Eco on fascism sounds to me like Trump

The other day I used the word “fascist” and midspeech I confessed that I did not know what the word meant. Turning to Wikipedia’s definitions of fascism, most of my questions were not answered. However, I was struck by the description of Umberto Eco’s “properties of fascist ideology”¹ because some remind me of the Trump candidacy and my understanding of his populist appeal. Heavily abridged from that Wikipedia entry, consider these six of Eco’s fourteen characteristics of fascism:

1) Fear of difference: Fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate differences, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

2) Appeal to a frustrated middle class: Fascism fears economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

3) Obsession with conspiracy: Fascism hypes enemy threats and fears of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society.

4) Concern over elites: Fascism plays up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation.

5) Machismo: Fascism includes, among other attitudes toward sexuality, a “disdain for women.”

6) Newspeak: Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary that limits critical reasoning.

Admittedly, Bernie Sanders (my first choice) also appealed to a frustrated middle class. In my efforts to understand those with different opinions, I have noted my concern about the elite financial class (that influenced my support of Sanders) mirrors the concern that many Trump supporters express regarding the elite political class.

But I am troubled by the fact that I hear the rally of the Trump phenomenon in Wikipedia’s account of Eco’s general properties of fascism.

Umberto Eco, “Eternal Fascism,” The New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995. ↩