people will make the decision [KW: But I don’t hear you committing…] and the decision will be for President Trump. That’s clear.

TIME magazine 08:51

I don’t hear you committing [TS: I’m not… here’s the deal.] to the election results. Will you commit to the election results?

Tim Scott 08:56

This is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat party. At the end of the day. I said what I said, and I know that the American people, their voices will be heard, and I believe that President Trump will be our next president. It’s that simple.

TIME magazine 09:11

But Senator, as you know, the hallmark of our democracy is that both candidates agree to a peaceful transfer of power. So I’m…

Refusal to accept the peaceful transfer of power, a tenet of what has cohered this form of rule in this country for centuries is now a litmus test for allegiance to the Republi-fascist party. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican from Louisiana, unveiled a piece of legislation that would prohibit undocumented people from voting in federal elections — something that no surprise is already illegal and there is no proof that it’s an actual thing that’s happening. It’s a new effort to cast doubt on elections for anyone who didn’t buy the last round of totally debunked stolen election conspiracy theories, and to intimidate people who may fear being profiled as undocumented from voting.

Yes, the same xenophobic white supremacist drivel you heard at the bonkers constitutional sheriffs convention that we covered is a mainstream message. And for them is a beautiful, facts be damned way to simultaneously further dehumanizing migrants and asylum seekers, and, at the same time, key up to dispute the 2024 election results. Here’s what we know: Trump and the Republic-fascist Party have a plan to win and never leave. They’re telling you openly ad nauseam of their strategy to install and consolidate fascism in the U.S.

That they so narrowly lost their previous attempt should offer no comfort as he runs free to thoroughly plan and prepare what last time was a desperate Hail Mary, and this time with a real chance of success. They have a blueprint in the Heritage Foundation’s project 2025 and they are going in stronger and battle tested, learning from their missteps, for example, filling top military and national security positions with those whose loyalty lies with Trump, not the Constitution — doing so from the get go. We also know this: coups are stopped when people plan and when they act before the coup. So now is the time to sound the alarm to be organized and prepared to be in the streets.

Turning our attention to Gaza: This week, the Israeli military plowed into Rafah, the last supposedly safe zone for the over 2 million people living in Gaza. Meanwhile, CNN has reported an evidence of a camp yes account in the Negev desert where Israel routinely tortures Palestinians, including through amputating limbs after cutting them so tight that blood cannot reach them. The U.S. State Department has admitted that Israel uses us provided websites to commit war crimes and yet refuses to stop supplying weapons, even the “pausing” of one shipment, unthinkable before the massive and determined protests across the country has been met with outrage by the Israeli genociders. Brutal crackdowns on protests have continued across the U.S. and Europe.

Reporting has emerged that ties anti-Palestinian mob violence at UCLA to both reactionary billionaire and known fascist street fighters. In the halls of powerm support for the genocide in Gaza continues to enjoy bipartisan support. Meanwhile, Trump has called for even worse violence against the protests, even deporting protesters, asserting that Biden who has consistently and maliciously mislabeled the entire wave of protests, antisemitic and whose party leads most of the cities that are brutally suppressed encampments is “nowhere to be found.” In these events, the crisis facing the American Empire and the fascist solution on offer could not be clearer.

Listen to this brief interview, broadcast on local news station in Chicago with a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago from the frontlines of the police assault on their encampment. While you’re taking in the courage and knowledge on display recognize that if journalists turned up at any accountant across the country and actually let the students speak, this is largely what we would hear on the airwaves. Juxtapose the rarity of this clip to the decades long flood of thought pieces platforming Trump voters and rural diners fascism lionizing trash, cherry picking the worst of rural white America published across the spectrum of mainstream media.

News announcer 13:36

Got some breaking news on the campus of the University of Chicago: Campus police there breaking up a protester encampment.

News reporter 13:42

Police in riot gear arrived on campus early this morning. Joanie has been there very early. She has the latest Joanie, what has unfolded since you arrived?

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 13:52

[With shouting in the background] Well, the campus police, as you said, moved in just before 5 am, and these protesters have been holding a line now for two hours. There’s a bullhorn behind us, so it’s very loud. Chris was on the inside when it happened. Describe what happened in the Quadrangle this morning.

