Is Fascism Anything But An Epithet? (Part Two-and-a-half)

     One of the books I’ve been reading to prepare for the next essay in the series is Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism. Paxton is Mellon Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences at Columbia University. In 2009 he received the Legion d’honneur from the French Government, in part for his 1972 book Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, where he argued that the collaborationist Vichy government was not forced upon the French by Germany but entered into voluntarily – a premise that upended the received wisdom of the times. Paxton is highly regarded as a historian and his efforts to update fascism scholarship has renewed debate and thought within the field.


     Published in 2004, the following selection predates the development of the Tea Party:




           The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans, as Orwell suggested. Hitler and Mussolini, after all, had not tried to seem exotic to their fellow citizens. No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute but mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.


     Around such reassuring language and symbols and in the event of some redoubtable setback to national prestige, Americans might support an enterprise of forcible national regeneration, unification, and purification. Its targets would be the First Amendment, separation of Church and State (creches on the lawns, prayers in schools), efforts to place controls on gun ownership, desecrations of the flag, unassimilated minorities, artistic license, dissident and unusual behaviors of all sorts that could be labeled antinationalist or decadent.






Paxton, Robert O. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Allen Lane, 2004. (p 202)