In the preface of the new book I’m reading, the author describes fascism like this:

“…a political project to cleanse and protect the nation from minority elements defined as alien; to recover a political sovereignty which they see as infringed or damaged; led by demagogic leaders who forcefully articulate grievances and concerns they seek to address and resolve, in highly simplified fashion.”

“These concerns include persistent economic deprivation that mainstream parties have failed to address. Resentment at minorities provide a convenient scapegoat for these deprivations. [Minorities] are seen as threats to the integrity of the nation. And finally, the subordination of country and its policies to external foreign powers and institutions.”

Fascism, in my own words, given all that I’ve studied on the topic, takes very real grievances and concerns and exploits them, redirecting fear and anger toward scapegoats that are not primarily or even partly or at all responsible for the plight of the aggrieved.

The program is directed by a dictator or a group who stand to either gain or maintain power by issuing an agenda that pits people against a more vulnerable people, coalescing and uniting against what they perceive is a common enemy. That enemy is a minority from within and/or a foreign actor from outside the nation.

Mass fear, anger, and resentment can be exploited by a demagogue or a group who seeks to gain, consolidate, legitimize, and entrench their own dictatorial or totalitarian power.

It can also be used by a group to take the attention away from the fundamental activities, systems, institutions, or ideologies that are central to the core of the grievances of the masses, because those activities, institutions, and ideologies are that which benefit the wealth and power of the ruling class or group that seeks to be the ruling class.

Fascism is misdirected grievance coalesced into a counter-revolutionary movement that regresses into more violence and more oppression, that the aggrieved parties hope will be directed toward their targets, however ends up not only impacting their scapegoats, but their entire way of life as they knew it, for the worse. By the time they realize it, it’s too late; or they realize it and justify it because at least their scapegoats have it worse.

Meanwhile, the people, parties, systems, institutions, and ideologies that created the storm that led to mass grievance live on with their wealth and power relatively intact, albeit under a different overarching power structure, that they chose to support rather than giving an inch in the direction of material and social equity and justice.

Capitalism, left to its own devices, naturally becomes corportocracy and oligarchy, which creates a top heavy chasm of wealth inequality, which destabilizes the political system, and devolves into fascism, especially if the society doesn’t have a strong core of collectivism or if it fails to confront the emerging fascism with a strong sense of collectivism.