Chris, protester at UC 14:11

Yeah, it was horrific. They waited like cowards until every single student was asleep in their tent, basically. And then they stormed in maybe 40 or 50 of them with riot gear, screaming. They started throwing wood planks, throwing chairs, throwing absolutely everything in any direction to destroy the camp as fast as possible, to suppress this movement as fast as possible. And in fact, one of the chairs that they threw came within maybe three inches of hitting my girlfriend in the head, and they had just woken us up.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 14:38

It was dark. It was before sunrise. We had warning that they were coming, but they didn’t for a while…

Student protester 14:47

We had no warning. No, we had no warning.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 14:49

Ok, so then what did you do when all that action was happening?

Student protester 14:52

I tried to make sure everyone was safe. I mean, it was chaos, it was terrifying. Yeah.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 14:58

So you were able to get out. I understand that students are being threatened with disciplinary action for being in there.

Student protester 15:05

They gave us some ridiculous notice out here, saying that like participants in the quad encampment, which no longer exists, thanks to them, are facing like an interim leave of absence as well as criminal trespass charge. I have no idea if that’s just a scare tactic or if it’s real, but it doesn’t matter, because the difference between us and people like these cops is that there are limits to when we continue following orders.

When you’re talking about a genocide visited upon a colonized population of 2 million people trapped in a ghetto that’s as long as a marathon and six miles wide, when that ghetto is being systematically starved, slaughtered, every hospital bombed, every university bombed, 70% of homes destroyed, some 40,000 people murdered, 15,000 children murdered, the entire population on the brink of starvation, we say — and if our government and our academic institutions are complicit in this — there comes a point where we say: We’re not following orders, and it doesn’t matter what you do to us, because there are principles, and there are human lives that matter more than our careers and our futures. And that’s what separates us from people like Paul Alivasatos, the coward president of this University, and these coward cops, that come in terrorizing an encampment when people are sleeping.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 16:10

You’ve been standing in this line, linked arm and arm with other protesters, what has happened here?

Student protester 16:16

What’s happening here, you’d have to ask them. Apparently, they’re trying to intimidate us, trying to suppress the protest that is continuing to grow. I think that they thought they could basically terrify us into inaction, into flight, but this is what this university has never understood, has never accepted has never reckoned with about this student movement — and not just at University of Chicago, but around the country — is that the commitment to Gaza runs deeper than fears for our safety, for our careers, fears for our paychecks; it is a fundamental obligation we have as citizens of a country that is presiding over this genocide, arming this genocide, and as students at a university that has invested in those same weapons manufacturers, and that is partnered with the same apartheid institutions that train that military and develop its technology.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 17:07

There was some pushing and shoving. I don’t know who was pushing or shoving, but I know that there was tension here on the line. You’ve tried to have a conversation with some of these police officers.

Student protester 17:18

Yeah, I’ve been talking to them this whole time. I’ve been asking them what it would take for them to stop following orders? I would ask them, you know how many kids have to die? So if you say 15,000 kids are killed, they’re still willing to violently suppress a national movement, raising the alarm, that this needs to stop, that the U.S. complicity needs to stop. So what if it was 50,000 kids? 200,000 kids? A million kids? What if the whole Gaza ghetto?

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 17:41

Do you know if there are next steps here?

Student protester 17:43

For them?

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 17:45

For you.

Student protester 17:45

For me, the next step is a simple one, whatever form it takes, which is to continue fighting with every breath we have, with everything we have, for the people of Gaza, because the blood of those kids is on our hands. It’s on all of our hands, whether we like it or not. If we’re U.S. citizens, if we’re U of Chicago students, we are implicated in this horror that is being visited with total impunity, because of U.S. Security Council vetoes and by the State of Israel.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 18:10

Are you a student?

Student protester 18:11

I’m a student, yes, I’m a PhD student.

Student protester 18:13

And if you face discipline…

Student protester 18:15

Again, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. There are things that matter more than my academic future. Certainly every one of those children that is being murdered, starved, maimed, whose parents are having to choose, you know: Do I let this kid start first or that one? This is such an ugly reality of such great magnitude, that to even think, to really entertain questions about like: Oh, what might happen if Paul puts me on a leave of absence? It’s ridiculous. And it’s insulting to the memory of every child that has been murdered in the course of this genocide with the full complicity of the United States, of Joe Biden, and of people like Paul Alivisatos and his cops that he sics on us in the middle of the night. They’re hypocrites, they’re cowards, and the blood of Gaza’s kids is on their hands too. The difference between them and us is that we know that and we reckon with it, because we have a duty to them, while they hide from the truth, and they won’t even admit that a single university has been bombed.

