The Totalitarian Advance

Post-fascism is hard to define, but we see in many places in the world conditions that remind us of certain aspects of fascism without the full-blown fascist ideology. 

To steal a comment from Seymour Lipset, post-fascism is the extremism of the middle. Post-fascism in today's world, with its surplus populations, is a response to a situation in which many extra people live in countries. Some are, although native to their land, surplus, essentially stateless and no longer wanted. They lose the rights of citizens. The post-fascist drift no longer supports full citizenship for blacks in Mississippi or gays in Russia. And some people, unwanted immigrants, live in limbo.

On the periphery of wealthy countries, states are failing, and their inhabitants are attempting to move into the states that still function. Functioning states can--if they will--protect human rights.

Global capitalism thrives. Exxon Mobile, BP and nationalized Big Oil in Russia are joined at the hip in projects to drill all over the world, including the Caribbean.

Some states are more post-fascist than others. A totalitarian post-fascist state has a charismatic dictator known to all. That makes them easy to spot. The center of a post-fascist state is usually an ultra-nationalist reunifying ethic group. Imperialism is, for them, a means of achieving ethnic rejuvenation by expanding into neighboring states. They focus on conflict between ethnic groups rather than on class struggle. They purge or attack groups they see as inferior; and they promote racial solidarity.

These states tend to emphasize masculinity and social Darwinism while, simultaneously, claiming victimhood. Criticism is forcibly repressed, but even in totalitarian states different views continue to exist. Repression in the name of family values is common. Elections are falsified. What you get in the end are regimes of personal power. Meanwhile the West's appetite for appeasing dictators continues to grow in the shade of our nuclear umbrella.