Former President Donald Trump was acquitted on 13 February 2021 by the US Senate following an impeachment trial on charges of inciting a deadly riot on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol. The voting was: guilty 57 and not guilty 43. However, 67 votes, two-thirds majority of the 100-member senate, were needed for conviction. This was the second impeachment trial of Trump. The first occurred on 18 December 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and he was acquitted on 5 February 2020. Trump is the third US President to be impeached and the first to be impeached twice.
After acquittal, Trump slammed the impeachment trial as a “witch hunt” and said defiantly, “Our movement has only just begun”. What’s wrong with his movement? Everything is wrong, as it’s the movement of the far right or of the fascists. Trump represents the fascists. Trump is not what a President should be, his fascism should have barred him from being President. But democracy is not a fool-proof system. He got through.
In 2019, Harvard Associate Professor Bonikowski observed, “The recent successes of radical-right politics in Europe and the United States, including the Brexit referendum and the Trump campaign, tend to conflate three phenomena: populism, ethno-nationalism and authoritarianism.” All three phenomena can lead to fascism, and in Trump’s case they do. Trump even used violence in inciting a fascist and deadly riot at the US Capitol, in which 5 people died, including a police officer. This he did after he failed to upend the election results through the many court cases that he had filed, as he lost in every single case. There were also signs that he intended to use the army to stay in power, but when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, made a general statement, “We don’t take an oath to an individual – we take an oath to the Constitution”, Trump was dissuaded.
Trump was elected President in 2016. In his inauguration in January 2017, as many as 2 million demonstrators, the majority of whom were women, in many countries, such as the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Canada, held demonstrations, in some countries braving bitter cold weather. They protested against the scourge of Trump’s fascist, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, etc. views. They were a kind of a united anti-fascist movement of the world. With their slogans, they indicated that they would prevail against fascism, and they would defend humanity against tyranny and divisive forces.
Why did so many people from so many countries protest against the fascist occupancy of the White House? Because: (i) fascism in one country boosts the fascism in other countries, and (ii) a fascist President in the US adversely affects the whole world, as the US is the most powerful country in the world, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. So, the anti-fascist forces not only demonstrated in their own countries, but they also acted together as a united force in the world. This shows the potential of people’s globalization for peace and harmony for the entire humanity, which is just one family on one planet, the Earth. This potential runs quite the opposite of, or is quite antithetical to, the concept of a global village under the tyranny and plunder of fascist overlords.
We will very briefly look at the phenomenon of fascism in the following sections: (i) Rise of fascism and its defeat in WWII (ii) Resurgence of fascism (iii) Fight against fascism.
(i) Rise of fascism and its defeat in WWII
The Italian word ‘fascio’ (plural ‘fasci’) means a bundle of sticks or wooden rods, or a sheaf, and figuratively it means ‘league’. It came to symbolize strength through unity, because one rod was fragile, but a bundle of rods was strong. In political usage, the word meant group, union, band or league. In World War I, many groups in Italy, democrats, nationalists, etc., called themselves ‘fasci’. Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini initially belonged to one of these groups. Mussolini was the son of a blacksmith and he knew hunger and hardship. He was originally a member of the Italian Socialist Party in 1912 and a journalist. He was expelled from the party for supporting military interventionist policies in WWI, when the socialist party supported neutrality. After expulsion, he now opposed socialism and supported ultranationalist policies. In 1915, Mussolini founded the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. In 1919, he founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan. In 1921 this party became the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy for 21 years, from the fascist coup in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, and later he was executed in 1945 in the Italian civil war. He was the leader of the fascists in Italy from 1922 until his death in 1945.
As a political ideology and movement, the rise of fascism and its domination of politics was in central, southern and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945, and it had its adherents in western Europe, the US, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East, according to Robert Soucy, Professor Emeritus of History, specializing in the studies on fascism. The fascists were in power in many countries between 1922 and 1945, such as Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany (Hitler’s Nazism is also a form of fascism), Franco in Spain, Dollfuss in Austria, Salazar in Portugal, Metaxas in Greece, Pavelić in Croatia, Quisling in Norway, Tojo Hideki in Japan, etc.
Both as a political ideology and a philosophical thought, fascism is totally tyrannical, flawed and anti-humanitarian. It is a scourge of humanity. It is many things to many of its practitioners, interpreters and analysts, but its common characteristics are: (i) it is totally opposed to liberalism, liberal democracy and racial harmony; (ii) it establishes absolute authoritarianism, often one-party dictatorship, with total intolerance to, or suppression of, criticism and opposition through persecution and indiscriminate killings; (iii) it regiments all industry, commerce and the general economy; (iv) it propagates ultranationalism, aggressive nationalism, ethnic nationalism, etc.; (v) it idolizes racism and racial supremacy, whipping up populism, frenzy, racial hatred, religious hatred, gender hatred, and it perpetrates genocide; (vi) it advocates militarism for territorial expansion in the name of “Lebensraum” (living space), etc.