Reporter Joanie Lum (Fox 32 Chicago) 19:10

Thank you so much. That was one of the points that the faculty brought up yesterday, what the University of Chicago is willing to say has happened. We do have a protest happening here. There are Cook County Sheriff’s police on scene, but they’re there just to observe. This is being handled entirely right now by the campus police. Reporting live, I’m Joanie Lum. Back to you.

News announcer 19:33

Joanie, thank you for your coverage. And significant developments in the Israel/Hamas war itself. Hamas has accepted a ceasefire deal, but Israel is not agreeing just yet. Israel says it will continue negotiations, saying the deal did not meet core demands. Israel’s moving forward with an invasion of the Southern Gaza City of Rafah where they believe Hamas terrorists are taking refuge.

Sam Goldman 19:57

Now to our guest. Here’s my Interview with Professor Federico Finchelstein, acclaimed historian, Professor of History at the New School for Social Research, and Eugene Lang College in New York. He’s also the author of ‘From Fascism to Populism in History’ and ‘A Brief History of Fascist Lies’.’ Welcome back, Dr. Finchelstein, glad to be talking with you about ‘The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy.’

Federico Finchelstein 20:25

Thank you for inviting me back.

Federico Finchelstein 20:27

This topic and this book, in particular, is personal. You grew up in Argentina, and a personal experience living under fascism. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about how that informed your writing and how you might see this as a critical intervention in the current latest round in the fascism debate.

Federico Finchelstein 20:46

In my own case, as you mentioned, I was born a little before a gruesome dictatorship took power in Argentina. This dictatorship was quite inspired by the fascist legacies, they even had their network of concentration camps, they persecuted people for their political beliefs, and they tortured and killed them and they disappeared them. This is one of their perhaps wholly new contributions, that instead of saying that we have killed these people, they will just kill these victims and disappear the bodies and talk about the disappeared as if these people were not killed by them.

In Argentina, where I’m from, this was the first years of my life, I lived under this dictatorship. When I went to high school, in my own high school, like just years before I arrived — I arrived, there at the time of democracy, when democracy returned — but even some years before in the same school, some students had been kidnapped and killed. Then, when I entered the university, there was a similar situation, and we people interested in the history as well as in democracy were interested in these questions, but as a historical question, which is to say something that related to the past. This has happened before and we were participating in a new democracy.

We wanted to understand the past, but the past was, in a way, different to our present. Yes, of course, many times during those times in the 80s, the military attempted a couple of coup d’etats — they wanted to return to power they couldn’t — and democracy was being solidified. When I came to this country to do my Ph.D. in the early 2000s, fascism was a question of the past, at least in many, many places. Of course, fascists were here and there, but they were not in power. In a way it was, I wouldn’t say a comfortable position, to ask the questions, but way better, politically speaking, and also in terms of the present being different to the past.

Now, we are living in a different situation, and in a way people that are younger than me, they are asking these questions not because this was in the recent or distant past, but rather because this is related to our present. My experience informs the questions I asked, but I will say that many of your listeners might be informed in a with a sense of immediacy that people studying fascism earlier on, we didn’t have, because this is part of the present.

I really appreciate that perspective. In this book, you continually return to the experience of Peronism and neo-Peronism, as well as other post World War Two dictatorships that embrace the core of fascism, but maintained a certain palatability when fascism had widely lost its legitimacy. I’m hoping you could tell us a little in broad strokes, about this phenomena that you’ve been studying, especially for our U.S. audience that is probably not so familiar.

Federico Finchelstein 23:34

Suddenly becoming familiar. This is what we Latin Americans, we have experienced this before, in the sense of extremist, radical wing, and even sometimes fascist dictators being in power. This is something, one of the things, that I want to do in my work, and I’ve returned to this topic, of course, in this book, perhaps with a bigger sense of immediacy, is that the world is pretty much connected; it happened before in other places, it can happen here. That doesn’t mean, of course, that fascism was not part of the picture, but in countries where we have had dictators before in power, we think that our histories can also contribute to illuminate. Perhaps a very concrete example of this, like January 6th, in the U.S. was perhaps the first attempt at a coup d’etat in modern American history. This happened before in other places and it’s important to learn also from those histories.

