(Trump’s first 100 days in Office — a period of time historically used as a benchmark to measure the potential of a new president — PRA will share readings, videos, and tools for organizing to inform our collective resistance based on principles for engaging the regime, defending human rights, and preventing A form of top-down political system that concentrates state power in the hands of a single leader and/or group of close allies. Learn more . Daily readings will be posted on our Facebook and Twitter accounts and archived HERE.)
Week 4: Fascism, Authoritarianism, Right-Wing Populism
Fascism and neofascism: Fascism is an especially virulent form of Generically used to describe factions of right-wing politics that are outside of and often critical of traditional conservatism. Learn more populism. Fascism glorifies national, racial, or cultural unity and collective rebirth while seeking to purge imagined enemies, and attacks both revolutionary movements and liberal pluralism in favor of militarized, totalitarian mass politics. Fascism first crystallized in Europe in response to the Bolshevik Revolution and the devastation of World War I, and then spread to other parts of the world. If it is a post-WWII occurrence it should be called neofascist or neofascism unless it solely involves participants in older movements. Neofascists reinterpret fascist ideology and strategy in various ways to fit new circumstances.
Right-wing populist movements target superficial or false symbols of elite power, reinforces systems of social privilege and The use of violence, intimidation, surveillance, and discrimination, particularly by the state and/or its civilian allies, to control populations or particular sections of a population. Learn more , and is built around a backlash against liberation movements, social reform, or revolution. Right-wing populist movements feed partly on people’s grievances against their own oppression but deflect that anger away from positive social change. Right-wing populism is a form of repressive populism.
Featured resources
- ‘Trumping’ Democracy: Right-Wing Populism, Fascism, and the Case for Action by Chip Berlet
- What time is it?: Why we can’t ignore the momentum of the Right by Scot Nakagawa and Tarso Luís Ramos
- What is Fascism? By Matthew N. Lyons
- “What is Right-Wing Populism?” by Spencer Sunshine, excerpted from Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement
Additional Readings
- See our Fascism Portal Page!
- Explore the website based on the book Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons
Engage
“The best defense against fascism is a truly democratic alternative to the status quo. Human rights organizers working for social and economic justice need to encourage forms of mass political participation, including democratic forms of populism, while simultaneously opposing Blaming a person or group wrongfully for some problem, especially for other people’s misdeeds. Scapegoating deflects people’s anger and grievances away from the real causes of a social problem onto a target group demonized as malevolent wrongdoers. Learn more and A mode of political explanation that assumes a vast insidious plot against the common good. Learn more that often accompanies right-wing populism.” Continue reading “Challenging the Right” by Chip Berlet HERE.
