How to Spot a Fascist

He's one of the best satirists in the world who commented on facsism and capitalism. What does Amazon do? Pick up a book costing 175 bucks and rally it for over 300. Seriously, irony dies a slow death

Born in Italy in 1932 already under 10 years of fascism with Mussolini as leader. He died in 2016 as professor in an Italian university after winning all sorts of awards from across the world for his fiction and non-fiction work. The best known is probably THE NAME OF THE ROSE and when asked of Dan Brown as a follower he replied, “I invented Dan Brown. He’s 1 of the grotesque characters in my novel who take a lot of trash occult material seriously”.There are 3 essays in the book but I will concentrate on 1 ie. UR-FASCISM (due to the November 2020 election in the USA.) He describes this as eternal fascism where he explains 14 possible features are possible and may exist. “Mussolini had no philosophy, all he had was rhetoric”. Many people look for Trump’s philosophy behind his policies and find it difficult to answer. I believe that, like Mussolini, he doesn’t have one. This was quite clearly seen in an interview in June with Fox and Friends in front of his favourite audience, ie. members of his cult. He was given a softball question, “what are your policies for the next 4 years if you win the election?” He rambled on comparing experience versus talent for several minutes. It was obvious he had no plans, no policies, all he wanted was to win the election and do what he had done for the last 4 years ie. wing it.Of the 14 features mentioned above Eco says that you only need 1 of them to exist for several others will then “coagulate around it”. 1. THE CULT OF TRADITION is an easy 1 as we see how Donald fights to keep the racist leaders statues who fought for slavery. 2. Rejection of Modernism Eco describes as an irrational viewpoint. 3. Action for Action’s sake. Trump is always running around “doing things”. Doesn’t bother much with detail and reading his briefs. He certainly actions his twitter account. 4. Dissent is Betrayal. Anyone who stands against him or speaks against him he attacks viciously especially his ex-supporters like Mike Cohen and John Bolton. 5. Fear of Difference which is racist by definition. 6. The Appeal to the Frustrated Middle Class. As wages/salaries stagnate they get angrier and want to regain the standard of living they had. 7. Obsessed with Conspiracies. Here Trump gives us plenty of examples from Birtherism to “Obama spied on my Campaign”. But another easy one is where he says that foreign countries have been ripping off the good old USA for years. Nothing could be further from the truth. 8. The people feel humiliated by the enemy’s vaunted wealth and power. The 2 obvious ones here for Donald are Soros and Bezos. 9. Life of Struggle, permanent war. Madeline Albright describes Trump’s worldview as peculiar as he sees everything as a dogfight, a sum-zero game. There are either winners or losers. She said in her book on fascism that WW3 has been prevented due to world-wide alliances of cooperation and support for common aims. 10. Scorn the Weak. Trump keeps humping the American flag and keeps telling them they are the best in the world compared to all these other “sxxxhole countries”. 11. Cult of Heroism. “they are coming for me because I am standing up for you”. 12. MACHISMO and contempt for women. “The Ur-Fascist hero plays with weapons”. Originally he boasted of his bigger button and bigger weapons than the rocket-man in North Korea. 13. Qualitative Populism. The individual is absorbed into a populist mass and merely play their role as “the people”. 14. Newspeak. “ Based on poor vocabulary and elementary syntax to limit critical reasoning.” Every time he lectures he mispronounces words he is reading off an autocue and bigly. “What you see and what you read is not really happening”. Straight out of 1984; where is today’s George Orwell.Eco died in 2016 and obviously wrote this essay before Trump came to power. He did, however, live under and through Mussolini and wrote about him and Hitler for many years. I have tried to look at Trump through the essay to show that he has most of the features that prove he’s an authoritarian by nature. Will he fool the people again in 2020 as he did in 2016, time will tell. He is fearful as we can see by his portraying Biden and Harris as possible extremists; both clearly moderates. Trump tried to destroy Biden via Ukraine which tells us how much he fears him. He picks a big donor as Postmaster –General to harm the Post Office to harm the election this autumn. He incites chaos and anarchy in the streets to make the people fearful. He then uses film of it in his ads, “only I can stop this and save you”. Will the people be fooled again, or are we better than that?

This book is remarkably accurate and beautifully written. Recommended as a guide to the change in politics we are seeing.

The usual well written and observed entertaining comments from a much loved author.

I'm not even going to bother telling you why you ought to read this book. Fascism is a plague and we have enough of those already. Knowing how to spot one is a matter of self defence. Some people don't think they need it. Good, maybe they don't, but hey, fascists as a group don't have a great track record. A lot of fascists swear that they aren't or maybe they don't even know. They should read this book and look in the mirror.Umberto was a genius and that alone is a good reason to read this. If you need another reason maybe you should keep an eye on that guy across the street.

Is the I.s.a. headed for totalitarianism?