Sam Goldman 24:25

What I was mainly getting at was that the people in the US are ignorant in a lot of ways of Peronism and neo-Peronism. If there was any lessons that you think are key in terms of that phenomenon of when fascism had widely lost its legitimacy, but the dictatorship still being present, whether there was anything about that phenomenon that you think is important for people to see today.

Federico Finchelstein 24:51

In terms of parallels, but also in terms of lack of of differences. One of the things with this so called fascism debate in the U.S. — because I have to say most scholars of fascism, we agree in one way or the other, that what’s going on right now has a lot of relation to what fascism was before. Whatever the word we use for this, we can talk about fascism, post fascism, in my own book, I talk about wannabe fascism. But the point is that we have to consider how much there are so many correlations with fascism.

Here, the issue that you’re rightly pointing out, in my view, which is the need to consider earlier populist experiments such as Peronism, is important because basically, fascism was gone from power, not from political reality, of course, but from power after 1945. What happened, especially in Latin America, because there it was perhaps more possible than in other places, where perhaps anti-fascist legacies word even closer — meaning in Italy or Germany, for example, it was really difficult for fascists to reach power because there was the sense of immediacy in which we all saw how horrible these people have been to their counties, how they were living in such misery, how they created horrible situations, and so on and so forth.

The memories were there, so it was very difficult for fascists to be viable in those countries. In the U.S., for different reasons, it was seen that being a fascist, meaning the enemy, was not really a great model for reaching power. Of course, in the Soviet Union and in their sphere, fascists do not work well with the dictatorships, so basically, fascists used democracy to destroy democracy from within. So in context, where there were either communist dictatorships or dictatorships such as Franco in Spain, or Portugal, those cases are interesting because they have been fascist and they wanted to somehow de-fascisize, fascists that may have been in the times of Mussolini and Hitler, have a lot of travel and reaching power.

In Latin America it was different, and there were fascists or un-dictators such as Peron, in Argentina — he was the strong man in a military dictatorship — or Julio Vargas in Brazil, also a dictator, that realized or decided, that there was an opportunity for them if fascism was reformulated; if it was reformatted in our democratic key. Which is to say they tried to create anti-liberal democracies, that were not obviously progressive, that were obviously authoritarian, and yet they were not fascist. Because when we talk about fascism in a democratic key, we talk about something that is not fascist; fascism is defined by dictatorship.

The story is that after 45, what I call populism in power, I mean, Peronism, like in Argentina, or Vargasism in Brazil, the same happened in Bolivia, Venezuela, and other places. They reformulated those fascist laities in a way that incorporated electoral legitimacy, meaning that elections matter, at the same time that they brought back some authoritarian elements, they also coupled them with some democratic procedures. So those who were populist democracies as opposed to fascist dictatorships — they would have authoritarian, yes, but they were not fascist. This story is the story of 0th of generally the 20th century, in which populists, authoritarian as they may have been, and in many cases, of course, they were, at the end of the day, they respected electoral results, for example. What we are seeing, of course, and many of your listeners,

I’m sure I’m thinking about these issues, where we are discussing them, is: Well, what about Trump? What about Bolsonaro? They seem to be populists that also are into dictatorship. That’s my point, like the situation is that they are, if earlier populists, left, or they were trying to distance themselves from fascism, they try to leave fascism behind. These new populists of the 21st century, people such as Trump, or Bolsonaro, and many others, they seem to be wanting to return to fascism. That’s why I call them what I refer to as populist or wannabe fascist. That’s the answer to your question.

Sam Goldman 28:47

I see it as like an embrace of it. For Trump, for instance, it’s this open embrace. You think about the statements that he said recently about the election: Well, if it’s a fair if it’s not, we have to fight for the right of the country. Those to me are very overt in ways that we’ve never heard [FF: yes] that clear before. When I was reading your book, I came away with that in your formulation, populism’s embrace of elections didn’t only legitimize themselves in the eyes of their constituents, but also in the eyes of this postwar U.S. empire that claimed to be an international protector of democracy.

Now that significant sections of the powers in the U.S. are shedding that role in favor of Trumpist fascism, the GOP pretty much entirely, which has no fondness for elections and whose international support is firmly transactional. I think many so called populous around the world whose economies that and politics are dependent on American power are eager to leave these vestiges of democracy behind, and I was wondering how you see the international lations amongst these wannabe fascists, not just looking at the U.S., but around the world [FF: yes]. Are they connected? How are they connected?

