Talk Elections

I say four:

John Adams
William McKinley
Woodrow Wilson
George W. Bush

Reagan is borderline but I'll err on the conservative side.

In what way was John Adams a fascist?

Alien and Sedition Acts

And?   You got to help me out here cause I don't see how that makes him a fascist. 

And while your at it, help me understand why you put McKinely on the list?

None.

I agree with Adams and I add the two men who worked harder to expand their own power and that of the federal government while at the same time dumping on the constitution any chance they got:

Lincoln/FDR

Adams, Alien and Sedition Acts
Lincoln, declaring war on his own country, etc.
McKinley, Phillipines occupation
Roosevelt, consolidation of executive power
Wilson, supression of free speech, imposition of income tax, etc.
Roosevelt, adoption of economic fascism through the New Deal
Truman, nationalizion of the steel mills
Kennedy, theory of service to one's country
Johnson, see Roosevelt and replace New Deal with Great Society
Nixon, need I say more?
Reagan, see Lincoln, but replace Civil War with Drug War
Clinton, see Lincoln, but replace Southerners with Branch Davidians
Bush, need I say more?

13 by my conservative count.

Basically the most anti-freedom legislation ever passed in the country. Plus blatantly unconstitutional.


Brutal imperialist. He occupied the Philippines in a manner blatantly imperialist and basically justified it the same way Tsarist Russia would justify its imperialism and repression.

Authoritarian ≠ Fascist

thanks.

Hardly. I can think of several more anti-freedom legislative acts. 
And if thats your sole criteria agaisnt Adams, than you ought to include at least Jefferson, Wilson, FDR, and Truman on your list.

^^^^^

Nixon however was the closest.

I fail to see how Reagan is anywhere near borderline...

and no, I'm not saying this just because I admire him.

0

None. There is a difference between taking measures to strengthen your office or the nation and serving as an authoritarian leader.

Fascism tends to not allow free and democratic elections in which one loses while holding an iron-clad grip on the running of the nation. I didn't realize the US ever had a dictatorial regime. And before anyone says FDR, he wasn't the sole force. Congress originates laws. That by itself removes the chances of fascism.

You'd have a tough time finding any type of authoritarian regime out there that doesn't have some sort of "legislature" that rubber-stamps the dictator's decrees.

FDR would be the closest, if not really a doctrinaire fascist.

By the narrow, forgotten definition, only Andrew Jackson.
By a wider definition: him, McKinley and Wilson.
By an even wider definition, that mocks the term: well, almost all American presidents, with the doubtfull exception of Harding, Coolidge and Carter.

None but we came close with the business plot in '34.

How has this ludicrous and completely anachronistic thread ended up in the 'History' forum?

42.

The term "fascism" is largely devoid of meaning at this point in history.

Can anyone truly define "fascism"? Are we to understand it as the beliefs layed out in Mussolini's "Fascist Manifesto", or perhaps to take the actions of Mussolini's government and then call that fascism? Is it the Nazi government we should look to for a definition, or maybe Generalissimo Franco's rule of Spain? Should we turn to Political Scientists' essays?

I doubt there's really any way to define Fascism that wouldn't in practice incorporate a broad swathe of dictatorships that have existed in the last 200 years.

O.

Of course. And plenty of people have done so. That doesn't mean that everyone will agree, of course.

4

The United States has at times had corporatist policy, certainly.

You'd also have a tough time finding a type of authoritarian regime out there that does have some sort of "free and equal elections" that results in the loss of the "fascist" incumbent.

There's a difference between fascism and authoritarianism. Read Bill Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism: fascism can be pretty accurately described as a revolutionary form of conservatism that relies on a mass-movement with broad appeal in both the lower and upper social strata to form a vanguardist coalition capable of seizing state power - and promptly bending it towards corporatist, exclusivist economic ends. Its rhetoric appeals to glamorized, idealized symbols of unity and purity. It tends to radicalize before total collapse (Werwulf being the best example, wherein Hitler wanted to employ an extreme form of scorched-earth tactic combined with total-sum mobilization of the German populace to effectively end all human life in the nation before it could be captured).

