Keep in mind as well that an American-style fascist movement would hardly be a precise copy of either the German or the Italian models, or even of the parties currently building far-right movements in France, Hungary, Greece, and elsewhere. Nor would it copy the proto-fascist coalition of ultra-nationalists and religious zealots being courted by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It would undoubtedly be a uniquely American creation.
Though Trump has managed to bring together disparate elements of what an American fascist movement might roughly look like, he may not, in the end, be quite the right messenger for its development, nor may this be quite the right moment for it to fully develop. Among other things, for such a movement and the armed militias that would go with it to coalesce, you might need another 2007/2008-style economic meltdown, a crisis long and profound enough for such a movement to seize the moment. In that case, of course, it’s also possible that a Bernie Sanders-like leftist or socialist — or maybe Sanders himself — would emerge to capture the ensuing political and economic unrest in a very different manner. But in The Donald’s America, don’t rule out the possible emergence of an even more formidable and threatening Trump-like figure, one unburdened by his clownish persona, Trump University, and the rest of his billionaire’s baggage.
Whether or not Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination or is elected president, for the gathering members of his grassroots coalition, he’s certainly shown what can, indeed, happen here.
Emphasis Mine
In Proto-Fascism in the USA, I wrote:
To understand more about Fascism, I have been reading "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" by Leon Trotsky.
At the moment that the "normal" police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium — the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat — all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.
Emphasis Mine
Bernie Sanders threatens that equilibrium. The Black Lives Matter movement threatens that equilibrium. The Minimum Wage campaign threatens that equilibrium.
The most plausible scenario for the rise of Fascism in the USA is for Bernie Sanders to win the Presidency. The mild progressive nature of a Sanders administration would be sufficient to collapse the equilibrium of the American system. And in the backlash, another demagogue would arise to unite the forces that Trump awakened.
A new Clinton administration would not do this. Nor would a Trump or Cruz one. For all of these are working within the system. There is no need for Fascists to take back the system.