Federico Finchelstein 30:08

Yes. This is what I explained in the book because, of course, I’m a scholar, but you know, I’m very explicitly so, I don’t want to be in an ivory tower. When you particularly leave the academy and establish conversations with other people that are not scholars, they demand and rightly so a clear answer to a key question, which is: What is fascism? What is the distinction between fascism and populism?

That’s why I wrote this book, because I have been many times asked this question, because scholars we always say and rightly so: These things are complex, they cannot be answered easily, and so on. But without losing the history of the complexity, because in history, nothing is one thing or the other it’s always about distinctions, and also similarities — and this is the question, of course, that you’re asking about the similarities and the distinctions throughout the world, is that I came up with these four pillars of fascism, which basically were abandoned, or left behind by the classic populists. These pillars are what makes a fascist a fascist.

This is important, because then we can answer perhaps more specifically, whether Trump and people like him are fascist. These pillars are… I mentioned one, my book is the last, because my book has four chapters, one for each pillar. The last chapter is on dictatorship, meaning there can be dictatorship without fascism, but there is no fascism without dictatorship. The Fascism is for permanent power, elections do not matter. Even when they have elections, they are more liturgical, but do not matter. What matters is the cult of the leader, the will of the leader, and the leader deciding to be in power is enough for the leader to remain in power. So that’s one element.

The other element which makes a fascist fascist is violence and the militarization of politics — meaning, at least ideologically, in other -isms, liberalism, communism, conservatism, there is no glorification of violence as such. Of course, violence exists, but violence is not a positive thing in and out of itself. With fascists is different. Basically, the one on one of power, according to most political scientists, is that power is having the monopoly of violence. That’s what these big earlier theories, Max Weber said. Power is the monopoly of violence.

But the point is that most ideologies agree with that, but when you have that monopoly of violence, you don’t use it. That’s what makes you powerful, according to the theories. Fascists have a different take on that. They think that power, of course, is a monopoly of violence, but power is using it — meaning, the more violent you are, the more violence you use, the more violence is glorified, the more powerful these people believe they are. Of course, that’s very dangerous, and it leads to another aspect, which is central also, which is the understanding of politics as the militarization of politics; politics is war. In this context, in the context of fascism, in which we see people wearing these costumes and toys, they are like soldiers, they fancy themselves as soldiers — they are not. They are paramilitary formations — they are just guys dressed as if they were soldiers for an army.

Even worse, they want to participate in political life as if they weren’t an actual army. We see these, of course, in fascism, the brown shirts, the black shirts, going on the street, physically abusing people, and so on, and brandishing violence at that kind of key instrument for politics. Of course, earlier, classic populists left this behind. Of course, then we ask the question: What is the role of violence and militarization in people such as Trump or Bolsonaro? So that’s pillar number one. Number two: Dictatorship, then, of course, violence and the militarization of politics.

Number three, also left behind by populists, but central to fascist is lies and propaganda. You cannot have fascism without these totalitarian lies and propaganda. Of course, you can have these lies and propaganda without fascism. But what makes a fascist fascist is also this Orwellian take on reality, which is replace reality with lies, and even worse, change the world according to the lies. That’s number three. And last but not least, the fourth pillar another chapter in the book is racism and the politics of xenophobia — meaning this extreme demonization, according to which, if you don’t follow the leader, you are not like us — meaning you are not a member of the people in the nation.

Even worse, in the case of fascism that acquires a racial/religious component. That’s stuff also left behind by classic populists. That stuff seems to be returning. That, in a way, is my answer, which is the lower level because we see this in Bolsonaro, we see this in India under Modi, we see these trends in Argentina with Milei, and with other groups. In different countries, you have more or less of one or the other pillars. I talk about wannabe fascism, because this is an issue of a tendency toward this, because we see a coup d’etat, we see in Trump horrible scenario and attempt to establish a dictatorship, but we don’t see it.

The same with Trump, of course, it’s xenophobic and racist, but there is no core of it here. We don’t see the extremes of violence or hatred that we saw in Nazis or even other fascists. Yet, we don’t see also what we saw in classic populists. That’s why I use this term ‘wannabe’ fascist to somehow explain the distinctions between what is going on now and the classic fascism of previous times, but also to highlight how problematic this is, and how close to fascism it is.

