Whew! No Fascists Here!

A guest post by Dr. Stephen J. Heaney.

Editor’s Note: This is now the third (fourth?) time I have told you that “the next piece I publish will be the 2024 Election Night Preview” and then posted something else instead! This guest post by Dr. Stephen J. Heaney fell into my lap last night by good fortune, and it called for timely pre-election publication. I promise I’m working on the Election Preview in the other tab, and it should be out tonight (late)!

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Fascist logo, from an Italian 1930 National Fascist Party membership card. The wrapped bundle of sticks is a “fasces.”

Back when I was a teenager in the ‘70’s, “fascist” was a favored epithet of any hippie who was told not to do, well, whatever he wanted to do. Then, as now, most people have absolutely no idea what the term actually means.

Fascism was the name Benito Mussolini gave to his idea of the State. The term is derived from the word “fasces,” a bundle of sticks tied together. In fascism, the individual has no meaning; one can only understand oneself within the State. The individual has no will or individual power. There is only the State, i.e., the whole bundle. Mussolini coined the word “totalitarian” to describe this submersion of the individual into the State. To be human is to exert power in the universe, eating up all who oppose the State, and then going on to consume other nations into it. Fascists hated democracy, and indeed all classical liberal ideas of individuality.

Fascist Italy was not the only totalitarian regime at the time. There was also Hitler’s National Socialist regime (only Aryans rule), and the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union (in theory, the proletariat rules).

As Hannah Arendt documents in her work on the rise of totalitarianism in Europe, all three regimes relied not simply on crushing the opposition. It is easy enough to kill off your opponents. The trick was to involve everyone in the plan. It is not enough to keep you from doing what you want to do. It is necessary to make you do what you do not want to do, and eventually to want to do it. Totalitarianism requires everyone to stand on the street and cheer for the regime, or suffer the consequences. It requires complete, forced conversion. It requires reeducation camps and forced labor. It requires the family to pay for the bullets that are used to execute their parents or siblings. It requires every institution to be on one side: academia, journalism, science, medicine, industry, religion. There can be no freedom of conscience. There can only be the “truth” as given by the regime, even if that “truth” changes from day to day to be the exact opposite of yesterday.

Are there any fascists in the 2024 presidential race? Not to my knowledge, not even in the minor parties. Donald Trump is no fascist, even if you accept the arguments that he fomented a coup d’etat (full disclosure: I do accept those arguments). He is at worst a garden variety wannabe tyrant, of the sort you see described in Plato’s Republic—that is, he is a person completely consumed with himself. He rides the crest of dissatisfaction of people who feel trampled by those in power, but he only pays attention to their desires insofar as he can use them to get power for himself. He surrounds himself with sycophants and flatterers, because his biggest fear is to be unadored, a loser. He is soon hated by almost everyone, and lives in fear of his life. The one thing he is not, however, is a totalitarian. He has no cause that he lives for other than himself.

Contrast that with the current tendencies of Progressives. They have a Cause, a religious view of the self as a bundle of desires, and especially sexual desires. To impose any restrictions on these desires is to commit an act of personicide. (See Justice Anthony Kennedy’s famous “heart of liberty” passage in the Casey decision.) All who are thus thwarted are victims, the oppressed. All relationships, in true Marxist fashion, are between oppressors and oppressed. Thus, says Kamala Harris, we must be free to be or act in any way we wish sexually, to rid ourselves of our own unborn children, and to change our bodies to serve our desires, to determine for ourselves the meaning of sex, love, and marriage. Everyone must agree to this, and pay for it, and celebrate it. Parents who refuse will have their children taken from them (see California). Doctors who refuse will be drummed out (Harris). Any religion that gets in the way must be upended. Any individual who disagrees must be reeducated. Any passing on of points of view at odds with this will be called “misinformation” or even “hate speech,” and must be prosecuted (Hillary Clinton, Tim Walz). If the courts do not allow this, they must be packed with those who will make Progress possible. If the Constitution does not allow this, it must be changed.

Trump is a petty tyrant. Harris and company are Marxist-mold totalitarians. But no one is a Fascist. What a relief.

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Stephen J. Heaney is an Emeritus Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, MN. He has published in The Thomist, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Human Life Review, Nova et Vetera, Crisis, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Touchstone Magazine, Twin Cities newspapers, and Public Discourse on topics in ethics and political philosophy such as abortion, marriage, sexuality, and voting ethics.

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Editor’s Addendum: Yes, he’s my dad. In fourteen years of blogging, I’ve often mentioned him, but never managed to snag one of his pieces for original publication at De Civ.

Personally, I spent much of 2016 arguing (rather strenuously) that Donald Trump was a fascist. My opinion could not survive contact with reading any of Benito Mussolini’s actual political philosophy. For a very short introduction, read Il Duce’s 1932 essay, “The Doctrine of Fascism.” At 10,000 words including footnotes, it’s shorter than quite a few De Civ essays.

Plato’s Republic describes the tyrant, and how he springs forth from the bosom of democracy, in Book VIII. (His focus turns to tyranny in 562a.) This is a timeless work. Everyone interested in law or government. should read Book VIII of the Republic eventually.

Arendt’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is available free on the Internet Archive. Part Three is the part relevant to this essay. It’s quite good. It’s very long.