I now increasingly tend to think that the current dismal tide of right-wing populism is a mutation of older forms of fascism: certainly not the same thing, but driven by similar energies.
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Yes! The völkisch ideology of restoring the nation by purging corrupt and foreign elements is shared heritage for sure. But right-wing populists are part of and operate within the institution of liberal democracy, which I don’t think is the case for fascists.
But that is indeed a very thin line, no? Many far-right and fascist-adjacent parties have in the past operated within those liberal-democratic institutions – until they saw an opportunity to demolish them from the inside out.
But then they are fascists! Is my point. But I think it’s a meaningful distinction to make that right-wing populists want to promote their ideas with the space of competitive electoral politics offers by liberal democracy, while fascists only exploit liberal democracy when useful for other ends.
And maybe the AfD are fascists in that sense! Or maybe in another sense. My impression is that *as an organisation* they are more of the first type, i.e., competing within the space of electoral politics, but I don’t know - which is why I’m asking.
The AfD doesnt work within the institution - take a closer look on the regional levels. They dont care; they use pasrts of it - but only to destroy and sabotage.
This is a shift we are looking at in a research group how the far right is turning towards the hijacking of the constitutional order across Europe rather than outright opposition.
But don’t you think there is still a meaningful distinction to be made between right-wing populist parties that see competition in the space of electoral politics within the institution of liberal democracy as an end, and fascist parties that view the cooption of that process as a means?
Indeed, that is precisely my point: far-right populists tend to be anti-institutionalists in a way that separates them clearly from the right-wing "small government" conservatives who maintain a strong commitment to the institutions of liberal democracy.
Yes, and if the AfD does indeed intend to do that then I think it makes sense to call them a fascist party! But do they? Maybe there’s still an ongoing factional battle in the AfD between a right-wing populist and a genuinely fascist faction. I don’t know!
But the point is that the analytical distinction is unstable---the American experience is that the far right seems to have started out within the democratic, but the moment they realized that liberal democratic institutions would impede their goals, they pivoted to burning it down
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Also Vox: the Generalissimo's regime was pretty great and an example to follow today