Sam Goldman 35:37

Absolutely, that breakdown was really helpful and that this is changing some, but I think a lot of times there was — and I’m not talking about academics here, I’m talking about people more broadly — there’s a sense to look towards the end stage of fascist power, once it’s been completely consolidated, and what they’ve been able to achieve in their violence, whereas it didn’t start there. We are not at an end stage of full consolidation yet. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to have this wonderful conversation, you and I. We have to compare it differently, not just that we’re in a different time, but this is a different stage of where they hold power.

That evolution, I think I’m seeing people beginning to get a recognition of. When I was reading, veneration of violence that you had pointed to in the book, I thought was very helpful, that it’s common to all fascisms — as you put it: There is no fascism without extreme violence. As we’ve put it on the show that as a defining feature, the elimination of the rule of law, and democratic and civil rights, and that mob violence and threats of violence are unleashed to build this movement and consolidate their power.

I think it’s interesting that many Americans attribute specifically this cold and detached violence to fascism — to the ways that for example, the Nazis treated violence — in opposition to the supposedly authentic violence of mythological America; the cowboy, the sheriff, the spurned man, Rambo, some hero in almost every cop show. But those American cruelties all mesh perfectly with Mussolini’s idea of fascism and the violence embraced by most fascists. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the real relationship between violence and fascism, and why it’s so central and where America might fit in there.

Federico Finchelstein 37:31

Of course, you have violence, militarization without fascism, but once we talk about fascism and the combination of these four pillars, it will be hard not to engage with this question of fascism. If you see this violence and militarization related to these extreme demonization, totalitarian propaganda, and dictatorial aims or even attempts. So basically, that is the context. More broadly, and here is important, the classic work on fascism by an historian, George Mosse. He explained how discriminatory racist tendencies, or violent tendencies and so, on many times are part of society, and what the fascists do with these is radicalize them, put them in political terms, and make them part of a cult. That is when all this is channeled into a more fascist situation.

But these things of course, can exist without these fascist tendencies. So for example, on discrimination, Mosse wrote this classic book on the creation of modern masculinity, and how societal ideas about what is normal and what is supposedly “abnormal,” exist without fascism, but that once fascism relates to these, they can become even deadlier in that sense.

Sam Goldman 38:44

In your analysis, following World War Two, fascism was so discredited that most political leaders who either had themselves been fascists or were the ideological offspring of fascists, tempered their worst impulses, even as they’ve maintained a continuity with the fascist past. In today’s situation, what do you think is pushing what you call wannabe fascists like Trump, for example, beyond the bounds of conservatism or populism? What do you think is holding them back from fulfilling their desires and consolidating fascism?

Federico Finchelstein 39:19

Sadly, the lack of history and lack of memory in societies create a base or an opportunity for this type of politician. In societies which have a clear memory of how bad, for example, racism and discrimination was — basically, to put it a different name, how bad fascism has been — these issues, as the earlier populists recognized, become toxic, and they look for other venues. We have to remember that at the same time that these people are highly ideological, they also want to win. When they see a society that enables them, when they see people that are demanding this, of course they do more and more of this. That’s one part of the answer.

In my opinion, the most important part, you know what stops them from become In full fledged fascists as opposed to wannabe fascists is us. To give a more specific sense to the answer, and we have seen this historically, and actually, we saw it on January 6th, in societies where security forces identify with the constitution rather than with the wannabe fascist politician, fascism does not win. In societies where voters realize that this is really, really problematic, fascism doesn’t win. In societies that protect conversations such as the ones we are having now, and to put it more generally, they protect the dissidents, they protect protest, they protect, actually, the independent press, fascism cannot win.

More specifically, and this is important, we have seen fascism winning when the judiciary, or the armed forces, identify with the leader rather than with the constitution. Also we have seen fascism winning in societies where the right, conservatives, rather than identify with the constitution, they constantly enable the wannabe fascist or the fascist, in order to tame the leader, which, of course, was not the case in Italy or Germany. Many times these conservative enablers, they believe that they can get away with it, and eventually they will be the winners and not the fascist leader, but this is never the case.

That’s why I think it was so important in the previous election, when Trump was defeated, to use the American example, where there was a portion of the center right that actually went with Biden. In order to defeat fascism, there is always the need, and history shows that, for broader coalitions. Because the problem is that at some point it is not even a political position that is at stake, but rather the subsistence of the democratic system. And that sense, center, left, right is not as important as basically taking a stance against those that are against democracy.

