It is impossible to avoid the dire warnings about the state of democracy in America and across the globe. Authoritarian governments are said to be wrecking the “liberal international order” that was established after the defeat of Nazism and Japanese imperialism in World War II. In the United States, opponents of former President Trump, including “never Trump” conservatives, say the front runner for his party’s nomination threatens the nation’s democratic institutions.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are presidents for life in Russia and China, respectively. Democratic countries that still hold elections are said to be turning in an illiberal direction, namely Hungary under Viktor Orban and India under Narendra Modi. Historian Timothy Snyder, to name one public intellectual, has gained a large following for his work labeling Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin “fascists.” Other scholars also look to the 1930s — the decade of Hitler and Mussolini — to inform their views on the present.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historian Roger Griffin, professor emeritus at Oxford Brookes University, contends that fascism is the wrong way to understand today’s crisis of liberal democracy.
“A lot of really quite influential political commentators and American journalists, and the writers of some quite heavy books like [Madeleine] Albright, would [argue] that we are seeing a form of American fascism…. You can see serious attempts to move democracy to an authoritarian position, to actually undermine liberal democratic values, etc. And some would argue that what we saw on the sixth of January a couple years ago was an actual sort of attempted fascist coup,” said Mr. Griffin, the author of “Fascism: A Total Immersion.”
“But I think the main problem is fascism as a word is so extraordinarily unhelpful because it’s what’s known as a floating signifier. It can move around in different contexts and take on different connotations.”
Mr. Griffin said Mr. Trump and the movement he claims to lead lack any serious ideological coherence or commitment to overthrowing the existing order, despite the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, for instance.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
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