Fascism, Part 2: Laurence Britt's 14 Identifying Characteristics of Fascism

Is it fascism or not? Here's one of the great acid tests.

Feb 07, 2024

Visible in this photo are the orange of the Oath Keepers, the yellow of the Proud Boys, the strange blue flags of the America First group. If you look closely, you’ll see many more. Groups that stormed the Capitol building allied more than six months before the election. They anticipated losing, and they were right. And they weren’t having it. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

We re-send this post for those who’ve just joined us and you who didn’t have the time to read it before.

With the ascent to power in recent weeks of Mike Johnson as house speaker, what began with the Evangelical fronting of Donald Trump—and reached nadir with the appointment of the unqualified Amy Coney Barrett and the predatory Brett Kavanaugh to join the corrupt Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito on the Supreme Court—already dim skies filled with sooty clouds that blocked the sun.

In these days, when forces in American politics threaten to overthrow democracy and create a tiered state in which the voting rights of people of color are suppressed or destroyed, in which laws curtail women’s rights and freedoms, in which education is reserved for elites, we would like to believe that it cannot happen here. We do have a constitution that has the potential to hold it off. But there is also no question that courts, a Congress and a presidency dominated by white-supremacist hyper-conservatives could destroy it.

So, best to keep a weather eye out for the Identifying Characteristics of Fascism, collected and curated by Laurence (often misspelled Lawrence) Britt and published as an article called “Fascism, Anyone?” in the magazine Free Inquiry in 2003. A historian, Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Suharto in Indonesia, and Pinochet in Chile and found that they exhibited many or all of the following 14 traits, to which I have added contemporary and historical examples. Of particular note for the United States presently are 1, 2, 3, 5. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14. Apparently, we’re not missing many of them.

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes and their adherents tend to saturate the environment with pro-party patriotic mottos, slogans (“Lock her up!”), symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia—for example, the MAGA hat. In extreme regimes like Nazi Germany, flags are seen everywhere. Also, in the Third Reich, internal enemies were also identified by clothing symbols: pink triangles for gays, yellow Stars of David for Jews. Also note the uniforms of militias storming the Capitol on January 6. They featured nooses, an overtly racist Confederate Flag, a repurposed “OK” hand signal, and the Betsy Ross Flag, the last harking back to a time when women and people of color had no power and no rights under the law. Please see: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-hill-insurrection-extremist-flags-soh/index.html and https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/far-right-symbols-capitol-riot/
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
People in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” In extreme cases, people may look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, and long incarcerations of prisoners. Long incarcerations are a defining characteristic of the United States legal system now.
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities, liberals, communists, socialists, migrants, or alleged terrorists—and, in contemporary American society, pro-choice women and non-cis-gendered people accused of undermining “moral” sexuality.
Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional, “organic” gender roles for women are made more rigid. Put bluntly, a woman’s major value is for sex to please men and to breed children for men and their culture. Opposition to abortion is high, and homophobic and anti-gay legislation flourishes, with some nations, like Iran, Arabia, Brunei, and Uganda, enforcing the death penalty against gays.
Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation or by sympathetic media spokespeople and executives (Fox News, Breitbart, NewsMax). Government censorship and secrecy, especially in times of war, are very common.
Obsession with National Security
Fear of hostile foreign powers is used as a motivational tool by the government. Combined with controlled or willingly pro-government mass media, it is almost impossible for a citizen to determine whether what is being said about the “enemy” is true. Example: Putin’s Russia.
Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. For the Nazis, it was Lutheranism and Catholicism. During World War II, Hitler’s mother’s grave was a Catholic shrine. Religious rhetoric and terminology are common when the religion supports fascist leaders and is antithetical to constitutional law and policies.
Protection of Corporate Power
To quote Britt directly: “The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.”
Suppression of Labor Power
Accurately seeing organized labor power as the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are “either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.” Labor activists are equated with communists and socialists in an attempt to disparage and/or endanger them.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Writes Britt: “Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.” Examples: Trump shut down the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. The student debt debacle can be seen, at least in part, as a war on the intelligentsia.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given a frightening level of power to enforce laws—and the will of the state—while the state exaggerates the level of crime as an excuse to arrogate power. Sometimes there is a national police force. To note, Trump’s second-term plans include giving police unlimited stop-and-frisk powers and using the military against civilians—a quintessential example of this quality of fascism.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
As Britt writes: “Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.” For a potential second term, Trump promises to use the judiciary to destroy the “Biden family.”
Fraudulent Elections
Elections in fascist countries (Saddam’s Iraq and Khomeini’s Iran) are often a complete sham. At other times, elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against opposition candidates—including, in Mr. Biden’s case, the winner. Sometimes opposition figures are assassinated, and sometimes manipulation of elections is effected by use of the media (challenging Biden’s election) or by redistricting to disenfranchising groups (people of color mainly) from being able to vote. The redistricting case just decided by the Supreme Court is an example of this ploy, but with a good outcome for a change.