[xzins]

Excellent post, Fru.

At its heart fascism is an economic system. It thrives by rewarding insider elites with public money. In Hitler’s era it was the Krupps, the Messerschmidts, etc. (Shindler’s List is an example of how that favoritism might have worked. Private gain at public expense.)

When problems arise, nazism has famously blamed scapegoats.

As mentioned, they make great gains in times of war or crisis (real or created.)

This brand of “Fascism from the Mind of Obama” has GE, GM, Chrysler, investment houses, and trial lawyers as the recipients of government largesse to the insider elites.

The problem with them (and hope for us) is that they’ve not really demonstrated any great competence, except for the trial lawyers.

[Frumanchu]

True, though I would disagree that fascism is an economic system at its heart. To quote Goldberg, "Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of society should work together in spiritual union toward the same goals overseen by the state. 'Everything in the State, nothing outside the State,' is how Mussolini defined it. Mussolini coined the word 'totalitarian' to describe not a tyrannical society but a humane one in which everyone is taken care of and contributes equally."

Economics is simply a vehicle by which fascism works to establish itself. It is a mixture of socialism and coproratism, depending on the circumstances, and that's because it is necessarily pragmatic. It doesn't cling dogmatically to any particular ideology...it simply does whatever is necessary to elevate itself to power.