By Yann Sydow
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the ‘f-word’? No, not that one. Fascism, of course. Let me guess: Hitler, Swastikas, intimidating men in black boots and uniforms.
Dehumanisation at its worst, the mechanisation of genocide through planned concentration camps. The worst of humankind, evil itself incarnated.
What about in the movie Barbie when Sacha uses the f-word to condemn Barbie as a symbol of harmful beauty standards, consumerism and sexism? Or when, in a heated argument on Good Morning Britain, a British TV Presenter called climate protesters 'fascist’? It seems that the f-word is used for so many different things. So what is the definition?
Well… Let’s just say it’s difficult. In fact, there is no common scholarly agreement on what it exactly entails. Many focus on the historical period, such as the definition of Britannica: a ‘political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of (...) Europe between 1919 and 1945’. If that is so, fascism should not be used anymore, as it is a relic of the past. Yet, you hear it everywhere. In other contexts, it is used as an insult for anyone who disagrees with you.
One attempt has been to create checklists. The most famous one being Umberto Eco’s 14 characteristics of ‘Ur-Fascism’. Yet reducing it to a simple list risks mistaking superficial similarities for genuine fascism or failing to recognise new forms. As Roger Griffin, one of the main scholars in this domain laments: ’You can be a total xenophobic racist male chauvinist bastard and still not be a fascist’.
And that is precisely the point: It has no intellectual basis. It is opportunistic and constantly changes to appeal to the masses. Liberalism has John Locke. Conservatism Edmund Burke. Communism Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Fascism? Well, technically Mussolini. Until you realise that his most famous theoretical statement, The Doctrine of Fascism, was published in 1932, a decade after his ‘mythical’ March on Rome.
Fascism Today: Same but Different?
Contemporary Europe is obviously not the Europe of the 30s. Its institutions, economies and international environment have changed significantly. The world is also far more prosperous, international and connected. Yet, there are many striking similarities. As the saying goes: ‘History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme.’
Today's far-right parties frequently reject the fascist label and at least on paper support democracy. This was of course not the case back then. Even the so-often positively acclaimed Winston Churchill was swept by the fascist enthusiasm of the 30s calling Mussolini the ‘Roman Genius’ and ‘the greatest lawgiver among living men’. Unlike today, the Nazis did not hide their intention to defeat democracy. Take Goebbels: in 1928 he clearly wrote in the nazi-newspaper Der Angriff ‘We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons.’ Contemporary populists use similar ‘us’ vs ‘them’ rhetoric but they are much less open about their intentions of creating an authoritarian state. The clearest demonstration is the former prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, who proudly called his country the first ‘illiberal democracy’.
Or also consider the language of national decline and rebirth, one of the clearest indicators of fascism. The MAGA movement has inspired many in Europe to ‘Make Europe Great Again’. The slogan captures this lost national greatness and victimhood. Although most far-right parties don’t openly use Eugenics to say that one supposed ‘race’ is superior to another, racism doesn’t loom very far. Many invoke the concept of ethno-pluralism, this idea that different ethnic or cultural groups should remain separate. Presented as defending ‘culture’, it is weaponised to attack the multicultural complex societies that globalisation created and its vulnerable minorities. One just has to replace the word ‘culture’ with ‘race’, and we find ourselves back in the 30s.
Another striking similarity is the instrumentalisation of conspiracy theories. During the early 21st century, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion falsely alleged that Jews were aiming for world domination. Compare this to the current ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, which believes that white European populations are deliberately being replaced through immigration with the support of a secretive liberal elite. A contemporary example of this narrative is George Soros. As a wealthy Hungarian hedge fund manager and philanthropist he is demonised as this hidden puppet-master of manipulating migration and politics at the expense of ‘the people’. The fact that he is Jewish is, of course, only a ‘coincidence’.
Recognising the warning signs
Calling every nationalist or authoritarian politician with the f-word risks normalising fascism into a casual insult. Sure, what we are seeing today has many overlaps with the 30s, but it should not be used interchangeably. Fascism always reinvents itself. It's a fluid concept. Yet, it's also very simple. It's the politics of ‘Us versus Them’. The hatred of difference. How can we fight against it?
One very simple way, where individuals also have agency, is to simply vote (as long as it is still possible). The NSDAP received a total of 43,9% of all votes in 1933. Once the party was within the political institutions and received the legitimacy of the people, it was very difficult to go back to the Weimar Republic. Only last month did the far-right German party AFD receive 43,8% of all votes in the district of Saxony-Anhalt. While this was not yet on the federal level, it is a warning sign of what could come next. Already in the latest European Parliament elections in 2024, the far right increased their voting share from 21.84% in 2019 to 27.25%. That is roughly a 25% relative increase in their share of the vote. And it shows. In June 2026, far-right MEPs celebrated the European Parliament's approval of tougher deportation rules by chanting ‘Send them back’. A reminder that fascists are already moulding institutions from within.
Another way is to be more cautious when using the f-word. The public has a very specific image of fascism, which creates selective amnesia of what is and isn’t fascism. History lessons, for good reasons, heavily focus on Germany’s Nazi past. Yet, this blinds people from understanding the divergences of fascism across history. The public is unaware of other fascist regimes such as Pinochet’s Chile, Hungary’s Orban, or even 1920s Italy. It reduces states to binaries: either a state is healthy and democratic, or it is fascist. Instead of seeing it in black and white, a tactic could be to call similar movements proto-fascist. For example, former president of the US, Joe Biden, called the MAGA movement ‘semi-fascist’, showing its authoritarian and exclusionary tendencies without claiming that it is comparable to what people traditionally think of fascism.
Ultimately, fascism is too complex to be analysed in only a single blog article. From its obsession with conformity and the subordination of the individual to its use of propaganda, futuristic visions and ever-changing aesthetics, there is much more to explore. But one thing is for sure: Fascism in Europe is back. Different perhaps, but it is very much alive. As Primo Levi, prominent anti-fascist and survivor of the Holocaust, comments: ‘Every age has its own fascism.’
Note: The article is largely basing itself on the work of ‘The Story of an Idea - Fascism’ written by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey.