Not all fascisms are alike, either, and this can be most easily gleaned in their aesthetics (the aesthetic plays a central role in the ideology). Mussolini had envisioned a distinctly modernist ideal for Italy in the 1920's, a sort of art deco scientopia with a high degree of stratification and very little in the way of public support of outdated notions like Catholicism. He was not personally anti-Semitic, and only half-heartedly supported Hitler's demand that he expel Jews from the nation until pressed. Hitler, to the contrary, had a decidedly baroque view of Germany, and he drew on both severe Lutheranism and neo-pagan imagery to create what might be viewed as an organic merger between high German gothicisms and modern technology (an attempt at volkgemeinschaft). Moreover, Hitler hated modernist ideology; Mussolini basked in it.

Don't throw the word around lightly, but don't use it too specifically to refer to Nazi Germany alone. Mussolini and Hitler were fully-realized fascists; Perón's movement included elements of both fascism and socialism; Franco came to power on the back of the falangista movement and crushed it on assuming power; Salazar adopted a few fascist trappings, but generally disliked it, inclining as he did more towards paternalistic theocracy; Mugabe was a penny-ante authoritarian.

As a rule, authoritarian states are usually juntas or otherwise governed non-democratically, with a ruling class interested only in stuffing its own pockets. We have had a few Presidents of this persuasion. Fascism is much more; it is a mass ideological movement. I do fear, however, that today's G.O.P. are inadvertently releasing a highly-theologized form of populism on an unprepared citizenry that could very easily turn into real, authentic, fascism with a religious tinge should the proper conditions arise.   

I thought they were Communists?  Oh wait -- Hitler was a Communist, too...I forgot.

You'd have to include FDR and Truman on that list.  McKinley wasn't a fascist.

Neither was Adams, but the actual meaning of the term and its applicability seems irrelevant to some posters.

McKinley was probably the closest to an authentic fascist that we've ever had, and by this I do not mean a free-marketeer - he actively supported business while President. He was a corporatist through and through. He simply lacked the social authoritarianism that most - though not all - fascists consider a part of their ideology.

strictly speaking, there have been no fascist presidents, though Wilson was probably the closest.

George W. Bush.

To attribute fascism to William McKinley is anachronistic. McKinley was a warmonger and a corporatist, to be sure.

It's arguable that the real power between 2001 and 2006 was Karl Rove, who wielded power as the head of the Republican Party, Dubya was a weak President who did what he was told even if it was an abomination to anyone who honors truth, Constitutional precedent, and transparency. Rove operated much like a General Secretary of a Communist Party and might have wielded power indefinitely, as even the President has a two-term limit. The Party Boss is unregulated. The GOP-dominated Congress was in effect a rubberstamp outfit.

Fascism: bolshevik methods in the service of a reactionary cause.

None.

It's a pity we don't have a time machine to show BRTD what is really a fascist regime... by letting him live there just one year...
Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Antonescu's Romania, Tiso's Slovakia, Pavelic's Croatia, etc, without speaking of red fascisms...

And, then, maybe he'll stop creating so stupid and insulting (for victims) polls and topics.

None, no matter how badly some want to argue otherwise.

Wilson was somewhat fascist, FDR was borderline, Bush 43 was fine except for the Patriot Act (which wasn't used much). We will never have a full blown fascist President simply because the Congress, Supreme Court, the Military, nor the voters would accept that.

How about the one in the WH now?

lol @ people using Fascism as a pejorative for "people/policies/ideologies I disagree with"

None.

well fascist to me is about the same as communist.  they may differ about how much religious freedom they allow or they may not see private industry and business th same way but both are nanny state forms of goverment under which the productive class of citizens are robbed to help prop up lazy poors and goverment programs.

So with that definition I would say FDR Johnson (dom. policy only) and Obama.