The word “fascism” is being tossed around a lot these days. Here in America, it has recently been employed by those in mortal fear of a Donald Trump presidential administration, to describe the latter’s political approach and ideology. In Europe, it is often used to describe—again, in an obviously negative light—the ascendant right-wing political parties that have made electoral gains on the continent over the past few years.

“Fascism” as a political theory is hard to explain. It is not at all like the American brands of conservatism or liberalism, which can usually be broken down into their component beliefs for easy classification of a politician, based upon his or her espoused views. Fascism is harder to nail down. To quote the eminent wordsmith Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

As always, at SOFREP, we are here to help you sort out your confusion. To do this, your author had to first sort out his own confusion—a time-consuming endeavor, rest assured—and dig out his dusty, cobweb-covered graduate school textbooks and research papers, which were buried in cardboard boxes, hidden deep in the recesses of his closets. Thank God for the occasional hoarding tendency.

Now that he is sufficiently refreshed on his admittedly limited knowledge of classical fascism, we are ready to explore the phenomenon, and its definition within the bounds of political science. What we will not be doing is taking a deep dive into its manifestation under Benito Mussolini, nor any other specific fascist, neo-fascist, or proto-fascist regime. Rather, we will examine fascism strictly as a category of thought, political practice, and ideology. Bear with me. I promise this will not be as boring as it sounds. Furthermore, in today’s political environment, we need to be briefed up on this school of thought. It is important.

First, it must be noted that academics argue—a lot—over the definition of fascism. There are different schools of thought, the great majority of which we are going to blissfully gloss over in a distillation process worthy of a fine bourbon. Instead, we shall break it down and look at fascism in the simplest terms we can get away with, just shy of this author receiving an angry phone call from his graduate school fascism professor, berating him for not paying closer attention in class.

Fascism is a revolutionary, ultra-nationalist movement that focuses on national “rebirth.” That is a one-sentence definition. Our word of the day is “palingenesis.” No, it does not signify the day Sarah Palin came onto the American political scene, although that would probably make for an interesting field of study. Rather, palingenesis is a concept of rebirth or re-creation. In the political context, it is often used to describe a fascist movement that focuses on raising the nation up from the depths of depression or political malaise. In other words, fascism emphasizes making the nation great again. It is a palingenetic movement.

Fascism also came to be strongly identified with vigorous opposition to both Marxism/communism and liberal democracy. It found both systems to be lacking. While academics argue over whether this should be a defining characteristic of fascism, it is nonetheless important enough in the development of the movement to address it here. There are many who will always associate fascism with anti-communism, given the partisans in the Second World War. The linkage is now set in stone for most common observers (of which this author is certainly one).

Long live the dear leader

The principle of strong, centralized leadership is one of the defining characteristics of the movement. The cult of the leader plays heavily into establishing a fascist regime’s legitimacy. One is hard-pressed to find a successful fascist movement that does not root itself in a charismatic, strong leader. Think of the Kim family of North Korea, for example.