Mike Dilger on Nostr: Fascism is, originally "multiple strands or sticks bound together". The plantar ...

Fascism is, originally "multiple strands or sticks bound together". The plantar fascia in your foot is multiple fibers that are stronger in unison than any fiber alone would be. This concept, taken from the latin meaning "band", was used politically originally to mean "unity". Alone we are weak, but together we are strong if we "band" together.

In that sense (which isn't at all what modern people mean by fascism) Abraham Lincoln was a fascist and indeed Donald Trump is a fascist. So is Joe Biden. In fact everybody who isn't libertarian is a fascist. Even people who believe in corporations are fascists, for what is a corporation other than multiple people joining together for some cause? All political parties are fascist. I could go on.

But no, that is not what fascism means to people today. What happened was that the original fascist party, which was named after the concept of unity, moved and changed and only became famous when Mussolini was running the show. And so what we call fascism today is misnamed. What we mean is "the policies and ideals of Benito Mussolini". We really should call it Mussoliniism, and leave the term fascism to continue to mean what it does in latin.

But of course language changes and is uncontrollable. I'm not seriously arguing that we should fight that trend. This is just a history lesson.