There's something complicated. We live in a difficult situation, and our concern increases when we see the extreme right rise around us. Many remember the 1930s of the last century. But does the current extreme right have anything to do with the then fascism? Are we really in the same situation as then?

At this time when we see fascism everywhere, Enzo Traverso, professor of history at Cornell University, put his eyes on the right direction, in the online course “Radical Right and Authoritarian Neoliberalism”, clarifying precisely and in detail the differences between historical fascism and the current extreme right.

He said yes, yes. Since the World War, the rise of the radical right has not been known as we are now. In the last five years it has been giving a global dynamic of fascists in Europe (Hungary, Poland, Austria and Italy), it has a great strength in France and until recently extreme right-wing parties such as AfD in Germany or the Vox in Spain, as well as worldwide: Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, Modi, Putin’s authoritarianism, the case of the Philippines…

The Italian historian made it clear to us that the political field is becoming fascialised globally. That the problem is global and that it comes from several years ago, as a result of the 2008 crisis. However, in this upward trend, he did not find the pandemic a revolutionary change. The COVID-19 crisis has only deepened that authoritarian trend towards the emergency situation, he said.

However, he stressed that COVID-19 has also had a curious effect: in this health crisis, the radical right is not considered a legitimate and reliable candidate for managing the biopolitical turn of politics. He cited as an example the case of Salvini, who, as Minister of the Interior, was in the trap of fame, but was torn down by the wave of solidarity and the atmosphere of mutual assistance that created the pandemic.

“The pretension of the extreme right is the regeneration of the national community, the regeneration of an imaginary community with ethnic and racial homogeneity. But this definition is not enough to link the current extreme right with classic fascism. To this end it needs other characteristics: as a priority action of the culture/practice of violence, militant anti-communism, the destruction of democracy (we cannot speak of fascist regimes if there is no destruction; the extreme right does not want to break with democracy, in authoritarian neo-liberalism is comfortable), the utopian dimension (the idea of the future of fascism does not have the tip of the current right), and the relationship with the elites (fascism).

So Traverso nullified the current radical right, which, remembering the characteristics of historical fascism, exposed the limits of the current extreme right. These borders were cleared up with the attack by the United States Capitol. “Fascism is a danger, yes, a threat, but the Capitol’s attack was not a coup d’état. Trump has no choice. Trump will never come to power as the leader of supremacist teams. Trump has only one way to get to power: as a candidate for the Republican Party. It is true that 5 years ago these supremacist militias did not exist and that they have been created under Trump’s mandate. But this has not been a crisis of the monopoly of violence (as it happened in the 1920s), but a crisis caused by a legal culture that guarantees the right of everyone to have arms in the United States. Democracy was brought down immediately after the fascists came to power in the last century. However, Trump only says that, after four years in power, he has won the elections. That Biden has scammed."

All of this leads Enzo to speak of post-fascism. On the one hand because it comes chronologically after fascism and on the other because it has another political configuration; on the other hand, no one claims the legacy of fascism (except for a few exceptions). There's a change. “Ideologically there has been an evolution (the leaders of the current radical right are not ideologues) and the current right tip cannot be fought with the lexicon of classical antifascism.”

The difference between classic fascism and the current radical right

The first difference the Italian professor mentioned was that classical fascism had a great utopian dimension. It was the third route between liberalism and socialism. This shaped the idea of a new man, a fascist aesthetic; national regeneration was understood as the regeneration of a race obtained through the mass movement; it led to the work of the collective imaginary.

The present radical right is reactionary, it does not have the horizon of utopia. What are you looking for? Border care, the defence of the national currency, protectionism, the protection of traditional values, the defence of the Judaeo-Christian Europe, the defence of the White United States… In fact, these are only cultural and political proposals built in the face of cultural pessimism and fear. Nothing has to do with the revolutionary project that fascism had. They don't talk about the future. They only talk about what has disappeared, about what they want to recover.

Traverse calls this present (expressed presenteeism: presentist historicity regime). He says that we live in the present and that in this present we bring together the past and the future. “That is a major obstacle for the radical right to develop as a new fascism.” However, the historian has also accused the radical left of the same impossibility of projecting into the future.

The extreme right is based on fear and conservatism. It no longer has any mission to civilise the world. It does not want to conquer the world, as in the past, it is conservative, it wants to strengthen itself at its borders, in order to protect itself from Islamism, from the invasion of the South… The logic of the extreme right today is not a logic of conquest, but a logic of retreat and withdrawal.

And finally, another thing that differentiates classic fascism is the relationship between the extreme right and the working class. With the lowest salaries, with the poor, with the most exploited workers, with those with a lower level of education… Historically, fascism never achieved hegemony among the working class. He was always the enemy of the working class, because the working class had political conscience, because it had political practice, because it was part of a collective... The working class always fought for fascism.

Classical fascism was formed by the small bourgeoisie, the precarious layers among intellectuals and with the support of the elites (the elite does not create fascism but its support is fundamental to the victory of fascism).

And this is serious: the current extreme right now uses the same language as the plain people. The working class is now a field of conquest for the radical right. How has this happened to us? Because the radical left has not been able to prevent this entry from the extreme right.

Attention, then. The extreme right is not the fascism of yesteryear. Their characteristics are different and we have known the differences that exist between them. This is a retrospective movement inspired by the fear of the difficult situation brought to us by neoliberalism, which is spreading even within the working class, and which leads us to accept authoritarian tendencies more and more easily.

The current extreme right is not that fascism of the 1930s, but I do not know if the fear of freedom exercised by the extreme right is not the same as that written by Erich Fromm at that time…