{"id":18649,"date":"2025-10-29T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18649\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:29:07","slug":"pitt-faculty-provide-insight-amid-rising-concerns-over-fascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18649\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitt faculty provide insight amid rising concerns over fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since before President Donald Trump was sworn into office for the second time, both his political opponents and regular citizens have warned of fascism in the United States under Trump\u2019s governance, but a lack of consensus on the definition makes it difficult to pin down what these accusations really mean.<\/p>\n

Amid a highly polarized political climate, Pitt faculty are offering insight into the debate surrounding the political ideology of fascism \u2014 what it is and whether it\u2019s happening in the United States.<\/p>\n

John Boonstra, an assistant professor in the history department, said historians have debated if the term \u201cfascism\u201d can be defined and, if so, how? According to Boonstra, the simplest way to define fascism is as the name of the 1919 Italian political movement<\/a> that saw Benito Mussolini\u2019s rise to power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the lack of an agreed-upon definition, Boonstra attempted to offer an understanding of fascism.<\/p>\n

\u201cFascism opposes a lot of things,\u201d Boonstra said. \u201cIt\u2019s a nationalistic movement. It\u2019s a mass movement. It\u2019s a movement that is opposed to the perceived degeneration of a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most recently, at the Oct. 18 \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests<\/a>, some Americans likened Trump\u2019s style of governing to that of famous fascists. Monica Ruiz \u2014 the executive director of Casa San Jose<\/a> and one of the sponsors of the \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests in Pittsburgh \u2014 said she thinks the country is being run by a fascist government.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Trump] is following the textbook of what fascism is,\u201d Ruiz said. \u201cIt\u2019s militarizing our states. It\u2019s arresting, detaining, shooting and killing people that speak up against what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Cassidy, a junior political science major and president of College Republicans at Pitt<\/a>, said she does not think fascism is on the rise and that the term is being used to attack politicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happened a number of times in human history,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cPeople actually compared President [George W.] Bush to Adolf Hitler.<\/a> I kind of wonder what happens after his presidency, and what they [will] say about the next person up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boonstra said it can be hazardous to label things as fascist because without a clear definition \u2014 using the term may only lead to confusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLabels can obscure more than they reveal at times, and so, used as epithets, as insults or as bait can be hazardous,\u201d Boonstra said. \u201cIf it\u2019s being used to dull rather than clarify meaning, then I think that\u2019s not really serving anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horia Dijmarescu, an assistant professor in the department of political science, said the difficulty in identifying fascism is not in the definition\u2019s ambiguity, but the often nonlinear and gradual change from democratic governance into fascist governance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn his book \u2018Late Fascism,\u2019 for example, Alberto Toscano argues that carceral systems, immigration systems and wartime curtailment of civil liberties create liminal spaces within liberal democracies that in some ways resemble fascist principles,\u201d Dijmarescu said. \u201cOn their own, they do not constitute fascism, per se, but they do carve out space for the constitutional order to be further undermined.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Dijmarescu, commonalities among the different variants of fascism include \u201cunderstanding of social life as a permanent conflict,\u201d a strong sense of social hierarchy and \u201cconstant action\u201d that aims to stir emotions of in-groups while confusing out-groups. He also said fascist regimes are characterized by rejection of critical thinking and truth. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Dijmarescu further explained how varying cultural and historical contexts create differences across fascist movements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRhetoric, propaganda and ideological elements brought together are informed by specific historical experiences, religious doctrines and salient social issues that arise in each context,\u201d Dijmarescu said. \u201cFascism is inherently national in its manifestation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dijmarescu also clarified the difference between authoritarianism and fascism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuthoritarianism is a more general term that refers to forms of governance that aim to reduce the number of independent veto players in a political system,\u201d Dijmarescu said. \u201cAuthoritarianism does not presuppose fascism, but fascism presupposes authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boonstra said the debate around fascism is important, and the way the term \u201cfascism\u201d is used plays a pivotal role in developing an understanding of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may or may not use particular terminology to get at a greater depth of understanding,\u201d Boonstra said. \u201cThe debate over how [fascism is] being used or misused is, itself, a political and historical debate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since before President Donald Trump was sworn into office for the second time, both his political opponents and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13112,13113,73,75,74,723],"class_list":{"0":"post-18649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-explainer","9":"tag-fascism","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","12":"tag-pittsburgh-news","13":"tag-trump-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}