For those who actually want fascism to mean something, Umberto Eco’s 14 key points of Ur-Fascism are handy:
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“The cult of tradition”, characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
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“The rejection of modernism”, which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
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“The cult of action for action’s sake”, which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
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“Disagreement is treason” – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
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“Fear of difference”, which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
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“Appeal to a frustrated middle class”, fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
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“Obsession with a plot” and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
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Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
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“Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy” because “life is permanent warfare” – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
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“Contempt for the weak”, which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
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“Everybody is educated to become a hero”, which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, “[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”
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“Machismo”, which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold “both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality”.
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“Selective populism” – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of “no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people”.
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“Newspeak” – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
“Trump is a threat to democracy and he’s an orange ball of wax”
While I personally think Trump is surrounded by a bunch of dangerous people that see his dark triad characteristics as a vehicle that can carry them into wielding power (a point they’re not wrong about), thus making the point of his personal intelligence/executive function a null issue. For example , it’s objectively funny that someone is narcissistic enough to need to Sharpie a hurricane forecast, but completely useless to point out and laugh at when the person also represents a real threat to the world, and yet, there are there are definitely people in opposition to him that are guilty of doing the cognitive dissonance thing you point out and making it their entire focal point. I don’t think what amounts to neoliberalist head burying in verbal sand to make themselves feel better while refusing to look at Trump seriously is the same as what Trump and his followers are doing though. The difference being that third way cognitive dissonance is self-assuaging when the subject is threats to democracy (because on the individual level they can “got mine!” themselves into thinking they won’t be affected and still convince themselves that lame snark and “concerns” counts as doing something, that broadcasting a vibe of business as usual as an assured thing is the message we need) and the cognitive dissonance spewed by Trump is designed for consumption by others in order to short circuit any dependency they may have upon objective reality in favor of fear and the willingness to accept what he says over anything else. Neither thing is good, but one is way more nefarious. A masturbatory Jon Stewart rally is useless in preventing a fascist takeover, but a Trump rally is actively working towards a fascist takeover.
That said, the “Donald DRUMPF hurr hurr hurr!” crowd are more than useless - it’s bad enough that they’re getting high off of their own flatulence, everyone around to witness it has to smell it too. Some people might even decide they should do it too, since maybe they prefer their own stench to overwhelm what they’re smelling. It’s definitely not productive. Still, Trump is a guy smearing his excrement on his followers until they can barely see anymore and telling them it’s simultaneously a great thing and that the only way to get clean is to hold is to find anyone that didn’t line up to be covered willingly and shove the filth down their throats. Both behaviors are shitty, but one is objectively worse.