Fascists have historically done things that would bother an American conservative such as:
- The aforementioned nationalization of industries
- [snip]
- Centralization of power and strong statism.
For almost a decade now, the Republican party has embraced Cheeto, who has openly called for, and never retracted such calls, the suspension of the Constitution to return him to power. So, you'll excuse me if I express skepticism that a majority of American right-wingers would object to a right-winger like Cheeto becoming an authoritarian who might nationalize certain industries and centralize power based on their nominal "conservative,"
small-r republican values.
Fascists have historically done things that would bother an American conservative such as:
Universal Healthcare and pensions for the less well-off classes
Er, citation needed? Famously, fascists haven't been terribly interested in providing social welfare to historically under-appreciated minorities such as Jews and Roma, and in this country, right-wingers have shown a consistent disinterest in funding social programs that tend to benefit people of color. So, you'll excuse me if I express skepticism that any kind of American fascist leader would promote policies that would significantly benefit non-white ethnic groups.
But, most of all... from Wiki's
Definitions of Fascism:
A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an
authoritarian form of government; however, the general academic consensus also holds that not all authoritarian regimes are fascist and require more distinguishing traits to be characterized as such.
[...] Historian of fascism
Stanley G. Payne created a lengthy list of characteristics to identify fascism in 1995: in summary form, there are three main strands. First, Payne's "fascist negations" refers to such typical policies as anti-communism and anti-liberalism. Second, "fascist goals" include a nationalist dictatorship
and an expanded empire. Third, "fascist style", is seen in its emphasis on violence and authoritarianism, and its
exultation of men above women, and young above old.
(emphasis added)
I don't know of any widely accepted instance of a fascist government or even movement that isn't highly militaristic in the sense of being adversarial to a particular (as in, ethnic or nationalistic) enemy. In Europe today, movements that are called fascist are generally highly opposed to non-white immigration in particular.
Any remotely plausible American fascist movement, therefore, would have to prominently and primarily define itself in opposition to a neighboring country or a particular ethnicity... and we only have two national neighbors, one of whom is 70% the same ethnicity as that which happens dominates the US' right wing. So again, to be even remotely plausible, we'd be looking at theorizing an anti-white movement from the left, or an anti-Latino one from the right. Of course, the American left would not likely support a movement that "exulted men above women," and the US is so ethnically mixed it's hard to imagine even a right-wing specifically anti-Latino movement really taking root, even taking into account Cheeto's inflammatory rhetoric about the "blood" of the country.
Sidebar: I think a lot of the contemporary American confusion around the term fascism is it's been
liberally (pardon the expression) applied to Cheeto, but Cheeto and the MAGA movement are notably lacking in a militaristic ideology. He's more of a wannabe 18th-century style monarch than a 20th-century fascist. Heck, his
whole style is more
Versailles than
Kehlsteinhaus. And his policies and ideology are absurdly vague and variable, with almost no core tenets besides keeping himself in power, lowering taxes for the rich, and restricting immigration along almost entirely geographic
and class lines.
Now,
here's an idea for a fiction American fascist movement and civil war: since the early 2000s, for whatever reason, almost all Central/South American nations suddenly becoming overwhelming Islamic, with American persons of Central/South American heritage mostly unaffected. Said Central/South American nations start forming a tight-knit regional union, with rapidly deepening ties to all Middle Eastern countries apart from Israel. In the States, a right-wing anti-Islamic movement therefore agitates for imposing secular/non-Islamic governments on those countries, by force if necessary, while the left wing favors diplomacy and resists militarism. A national geographic sorting follows, in which militaristic Christians of all ethnicities flock to Southern/middle states, while similarly diverse others flee to the coasts. The right wing then tries to establish a new, Christian Evangelical national capital in Dallas, and the Coastal Alliance threatens invasion if they don't knock it off and recognize the supremacy of the Constitution.
Then a civil war follows.
Obviously, that sort of story wouldn't be plausible in the geo-social sense (why would overwhelmingly Catholic Central/South American societies suddenly adopt Islam?), and it would be extremely controversial to both the American left (who'd see it as anti-Islamic) and right wing (who'd denounce it as anti-Christian), but at least it would be a coherent
premise.