Sam Goldman 41:51

Given that, how do you see things shaping up? I’m not asking you to make election predictions, but given how things are coming together, do you think that they’re en route to achieve the sick dream and develop this society into full fledged fascism? How do you see things as different than they were, you know, in 2020, as we head into this fall?

Federico Finchelstein 42:17

First, I think Trump is clearly more a wannabe fascist than in the past. He’s clearly more extreme than he was, and what were tendencies become more of big assertions about all he will do, and I think we need to take him seriously. There is always a temptation of seeing him as a clown. As well as that might be the case, he’s also making statements that are really a matter of concern, or should be. I mean, the idea that you will have no rights or a dictatorship of one day — these kinds of things are really serious.

I tend to be optimistic about the possibilities for these threats not to become a reality, but again, we should be very concerned. It seems to be very open ended at this point; that is, unclear whether Trump will continue to be enabled and he might have a chance of winning the presidency again. But again, I’m an historian, so I’m more of an expert in the past rather than the future.

Sam Goldman 43:10

I want to thank you so much for speaking with me and for your book, and not turning away from this, using your expertise to speak directly to people to help us understand the moment that we’re in, and your insistence that we look outside of our borders to understand the world, that we look outside of just a European model for understanding the world and understanding history. So all of that, I appreciate a lot. I wanted before we close our conversation, to ask if there’s anything that I didn’t ask you that you really feel like people need to know right now.

Federico Finchelstein 43:47

No, thank you for your questions. I think they were each to understand the current situation.

Sam Goldman 43:51

In addition to your book, we’re gonna link to your Twitter. Is there any where else that you want to direct people, if they want to read more from you learn more about your work?

Federico Finchelstein 44:02

My previous two books are on fascist methodologies and the history of fascist lies, which are also related to these topics. And yet it is in this book where I try to synthesize, let’s say all my work in a way.

Sam Goldman 44:13

Wonderful. So we’ll link to those as well. Thank you so much. Take care.

Sam Goldman 44:17

Federico is a historian, so he largely keeps his analysis to the past. He’s a good historian, so he talks about how that past shapes and echoes through our present. But now that you’ve heard the interview, I want to say a few words about the future. This new book is titled Wannabe Fascists and I want to make clear that in this context, we are not dealing with people who just don’t have what it takes to create horrors, on the scale of the OG fascists.

Instead, we are dealing with people who want to be fascists, who are actively aspiring to those depths, but have not yet reached them. This sets them apart from the last 70 years of conservatives and “populists” who attempted to distance themselves from their fascist forebears. They may hurl the word fascist at their enemies, but Trump, along with Modi and Bolsonaro and others don’t deny their reverence for Hitler and Mussolini. They openly undermine the notion of power and legitimacy flowing from elections or any other democratic process.

While we have already seen horrors from the term in office, concentration camps, mass deaths, pogroms and a meteoric rise in hate crimes, violent coup attempts, they are now gearing up for qualitatively worse. Federico tells an important part of the story in the way that the mere passage of time and not talking about the fascist past, opens up opportunity for fascists by dimming the public’s memory, diminishing people’s rightful fear and hatred of fascism’s crimes. But what compels our societies towards fascism are the crises generated by capitalism/imperialism, and what empowers fascists is the ruling classes’ attempts to confront those crises and remain on top.

What differentiates the fascists of today from those in the history books is that they are still on the rise and have not yet achieved their vision. But particularly in the case of Trump and the MAGA movement he leads, they are diligently, even intelligently, working to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way last time around; from a state apparatus that was largely more beholden to the Republic than to the fascist leader, to a Republican Party that was not loyal enough, or committed enough to force through their singular agenda, to a ruling class opposition that has inertia, and for the time being, in federal power on its side, but no solution for the crises engulfing us, to a population who has not been outraged, nearly enough, but who remains uncomfortable with totally surrendering to a new, much crueler way of life.

These “want-to-be fascists” are on a crusade to bring their cruel vision of the future to life. They are well on their way, and they have mapped out their route to victory. The open question is, what will we do? What path will we follow? What must be done to stop them, and map out and arrive at a different future? I would love to hear your thoughts on that, so please reach out. We will be talking about those questions, in fact, next week on our show, with Clarence Lusane and Sunsara Taylor.

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