WWII saw the defeat of fascism. WWII was fought between two groups of nations. One was the Allied powers, mainly Britain, France, the US, the Soviet Union and China, and the other was formed from the Axis Powers, mainly Germany, Italy and Japan. All three countries of the Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan, were led by fascists, though some later day analysts contend regarding Japan’s case, but then there still are people who worship Hitler. However, the defeat of the axis power in WWII, brought in the defeat of fascism. There also developed movements against fascism.
(ii) Resurgence of fascism
Although fascism was defeated by the end of WWII in 1945, some of its remnants were still there, such as fascist Franco in Spain, who ruled until his death in 1975, and Peron of Argentina, President (1946-55, 1973-74). On the whole, fascism remained a defeated force until the 1990s, from when there has been resurgence of fascism. As Robert Paxton observed: the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, 1992-95; the fascist “skinhead” violence against immigrants in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy; the joining of the Italian fascist National Alliance in the Berlusconi government; the inclusion of Jörg Haider’s fascist Freedom Party in the Austrian Government; the meteoric rise of fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen in French politics and Pim Fortuyn, in the Netherlands; etc. clearly showed the resurgence of fascism. So, the danger to the world of strife, war, death and destruction has increased considerably.
Fascism after WWII is very often termed as neo-fascism. However, it is nothing but fascism in its content, as it “includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia and anti-immigration” (Wikipedia). It is totally opposed to democracy and liberalism.
In the UK, the parties and organizations, which are fascists include The British National Party (BNP), which in the 2009 European elections gained two members of the European Parliament (MEPs), including former party leader Nick Griffin, and other organizations such as the National Front, Combat, the English Defense League, and Britain First.
In the US, the neo-fascist parties and organizations are: the Proud Boys, the National Alliance, and the American Nazi Party. “The alt-right—which covers a broad range of groups, from neo-reactionaries to white nationalists—is also often included under the umbrella term “neo-fascist”, because they adhere to a radical form of authoritarian ultranationalism.” (Wikipedia). Trump is a fascist and the section of the divided Republican Party, which is led by Trump, is also neo-fascist. The lists of fascist parties and organizations of other countries are also available.
It is a relief that Trump is no longer the President of the US, but he threatened that he would come back in a new form. That form could not be anything other than a fascist form. There are also other fascist leaders ruling at present. Macron, Johnson, Netanyahu, Modi, Bolsonaro, Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, and their likes are all fascists. So, the anti-fascist forces have a big fight on their hands. Fascism, the scourge of humanity, must be defeated.
(iii) Fight against fascism
Wherever there is oppression there is resistance. As fascism started emerging in Europe, so did the anti-fascist movements develop throughout the world. The Axis Powers (mainly Germany, Italy and Japan) in WWII were primarily fascist, and to oppose them, there developed Allies of WWII of many countries and dozens of civilian resistance movements worldwide. The liberal-democratic US and Britain, as well as the socialist Soviet Union and China, were opposed to fascism in WWII.
The resistance to fascism has continued after WWII. There was a resurgence of the anti-fascist movement ‘Antifa’ in Germany in the 1980s, which influenced the Antifa movement in the US in late 1980s and 1990s. The Antifa movement in the US has been quite prominent after election of Trump as President.
There is anti-fascist resistance throughout the world, lists of organizations by country are also available. These movements need to be organized nationally and internationally and developed as a united force against fascism.
As a political ideology, fascism is evil. As a philosophy, it is dark, divisive and deeply flawed. Fascism is tyrannical autocracy. It does not tolerate any criticism, and imposes barbaric repression on the opposition. It thrives on the frenzy of hate against race, religion, foreigners, gender, etc. It brings in misery, death, genocide and destruction to humanity. Thus, the forces of democracy, justice, human rights, equality, and love to humanity, must organize, unite and mobilize throughout the world, both nationally and internationally, in order to defeat the evil forces of fascism, and promote rationality, peace and harmony in the world.
The world is the home of humanity. Humanity is determined to establish peace and harmony. Humanity will win!
*The writer is a London-based political analyst, commentator and a former activist and columnist constantly campaigning for Freedom, Democracy, Justice, Human Rights and Harmonious Development in Bangladesh. He appeared many times on Bengali TV talk shows in London speaking on the political affairs of Bangladesh. A retired computer consultant with a Master’s degree in Mathematics, he left his PhD studies in the UK to travel to Kolkata, India, in 1971 to join the Independence War of Bangladesh.
February 28, 2021
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
