“Weak Fas­cism” by Robert Kahn; Cour­t­house News Ser­vice; 3/28/2014.

EXCERPT: Repub­li­cans are liv­ing down to their self-proclaimed role as the party of ideas. What they have been propos­ing for years is a form of weak fas­cism: not one in which the cor­po­ra­tions are put in har­ness to strengthen the gov­ern­ment, but one in which the gov­ern­ment is shack­led to the power of cor­po­ra­tions.

Fas­cism, Webster’s Sec­ond Edi­tion tells us, is “a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment char­ac­ter­ized by rigid one-party dic­ta­tor­ship, forcible sup­pres­sion of the oppo­si­tion (unions, other, espe­cially left­ist, par­ties, minor­ity groups, etc.), the reten­tion of pri­vate own­er­ship of the means of pro­duc­tion under cen­tral­ized gov­ern­ment con­trol, bel­liger­ent nation­al­ism and racism, glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of war, etc.: first insti­tuted in Italy in 1922.”

The only dif­fer­ence between Mussolini’s Fas­cism and Repub­li­can fas­cism is the four wordsunder cen­tral­ized gov­ern­ment con­trol, yet if pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions con­trol or can dic­tate to the gov­ern­ment, that’s a dis­tinc­tion with­out a difference.

Mus­solini har­nessed the cor­po­ra­tions to the state. Repub­li­cans would har­ness the state to the cor­po­ra­tions. They claim they want to free the cor­po­ra­tions from the shack­les of gov­ern­ment.. . .

. . . .Local con­trol — states’ rights, in vot­ing, racial poli­cies, “sci­ence” and reli­gious cur­ricu­lum in pub­lic schools, what women should be allowed to do, and so on, is, of course, a ban­ner cause of the so-called tea party — the Repub­li­can fascists.

Mod­ern Amer­i­can fas­cism, then, has just one essen­tial dif­fer­ence from Ital­ian or Ger­man fas­cism of the bloody 20th cen­tury: whether the con­trols should be exerted by gov­ern­ment or cor­po­ra­tions.

Tea party Repub­li­cans are squarely on the side of the cor­po­ra­tions, and this is a place where Repub­li­can fas­cism and Libertarians meet.