A right-wing form of government that opposes liberal democracy, Marxism, socialism, and anarchism, and attempts to forge national unity under an autocratic leader with a totalitarian program advocating stability, law and order, and more and more centralized power, claiming all of this is necessary in order to defend the homeland from internal as well as external enemies, and to respond effectively to economic instability. The mobilization of a mass base through deliberately constructed fear and hatred as preparation for armed conflict and permanent war. An appeal to patriotic nationalism. The supremacy of military and police power, and the militarizing of all aspects of society. The agitation of “popular” movements in the streets, apparently spontaneous (but in reality well-funded and highly organized) based on bigotry, intolerance, and the threat of violence, all of it fueled by the demonization of targeted, distinct racial, religious, or gendered vulnerable populations and the creation of convenient sacrificial scapegoats who are repeatedly blamed for every social or economic problem people experience. Disdain for the arts, for intellectual life, for science, for reason and evidence, as well as deep contempt for the necessary back and forth of serious argument or discussion. The suppression of labor and the protection of corporate power. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Protectionist and interventionist economic policies as corporations are entangled with the state.
It’s the textbook definition of fascism.
Bill Ayers 