Have the Great Depression drag on and worsen, and its an easy sell. Either Communists or Fascists will come to power in that situation. Likewise, the Business Plot is another good way to get a Fascist US, though that's more a variant ala Nazism to Fascism that the creator of an absolute definable Fascism.
TR believed that industry was good and corporations were good, but that they were also to be monitored and not allowed to grow too massive. That's nothing outside of the Progressive movement.
Fascism evolved out of a slew of things, both left and right, but was not the child of Progressivism, and on the contrary was very much a reaction to it, and was in the end a Hard Right philosophy and wholly alien to any ideologies that may have gone into it. Progressivism preached a democratic message of individuality, but with a welfare state to provide that which the citizens could not or could not so well in certain cases, and to regulate capitalism simply to avoid corruption and abuse. Fascism, on the contrary, preached a total and overbearing state, a dictatorial state, an absolute hatred of Liberals and Progressives and Socialists and so forth that did not believe in a despotic government or believe in the individual as something subservient, complete economic control of key industries with men as simply cogs and only those cogs that could prove useful given the benefits of the state, whatever they may be. And anyone else and any sector of the economy not seen as important or key was left to wallow in laissez faire. So in fact, in many ways, you could say Fascism is a Dictatorial Libertarianism (and many Fascists were, believe it or not, rather strong believers in Libertarianism and Laissez faire) because only that the state liked was given any benefit or protection. However, I view that as as much of a stretch as calling it the descendant of Progressivism, so I wouldn't call it that.
Calling something democratic fascism is like calling something capitalist communism, and even more extreme than that. It walks thin ice, is an oxymoron and is a bad ideological indicator. The New Deal was nothing massively reactionary. Firstly, it was simply intervention and relief programs, albeit on a massive scale; the nation nationalized no industry, nor the like. Secondly, it maintained capitalism, albeit regulated (and regulated capitalism is capitalism nonetheless). Thirdly, the New Deal was little more than a continuation of the Progressive era and the introduction of many programs (Social Security) which had already been in place in the democratic nations of Europe for many years already, and which the US's lack of made it look backward. The "Return to Normalcy" with a Laissez Faire model to beat out the regulated Capitalism one was something reactionary; the New Deal could best be seen simply as a correction of the coarse back to the Progressive era.Well, it's sort of what we got. A non-militaristic, democratic fascism. FDR, perhaps unwittingly, assisted in the cartelization and corporatization of the economy such that, post-war, most of the economy was controlled by a small number of very large corporations. We also had the pseudo-syndicalism that fascism sometimes ascribes. Finally, during the late 40's and 50's there was a definite hint of the hard cultural rightism, to the point of being practically reactionary, that is often a hallmark of fascism. So, what you need to do to finish the picture is to get America more permanently militaristic and culturally conservative, instead of the peace and love movement of the 60's. Likewise, you have to get rid of American democracy, which is something of a taller order.
Teddy wasn't your typical progressive. He just really wasn't typical of anything, really.
TR believed that industry was good and corporations were good, but that they were also to be monitored and not allowed to grow too massive. That's nothing outside of the Progressive movement.
Eugenics didn't evolve from much more than a mixing belief of racism which was pervasive in the culture in all political ideologies with an idea of scientific progress and a belief in the ability of achieving human perfection in body and evolution.Honestly, like all things American, it goes very deep because, especially at this time, the American political system was VERY decentralized. You could get a relatively non-racislist progressive grouping in the North East just the same as you'd get a very racist one in the South or Mid-West. You can't ascribe one group of ideals to the entire category, only a vague description of the over-arching ideology (basically, classical republicanism spruced up for the industrial age). I don't agree with calling fascism, I should note, just that you can draw a lot of similarities between the two. Certain strains of progressivism could be said to be proto-fascism ported into turn of the century American political culture. Of course they'll be pro-democratic, democracy was pretty much the assumption underlying all American politics at the time. Of course they'd be about eugenics -- scientific positivism was the word of the day with regards to government policy.
Fascism evolved out of a slew of things, both left and right, but was not the child of Progressivism, and on the contrary was very much a reaction to it, and was in the end a Hard Right philosophy and wholly alien to any ideologies that may have gone into it. Progressivism preached a democratic message of individuality, but with a welfare state to provide that which the citizens could not or could not so well in certain cases, and to regulate capitalism simply to avoid corruption and abuse. Fascism, on the contrary, preached a total and overbearing state, a dictatorial state, an absolute hatred of Liberals and Progressives and Socialists and so forth that did not believe in a despotic government or believe in the individual as something subservient, complete economic control of key industries with men as simply cogs and only those cogs that could prove useful given the benefits of the state, whatever they may be. And anyone else and any sector of the economy not seen as important or key was left to wallow in laissez faire. So in fact, in many ways, you could say Fascism is a Dictatorial Libertarianism (and many Fascists were, believe it or not, rather strong believers in Libertarianism and Laissez faire) because only that the state liked was given any benefit or protection. However, I view that as as much of a stretch as calling it the descendant of Progressivism, so I wouldn't call it that.
Welfare was only given to those the state found worthy of it. The ideology of "Survival of the fittest" cannot be understated. Likewise, industries and corporations were free to "break" their workers and rule them with an iron fist to whatever degree they wished as long as things got done.Fascists didn't like trade unions because they were a competitor to the power of the state. They didn't mind things like welfare or other worker assistance programs, as long as they were under the exclusive and direct control of the state. Remember, the economics of fascism are basically corporatism, a kind of authoritarian syndicalism.
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