“At it’s heart, fascism might be defined as the collective use of violence against individuals, minorities, and outsiders.” It seems to me this kind of purely pejorative definition is exactly the kind Orwell wrote about.

By this definition, just about every society in existence – from ancient Athens to modern America – has been “fascist.”

I think Roger Griffin’s definition is better: “[F]ascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence.”

In terms of practice, fascism rejects parliamentary democracy, sectoral conflic, and individualism, in preference to an autocratic, hierarchical (but ideally meritocratic), and communitarian ethos. Democracy is faulted for promoting instability and selfishness (witness consumerism..) rather than the common good and adherence to values, understood (in the fascist case) as national power.

Demoliberals do not recognize the tension between democracy and the adherence to values. If late-liberal values are being challenged now, it’s because social media has enabled MORE of the ideological pluralism which democracies claim to have. Social media has allowed both the majority and ideological minorities to express themselves more, against the monopoly previously held by the largely liberal-globalist media-political class. Postwar liberalism was triumphant precisely to the extent Western societies were anti-democratic, dominated by the thinking of audiovisual media managers in particular. The advent of real democracy, today, is undermining liberal values, because in fact democracy qua democracy undermines all values other than those promoting the majority’s individual and immediate interests (as Plato & Tocqueville explained very well).

Fascism is not necessarily particularly cruel or exclusionary. Until the rapprochement with Germany, Italian Fascism was if anything less racist than the American and British liberal-democracies. The fascist revolutions in Italy and Germany required far less loss of life than did the American, French, or Bolshevik revolutions (although, obviously, the Nazis had a very high wartime kill count, which arguably had more to do with their particular racism than fascism as such).

Assuming climate change is not a hoax, a eugenic ecofascism is likely in the Twenty-First Century as the democracies fail to rein in in the consumer capitalism which is ecologically wrecking our planet and the science concerning heredity becomes increasingly undeniable.

Obviously, none of the national-populist spasms across the West right now come even close to “fascism,” but are the increasingly democratic aspect of our liberal regimes.

Q: Could a booming economy in the EU or in the whole of Europe ever make a comeback- considering that the present EU has been captured by its federal political agenda?

Who has a vested interest to constantly and deliberately disseminate unproductive (“USE- federal”) political thoughts, which diverts attention to “history” and inhibit focus on present & future economic planning?

Are our national leaders asleep or too distracted by local issues and (ab)used as convenient rubber stamping Members in the four yearly EC decision making process?

A: Not as long there is an obsession by EU politicians, the political theorists & think tanks to divert attention away from the primary and original goal of an Economic Union, safeguarding and growing this Union and its prosperity to remain globally competitive and fully employed.

It is high time that all “National political parties” incorporate a chapter in their party manifesto about their policy direction they will follow- by clearly setting out their choices how a future EU has to evolve. To drive- not be driven!

It is not “very democratic” that all EU Treaties are written by contracted lawyers under instructions from supposedly EU/National politicians, quickly rubber stamped by the EC/National Leaders and than presented to the voting public under disguise of the many rosy, but mainly national “advantages”.

Most people look at fascism in the wrong direction like they did on 1936

No, not the same way!!!

Could?
Really?
The actual verb should really be one “could”?

It already has done a comeback. Look at Italy, Hungary…

Present. Same aim, other name.

Opportunists who flirt with power, social inequality and economic downfall, all this give a fertile ground for fascism to make the come back.

We already have top down democracy.

Both Fascism and Communism could make a comeback. We might also have something that’s equally totalitarian but can’t be classified under one of those two categories.

is already here and its is called ONU and EU

Already has

already in action, with stupid people loving it

It is already back in Europe, and it name is islam.

Could fascism ever make a comeback?

Has it ever gone away? In reality I mean.

In our desperate need to be seen as politically correct, we are once again fighting the wrong enemy. Swedish cities with a large share of new migrants have the highest reported rates of sexual assault in the EU, with Sweden in third place worldwide by some counts (UNODC). Now one can argue about the statistics, but even a cursory study of the Quran reveals the hallmarks of a fascist ideology. Muslims are proud of their convictions, and that’s fine. But let’s call a spade a spade. If you tolerate Muhammadists, you have no ground for criticising other ‘illiberals’. History is an evolutionary struggle, and our European ethnic cultures are losing due to declining demographics combined with a liberal immigration policy. Now if you are a liberal and believe that people are just numbers and that 100k Belgians can simply be substituted by 100k Arabs, that’s your right. But then say it openly.

Was it gone?

Never left it…