AHC: Fascist USA

Actually, I'd say it was the KKK in the 1920s, at least in America. Where the KKK failed was in that it was, fundamentally, a secret society, while fascism is a mass movement, and a secret society so narrowly focused (no Catholics, no blacks, no immigrants, no unions) that by the time it reached its greatest power, it had, in essence, ideologued itself right out of competition. It never made the transition to political movement precisely because it lacked the ability to reach out beyond its white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant base, which at the time was steadily shrinking. The American "nation" is not, and never has been, primarily defined by its ethnic or religious identity, and that is where the Klan failed.

I'd actually say that the American nation defined itself for a long time as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant one - especially in the South.

I can imagine a timeline where more imported slaves led to more majority black states in the South. This causes more exposure to brutality faced by blacks and a stronger Radical Republican bloc. After the Civil War, these Radical Republicans strike a tougher line on reconstruction, and you get African-Americans running state governments. Just have one of these elect a leader similar to the African anticolonial leaders of OTL, and you get a huge white backlash nationwide. Populist leader emerges hating foreign "African" elements, the individual rights theories of the Republicans, and the wealthy Northern bankers that fund them. Takes power by legal or illegal means, dismantles system of government and writes a new one.
 
Well, much of Wodorow Wilson's presidency was pretty *Facistic, as was much of FDR's early presidency (much of the New Deal was very *Facistic aswell, i'd recomend Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Facism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Fascism)

But IMO think it would be hard to have a genuinely Facist (as in Italian/Mussolini style) governemnt in the US.

There's a word for people who use the term fascist to describe someone who they merely disagree with...

Wrong.
 
Jonah Goldberg assumes that because osmething shares elements with another it must be the exact same thing, which just isn't so. Because using his logic he is a fascist for his support of actions against terrorist. But than anyone with a brain knows thats not true.

The idea of a liberal fascism is an inherent contradiction to begin with. As the OP outlines one of the key aspects of fascism is rejection of individualistic liberalism (while also avoiding class warfare).

The thing is Jonah Goldberg didn't call liberals or liberalism fascist. He used a term coined by H.G. Wells in a speech to point out various similarities between the two and I would go as far as to say he groups today's American liberalism and its ideological forbears into the same ideological family as fascism. He was far more subtle than you two are giving him credit. If anything, criticise him for not including neo-conservatism in the book (which is debatably within the same family as fascism) when he criticised Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" and for banking in on the controversy of the term "liberal fascism" which he had to have known would stir up a hornet's nest of trouble and would turn off many and not lead to any real scholarly or intellectual look at the validity of the case he made, which does have some validity though his case is biased.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
I'd actually say that the American nation defined itself for a long time as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant one - especially in the South..

And I'd say you're wrong: Some Americans might have defined their nationality in those terms, but the US was never an ethnic nation based on an Anglo-Saxon protestant background. There were ALWAYS non-Anglos making up significant majorities in large sections of the United States and, while protestantism was a very large part of the American identity, Catholics (and Muslims!) have always lived here as a minority and the explosion of the Catholic population began so early it's hard to think of a time when this might have been true.

Understanding the mistake comes from grasping the concept of 'True American'ness. People will mistake their own regional cultural proclivites for the 'true' characteristic defining an American. The truth is that the USA isn't a nation-state, it's some weird super-position of a nation-state and a federation of nation-states. We certainly have sub-'national' cultures that are one or two steps away from being truly defined nations themselves, and there's no real 'national' culture that has a firm grasp on any one population anywhere. What we think of as 'national' characteristics in America are really characteristics of one or more of our sub-national cultures that has been conflated and generalized with the whole body politic.
 
Understanding the mistake comes from grasping the concept of 'True American'ness. People will mistake their own regional cultural proclivites for the 'true' characteristic defining an American. The truth is that the USA isn't a nation-state, it's some weird super-position of a nation-state and a federation of nation-states. We certainly have sub-'national' cultures that are one or two steps away from being truly defined nations themselves, and there's no real 'national' culture that has a firm grasp on any one population anywhere. What we think of as 'national' characteristics in America are really characteristics of one or more of our sub-national cultures that has been conflated and generalized with the whole body politic.

I'm sorry, but all of this is ridiculous. Just look at its recent history. One terrorist attack and the American hyper-nationalism kicked into over drive. To say that there isn't an overarching American culture, or even further that America isn't a true nation-state, is... well its simply insane. :eek:
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
I'm sorry, but all of this is ridiculous. Just look at its recent history. One terrorist attack and the American hyper-nationalism kicked into over drive. To say that there isn't an overarching American culture, or even further that America isn't a true nation-state, is... well its simply insane. :eek:

My whole point is that American 'nationalism' means extremely different things to different people.

That was why I said we're some kind of combination of one nation and multiple nations. Even with the assimilationist policies of the last half century, great diversity remains between regions and populations. the one thing tying all Americans together is our common Federal government. That's about it. Sure, some subset of all American cultures/nations/whatever will have things in common with each other, but of the whole, that's really it.

Why do you find this such an insane notion?
 
My whole point is that American 'nationalism' means extremely different things to different people.

That was why I said we're some kind of combination of one nation and multiple nations. Even with the assimilationist policies of the last half century, great diversity remains between regions and populations. the one thing tying all Americans together is our common Federal government. That's about it. Sure, some subset of all American cultures/nations/whatever will have things in common with each other, but of the whole, that's really it.

Why do you find this such an insane notion?

So you mean that there is an overarching American culture and American nationalism afterall? :rolleyes:

And I find it insane but it is. One merely needs to spend a few days in any American town to realize how hyper-nationalist the country is, and how uniformly the same overarching culture is applied regardless if you're in the Northeast or the South, East or West, rural or urban, white or black, etc. Its all still so glaringly obviously American.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
So you mean that there is an overarching American culture and American nationalism afterall? :rolleyes:

No, I'm saying that you might have two or three cultural groups with this same opinion or trait in common but then one or two more who don't share that opinion or trait.

And I find it insane but it is. One merely needs to spend a few days in any American town to realize how hyper-nationalist the country is, and how uniformly the same overarching culture is applied regardless if you're in the Northeast or the South, East or West, rural or urban, white or black, etc. Its all still so glaringly obviously American.

In what way(s)?
 
No, I'm saying that you might have two or three cultural groups with this same opinion or trait in common but then one or two more who don't share that opinion or trait.



In what way(s)?

Again, look back to the US' reaction the 9/11. Now compare that to the various European, and Asian, countries who've experienced terrorists attacks in the same time span. Hell Norway, who, afaik, was the most recently hit by domestic terrorism have had such a non-reaction that I was just reading this morning that they aren't even going to change the policy of their every-day on the street police officers not carrying firearms. For the Norwegians the Oslo attack changed nothing; in the US after 9/11 the entire society was drastically shifted by hyper-nationalism. Saying that there isn't a compelling American culture and strong nationalism across the US conveniently and pointedly ignores recent US history.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
Again, look back to the US' reaction the 9/11. Now compare that to the various European, and Asian, countries who've experienced terrorists attacks in the same time span. Hell Norway, who, afaik, was the most recently hit by domestic terrorism have had such a non-reaction that I was just reading this morning that they aren't even going to change the policy of their every-day on the street police officers not carrying firearms. For the Norwegians the Oslo attack changed nothing; in the US after 9/11 the entire society was drastically shifted by hyper-nationalism. Saying that there isn't a compelling American culture and strong nationalism across the US conveniently and pointedly ignores recent US history.

Where's your study showing that this was the result of a drastic shift in the opinions and behavior of the entire population, instead of a larger shift in some subset of the population?
 
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