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Quote by Robert O. Paxton

“An inverse relationship exists in contemporary western Europe between an overtly fascist “look” and succeeding at the ballot box. So the leaders of the most successful extreme Right movements and parties have labored to distance themselves from the language and images of fascism.”

Book:The Anatomy of Fascism

Work

The Anatomy of Fascism

This book delves into the political ideology of fascism, examining its roots, key features, and the ways it has influenced societies and governments throughout history. more

Author

Robert O. Paxton

Robert O. Paxton is a renowned American historian known for his research on 20th-century European history, particularly the history of France. His works delve into the historical background of totalitarianism and racism, significantly influencing the understanding of modern political and social movements. more

“It was little phrases that slipped out between the lines or at the microphone in private meetings, and the lineage of some of their supporters, that a watchful press seized upon to accuse Le Pen, Haider, and Fini of cryptofascism. Le Pen, who knew that his gruff manner formed part of his appeal, often made remarks readily interpreted as anti-Semitic. He was fined for belittling Hitler’s murder of the Jews as a “detail of history” in a September 1987 television interview and again in a speech in Germany in 1996, and lost his eligibility for a year in 1997 for striking a female candidate in an election rally. Haider openly praised the full-employment policies of the Nazis (though no other aspects of Nazism), and he appeared at private rallies of SS veterans and told them that they were models for the young and had nothing to be ashamed of. All of these radical Right parties were havens for veterans of Nazism and Fascism. The leader of the German Republikaner after 1983, Franz Schönhuber, was a former SS officer. He and his like did not want to reject potential recruits from among the old fascists and their sympathizers, but at the same time they wanted to extend their reach toward moderate conservatives, the formerly apolitical, or even fed-up socialists. Since the old fascist clientele had nowhere else to go, it could be satisfied by subliminal hints followed by the ritual public disavowals. For in order to move toward Stage Two in the France, Italy, or Austria of the 1990s, one must be firmly recentered on the moderate Right. (This had also been true in 1930s France, as shown by the success of La Rocque’s more centrist tactics after 1936.)”

Europe Fascism Far Right Alt Right Modern Fascism Fascist Resurgence

Book:The Anatomy of Fascism

Source: The Anatomy of Fascism

“In the programs and statements of these parties one hears echoes of classical fascist themes: fears of decadence and decline; assertion of national and cultural identity; a threat by unassimilable foreigners to national identity and good social order; and the need for greater authority to deal with these problems. Even though some of the European radical Right parties have full authoritarian-nationalist programs (such as the Belgian Vlaams Blok’s “seventy points” and Le Pen’s “Three Hundred Measures for French Revival” of 1993), most of them are perceived as single-issue movements devoted to sending unwanted immigrants home and cracking down on immigrant delinquency, and that is why most of their voters chose them. Other classical fascist themes, however, are missing from the programmatic statements of the most successful postwar European radical Right parties. The element most totally absent is classical fascism’s attack on the liberty of the market and economic individualism, to be remedied by corporatism and regulated markets. In a continental Europe where state economic intervention is the norm, the radical Right has been largely committed to reducing it and letting the market decide. Another element of classical fascist programs mostly missing from the postwar European radical Right is a fundamental attack on democratic constitutions and the rule of law. None of the more successful European far Right parties now proposes to replace democracy by a single-party dictatorship. At most they advocate a stronger executive, less inhibited forces of order, and the replacement of stale traditional parties with a fresh, pure national movement. They leave to the skinheads open expressions of the beauty of violence and murderous racial hatred. The successful radical Right parties wish to avoid public association with them, although they may quietly share overlapping membership with some ultraright action squads and tolerate a certain amount of overheated language praising violent action among their student branches. No western European radical Right movement or party now proposes national expansion by war—a defining aim for Hitler and Mussolini. Indeed the advocates of border changes in postwar Europe have mostly been secessionist rather than expansionist, such as the Vlaams Blok in Belgium and (for a time) Umberto Bossi’s secessionist Northern League (Lega Nord) in northern Italy. The principal exceptions have been the expansionist Balkan nationalisms that sought to create Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia, and Greater Albania.”

Far Right Modern Fascism Radical Right

Book:The Anatomy of Fascism

Source: The Anatomy of Fascism

“Sex workers and their allies are dismissed as the ‘pimp lobby’. Trans people and their allies become the ‘trans cabal’, or in an incredibly offensive formulation, the ‘trans Taliban’…. And any challenge to reactionary feminist views is repackaged, via these conspiracy theories, as evidence that they are indeed right. Terms such as ‘trans Taliban’ echo other reactionary monikers, such as the racist ‘woke Stasi’ and misogynist ‘feminazi’, which are common on the far right. They also tap the contemporary appetite for conspiracy that has supported recent rightward shifts. Reactionary feminists may well be the InfoWars of the movement.”

Racism Transgender Sex Work Far Right Terf Swerf

Book:Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism

Source: Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism