What is actually in neo-Nazism/Fascism that makes it so appealing?

[RadioRaheem84]

When there is crisis in a nation, it seems like Neo-Nazism, Fascism or right wing nationalism/populism takes center stage in addressing social ills for the vast majority of marganilzed people.

What makes it so darn popular? What does it give to people intellectually and socially that left wing or progressive activism does not?

How can wanting more and "better" capitalism, more adherence to the State, and less civil liberties fix the crisis? Wouldn't people want a total change in the status quo?

[El Louton]

Because they place the blame on another scapegoat -Muslims, Jews, Blacks etc.
People want someone to take the blame and this is why Fascism does well in crisis;.

[SocialistTommy]

because there are many ignorant people who believe that 'foreigners' are the ones who caused the crisis in the first place, so they automatically turn to radical politics....you only have to look at the horrific situation the Weimar government were in during the 20's.
But, even though he was a complete bastard, Hitler was very clever in the way he persuaded the German people to follow him.

[Nox]

At the end of the day, it always, always, always, always, always, always, always boils down to simple hatred and intolerance.

I've yet to come across a single fascist who bases his views on anything else.

[Azraella]

When people are in a pickle, people tend to want answers. Look at the conditions of Germany pre-WWII they were not in the best of shape. Guess what? Some charismatic dude with a chip on his shoulder started to scapegoat others for the problems of the country. Nationalism is bad. I do not love my country. I love the principles that the US was founded on, I even love some of the brilliant things the founding fathers said, but I can't love this country. When 9-11 happened, I was subjected to racism and nationalism and apparently I was anti-American because I did not wish to engage in the behavior. It isn't Islam's fault because my brother was killed, it's assholes that want to manipulate people.

We tend to want to identify as a label...

That is one of the great difficulties in experiencing the unconscious—that one identifies with it and becomes a fool. You must not identify with the unconscious; you must keep outside, detached, and observe objectively what happens.... it is exceedingly difficult to accept such a thing, because we are so imbued with the fact that our unconscious is our own—my unconscious, his unconscious, her unconscious—and our prejudice is so strong that we have the greatest trouble disidentifying.

This quote is pretty reflective of our tendency to do this. Nazis and fascists rely on extreme cultural identity to control a populace. Nationalism is a terrible thing that allows us to be manipulated. The same goes for other mutable characteristics like religion or politics.

Just some quick thoughts at this point.

[ВАЛТЕР]

People look for a common enemy that they can point out and say "that is the bad guy" because they want a simple answer to the worlds problems. They want a visible enemy that they can confront.

[Nox]

But, even though he was a complete bastard, Hitler was very clever in the way he persuaded the German people to follow him.

Yup, he had the perfect scapegoat - a group of foreign people (how dare they come here and ruin our country) living a very closed lifestyle (they are suspicious/mysterious) and with different religious beliefs (how dare these anti-jesus scum set foot in the holy roman empire!).

What's in the brackets is what a German citizen at the time would have thought about them with all of Hitler's propaganda

His timing was also perfect - Germany was an economic disaster and Communism was gaining huge popularity amongst the working classes, he used this to add some social policies (which were never implemented) to win over the workers.

I think that he hated all foreigners just the same, there was no 'special' hatred for the Jews, he just used the Jews to get in to power.

[NewSocialist]

many people view the system as natural. plenty of them don't even know what the word capitalism means. so during crisis, the system is the last thing they think to blame, not to mention the vast amount of media disinformation they're fed.

in the end, it's the left's fault that fascism gains ground among the people though. our fragmentation and not having done our part to educate the people on the true causes of crisis is what empowers fascism.

[Red Future]

The Militant image is easy for young men with low confidence and a sense of social worthlessness to identify with.Many SA recruits were attracted to the uniform and "macho" and "herioc" image it gave as the "party of the savoirs of Germany".

Secondly and more simply it was seen as a way of impressing women.

[RadioRaheem84]

I think it's more than just blaming scapegoats. It has to do with the idea of how "great" a society was before (or so they think) the mess they were in and that reliving that era and regaining their national strength must come through a concentrated effort.

I think one of the posters hit it on the nail, they presuppose that capitalism is natural and that the social order they lived under was always that way. So they come up with a philosophy wrapped around that notion.

They don't even have to know it's capitalism, they just know that the society and the social relations they live under are natural and have to be strengthend.

That is why at the end of the day right wing nationalist, fascist, or Nazi politics is all about promoting the status quo with a tougher fist.

[Iron Felix]

Wouldn't it sound appealing to a simplistic mind when someone tells them that they are part of a priviliged master race that is in everyway superior to others and that every problem they face is the fault of some external vermin enemy like immigrants, and that because of your superiority and the inferiority of the enemy, it's ok to treat the enemy unfairly?

Just blame everything on someone else and all is well.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Because they fear what they don't understand, people different then them. Not very many of the Nazis and fascists of today call themselves those things though.

[RadioRaheem84]

We should also note that in the United States, the business community has made a unique effort to channel right wing populist anger away from it flirting with fascism, and steered it toward libertarianism.

Has anyone noticed that every day workers are using words like "collectivism", "statism", "socialist" for everything Federal, conflating Nazism/Fascism with socialism, etc.?

If you analyze the average talking points of any Tea Bagger, you get a lot of Randian, Libertarian junk. It's not even really about family values or the moral agenda anymore. It's straight libertarianism.

[Ocean Seal]

Because people have too much of a respect for flags, because nationalism is constantly pushed on us by the ruling class, because Nazism is representative of the ruling ideology taken to an extreme which during times of crisis causes emotional people to cling to that ideology.

[L.A.P.]

Fascism and right-wing populism first and foremost get more attention because the bourgeois ideological state apparatus would of course give more attention to that than revolutionary leftism. I mean, just look at the attention the Tea Party protests recieved compared to the Occupy protests, and look how much larger the Occupy protests started out than the Tea Party. Fascism was basically a reaction against the growing popularity of communism. This is especially seen in the pseudo-radical imagery of fascism; the red flag, the "anti-"capitalist rhetoric, the populism. Ideologically, fascism appeals to the petite bourgeoisie by rejecting certain aspects of the capitalist system while ultimately keeping the institution of private property and capital. And let's not forget the use of scapegoats (immigrants, heretics, etc.) in order to distract the people from capital and the bourgeoisie.

Understand that in a crisis that the radical right already have an upper hand, that's what the bourgeoisie have them for.

[Iron Felix]

It would be best if we used the real definition of libertarianism, rather than the American one. Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Goldman...they were real libertarians.

[SocialistTommy]

Yup, he had the perfect scapegoat - a group of foreign people (how dare they come here and ruin our country) living a very closed lifestyle (they are suspicious/mysterious) and with different religious beliefs (how dare these anti-jesus scum set foot in the holy roman empire!).

What's in the brackets is what a German citizen at the time would have thought about them with all of Hitler's propaganda

His timing was also perfect - Germany was an economic disaster and Communism was gaining huge popularity amongst the working classes, he used this to add some social policies (which were never implemented) to win over the workers.

I think that he hated all foreigners just the same, there was no 'special' hatred for the Jews, he just used the Jews to get in to power.

Exactly !, he couldn't blame the Muslims or any other 'un-aryan' race because quite frankly, they were not in Germany at that time.

[Ballyfornia]

Scapegoating

[RadioRaheem84]

But there is still an intellectual appeal to it all. I don't think that people are just passive lemmings.

[Azraella]

But there is still an intellectual appeal to it all. I don't think that people are just passive lemmings.

[url=http://cogprints.org/4275/1/Group_Defense.pdf]You might be interested in this paper[url]. I think the ideas are applicable to fascism and it's appeal.