The Latent Fascism of Today’s Anti-Fascists
12th May 2024
The terms “fascist” and “fascism” are continuously bandied about today. But those who use these words most seem to understand them least, such that many of today’s self-styled anti-fascists paradoxically take on the central features of fascism to an extraordinary degree.
We can see contemporary fascist tendencies manifesting on both ends of the political spectrum — not only among white supremacists but also in the character types described by Eugene Rivers as “trust fund Becky with the good hair revolutionary communist” or “white boy Carl the anarchist from the Upper East Side who is a junior at Sarah Lawrence.”
Fascism is obviously worth opposing, but to be truly anti-fascist requires an understanding of how this ideology manifests in history and what the word actually designates. Already by the end of World War II, George Orwell noted that the term “fascist” was used so indiscriminately that it had become degraded to the level of a swearword synonymous with “bully.”
Eugene Meyer, whom I knew at Yale and who went on to help found the Federalist Society, was fond of saying that ‘fascist’ merely means ‘something I don’t like’, while ‘equitable’ merely means ‘something I like’.