First — a definition of fascism. Seems like everybody has a different one, but I’ll go with Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of neo-fascists:
“The neofascists advocate militant nationalism and authoritarian values, oppose the liberal individualism of the Enlightenment, attack Marxist and other left-wing ideologies, indulge in racist and xenophobic scapegoating, portray themselves as protectors of traditional national culture and religion, glorify violence and military heroism, and promote populist right-wing economic programs.”
Sounds like MAGA, doesn’t it?
Ahmed’s study analyzes the data of 18 fascist regimes from history. All of them are now dead with “…a median lifespan of only 8.5 years; more than half were gone within a decade.” Apparently fascist projects are like the Luna moth, which only lives for about a week. (Although Luna moths don’t have mouths whereas fascists won’t shut the fuck up.)
But perhaps most interesting is how the longer-lasting regimes achieved their longevity.
“The only regimes that survived beyond two decades did so by [somewhat] ceasing to be fascist, demobilizing the mass movement that brought them to power and abandoning the revolutionary ideology that defined them.”
Let’s be clear — He’s not saying those regimes stopped being a-holes. It was not fun to live under those fascist-light governments, but the regimes were able to avoid flaming out as quickly by decreasing their military overreach and keeping their state institutions running fairly well.
Ahmed pinpoints two different versions of federal institutional capture used by fascist leaders. Either consolidating capture or predatory capture. Consolidating capture involves shifting the state apparatuses to serve the fascist rulers rather than the people.
The Trump project is [using] …predatory capture. The regime is cannibalizing federal institutions – destroying their expertise, scattering their workforce, and eliminating their regulatory capacity – while the oligarchic interests driving the process extract private value from the wreckage.
Destroying the ability of the government to even moderately serve the people and absorb shocks greatly increases the odds of a quick collapse of the fascist project. (More on that later.)
Another aspect of fascist governments that tends to bring about their downfall is the giant hard-on they have for militarism and expansionist overreach.
A fascist regime cannot remain fascist without picking bigger and bigger fights, and those fights kill it. Every regime in the dataset that scored high on overreach died within twenty-one years. …the average time to collapse is just 2.9 years.
It would be tough to argue Trump’s regime is not involved in massive overreach. War Secretary Pete Hegseth recently laid out Trump’s plan to take over a quarter of the known world. Of course, we know Trump has tried unsuccessfully to purchase/steal Greenland. He has moved Europe from the “ally” column to the “enemy” column. He has attempted a massive trade war on most countries, including arguably the most powerful country in the world — China. He has launched into a catastrophic war with Iran. He’s funding and arming Israel’s wars against Lebanon and Yemen, while also funding and arming genocide in Gaza. He also kidnapped and tortured via solitary confinement the leader of Venezuela and besieged Cuba, hoping to starve them to death. …And oh yeah, Trump wants to spend $1.5 Trillion on the military per year, which would be more than every other country combined except China and Russia.
Sooooo, perhaps one could call that overreach.
And what does history tell us about the Trumpian form of fascism?
…the Trump 2.0 administration presents a profile the dataset associates with the fastest-dying regimes: high ideological intensity, significant overreach, and a hostile international environment.
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Ahmed then goes into predictions of how exactly this regime will flame out — if history is any indicator.
Scenario A – Degradation and correction (most probable, timeline uncertain).
Essentially, after compounding dysfunction, a correction comes either electorally or through system failure. Does anyone want to argue that the Trump administration won’t continue to cause compounding dysfunction? No? Thought so.
Scenario B – Hybridization and long tail (plausible, and potentially the most consequential).
In this possible version, MAGA is finally removed, but it remains somewhat embedded in institutions and within the GOP. With this scenario, the fascist regime would no longer rule, but it would still have some degree of power within the system.
Scenario C – Crisis-driven consolidation (low-to-moderate probability).
In this future, a major shock hits and forces Trump and MAGA to shift away from predatory capture, instead keeping functional state institutions running. This would be one of the most pernicious possibilities because Trump/MAGA would have a highly functional government and therefore likely last much longer, absorbing major shocks.
But the good news is, Scenario C is unlikely because:
This would require MAGA to start governing with strategic discipline rather than ideological frenzy…
Hahahahahaha. Yeah, can’t really see that happening. Not unless Trump has a personality transplant.
Scenario D – Authoritarian persistence through institutional ruin (low probability, catastrophic impact).
In this possible future Trump MAGA fascism lasts longer because it has so effectively destroyed the government apparatus that there’s hardly anything left to constrain it. However, even in this horrible scenario, Trump/MAGA’s inevitable overreach still brings about collapse of the regime eventually.
Ahmed concludes with this:
The only question the data leaves genuinely open is how the collapse unfolds – and what is recoverable on the other side. The fire will burn itself out; what the remaining landscape looks like will determine the extent to which the seeds of reorganization can take root.
I largely agree with Ahmed’s analysis except for one key area. I agree that history seems to foretell a grand pyre marking the end of Trumpian fascism, and it seems that conflagration will likely happen sooner rather than later.
However, the entire study and article work off the premise that the United States has fascism now and did not have it before Trump’s second term. But if we look back at that definition of neo-fascism, over half of it applied to the US before Trump started his second term or even before his first term.
Militant nationalism – The US is one of the most nationalistic and expansionist countries on earth, representing an empire with 800 military bases encircling the globe.
Attack left-wing ideologies – When “left-wing” is appropriately defined, the US government has practically zero left-wing members of Congress, has never had much of a left-wing president, and doesn’t have true left-wingers represented in almost any aspect of the three branches of government, nor the media. All Democrats in the federal government say they’re proudly capitalist and few actually stand up against right-wing authoritarian efforts that go back decades.
Racist and xenophobic scapegoating – Trump has certainly ramped up the racist attacks on immigrants, but we should remember Obama and Biden deported more immigrants than ever before and heavily funded and enlarged DHS and ICE.
Glorify violence and military heroism – Obama and Biden were at war with multiple countries. Obama oversaw the surge in Afghanistan and continued the war throughout his time in office. And destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and the proxy-war in Ukraine were all started/facilitated under Trump’s prior administrations.
Populist right-wing economic programs – What is passed off as “left-wing” is usually just slightly liberal right-wing policies. A good example is Obamacare. Sold as it left-wing, it actually preserved the parasitic capitalist healthcare system that enriches the already rich and bankrupts countless Americans. Bill Clinton knocked millions of welfare programs and Joe Biden and Bill Clinton created and oversaw the transformation of the US into the largest prison state the world has ever seen.
Point being: While Trump/MAGA are a more in-your-face full-frontal brand of fascism, many of the best-known characteristics of fascism were present in the American government and system prior to Trump’s second term. They will almost definitely still be present once Trump and his psychopathic parasites flame out.
That being said, I think most of us would like to see the Trump regime end sooner rather than later. Even Trump’s biggest fans and promoters have largely abandoned him.
It’s good to know that history tells us that end is likely on the horizon.