History of European Ideas

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rhei20

Aspirational fascism versus postfascism: a

conceptual history of a far-right politics

Takamichi Sakurai

To cite this article: Takamichi Sakurai (2021): Aspirational fascism versus

postfascism: a conceptual history of a far-right politics, History of European Ideas, DOI:
10.1080/01916599.2021.1953563

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2021.1953563

Published online: 22 Jul 2021.

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HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS
https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2021.1953563

Aspirational fascism versus postfascism: a conceptual history of a

far-right politics
Takamichi Sakurai
Keio Research Institute at SFC, Keio University, Fujisawa, Japan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This paper seeks an integral part of the two concepts of the political Aspirational fascism;
theorist William E. Connolly’s ‘aspirational fascism’ and the intellectual Connolly; fascism;
historian Enzo Traverso’s ‘postfascism’, thereby revealing the conceptual postfascism; Traverso
relevance of each concept. Its primary purpose is to give details of why
movements as depicted by these concepts should be categorised as
postfascism, rather than as aspirational fascism, and thereby to unravel
these movements that have prospered in advanced countries under
liberal democracy. Since fascism emerged in the first half of the
twentieth century, many prominent scholars, including the
two aforementioned theorists, have been engaged in its discourse. In
the light of a comparative analysis, I argue that although Connolly’s
aspirational fascism works by deciphering certain far-right movements,
it has severe conceptual difficulties. Finally, I conclude that
theorists should prefer to use Traverso’s postfascism in that it captures
the essence of broader far-right and authoritarian political movements
in the West and is more convincing due to its accurate understanding
of the key elements of those movements in liberal democracies in
terms of involuntary and unconscious practice, rather than in strategical
terms.

1. Introduction
Fascism is a relatively new political phenomenon that thrived in the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury.1 The political issues characterising the wartime political scene do indeed summarise the
times of the twentieth century, rather than a certain historical period in the twentieth century. The
concept of fascism has thus far been theorised by many thinkers, including Karl Polanyi, Wilhelm
Reich, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault and Umberto Eco. It is
essential to note that it has been most soberly embraced by Marxist theorists, especially Western
Marxists. In particular, Adorno and Horkheimer, in their work The Dialectic of Enlightenment
(1944), delineate the mechanisms of the emergence of fascism in dialectical terms with respect to
how consuming life in Western democracy falls into fascist types of politics. Fromm
similarly argues, particularly in his seminal work Escape from Freedom (1941), that fascism emanates
from the condition of a mass society under liberal democracy. They all draw particular attention to a
set of essential factors of liberal democracies that go into detail about pathologies of ‘freedom’, which
does sometimes work ironically in a way that brings about authoritarian political movements.2
The perspective of fascist pathologies pertaining to authoritarian politics has been taken over to a
certain extent by William E. Connolly in his discussion of Trumpism in terms of Trump’s media

CONTACT Takamichi Sakurai tsakurai@sfc.keio.ac.jp Keio Research Institute, Keio University SFC Campus, 5322 Endo,
Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-0882, Japan
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 T. SAKURAI

strategy and demagoguery, especially in his recent book Aspirational Fascism (2017).3 However,
Connolly assuredly overlooks the essence of contemporary fascism, which does not flourish in a
strategical way, but rather in an involuntary and unconscious manner, as Enzo Traverso asserts.4
That is to say, it is not a conscious political movement related to fascism. For instance, Trump’s
provocation as can be seen characteristically in his speeches and tweets is aimed not at a fascist for-
mulation per se, but rather exclusively at simple mobilisation without fascist consciousness, and
therefore not at all an ideologically based act as are historical Fascists’.5 In fact, he never exhibited
any fascist ideas in his speeches and even in his ‘Save America Rally’ speech.6 Trump’s call for insur-
rection against ‘Congress certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory’ is not at all predicated upon
any ideological slant.7 Moreover, historical Fascists were never brought down by election as was
Trump because they had destroyed plebiscitary models of democracy in the first place. Indeed,
they were acutely aware that they were fascist dictators per se, and most of them therefore sought
to stay in power and fought for their own dictatorship until bringing self-destruction upon them. As
such, it is most reasonable to consider that Trump is still insensible to fascism and what it brings to
politics, and that his fascist-like behaviour is essentially involuntary.
From this perspective, this paper will refrain from the use of the concept of ‘aspirational fascism’,
which nullifies itself, by pinpointing Trump’s unclear and postideological political strategies, which
rather involuntarily instigated fascist political conditions at the national level, while revealing the
raison d’être of the concept of postfascism and its enormous relevance to contemporary politics.8

2. How do aspirational fascism and postfascism draw upon major approaches to

the far-right?
Perhaps since the postwar period the topic of far-right politics has been tackled primarily in terms
of two political ideologies: fascism and populism. These concepts largely overlap each other in some
important historical intersections.9 ‘Extremism’ has also been a clear manifestation of the far-right
and entangled in major issues of its politics.10 Jérôme Jamin, for example, casts light on both the
points of intersection and separation between populism and right-wing extremism.11 He points
out both political movements involving the existence of ‘enemies’, while discerning differences
between those in the light of right extremism. It is also possible to see right-wing populism and
right-wing extremism in the same line.12
Indeed, many scholars disagree to categorise right-wing populism along the same line as the gen-
ealogy of fascism,13 but extremism is rather researched partly under its category.14 Some of the fas-
cism researchers represent both right-wing populism and right-wing extremism as postfascism in
the context of liberal democracy.15 Whilst especially in the US Trumpism portraying right-wing
populism in a neoliberal politics is construed as the ‘alt-right’ (abbreviation for the ‘alternative
right’),16 it is sometimes interpreted as fascism.17 Conolly’s aspirational fascism is the archetype
of a latter kind of work in the sense of its purely analogical approach.18 On the other hand, the Tra-
versian concept of postfascism is intimately entangled in all the categorisations of far-right politics
proposed above but in a more socio-economic dimension, not least in neoliberalism.19

3. Fascism and trumpism

Apart from Connolly, other theorists have addressed issues of Trumpist politics and policies in
terms of fascism, particularly in relation to Trump’s prospective ideological strategies.20 They all
share a straightforward view concerning his tactics and converge in the idea that Trumpism is a
kind of fascist politics at the national level that used the media and also employed a strategy of creat-
ing scapegoats in society, thereby effectively generating political propaganda in order to mobilise
the American people. These works share the belief that Trumpism is an ideological, voluntary
and conscious political movement. For instance, Henry A. Giroux approaches right-wing extre-
mism in terms of fascism, from which perspective he considers Trump as a contemporary
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 3

‘demagogue’ with non-liberal, capitalist ideas, whereby he has desired to achieve political mobilis-
ation for the purpose of seizing power.21 Giroux argues that, ‘[be]ing “flawed differently” means
mobilizing against the suffocating circles of certainty that define the ideologies, worldviews, and
policies that are driving the new authoritarianism, expressed so clearly by a Trump administration
official who, with an echo of fascist Brownshirt bravado, told the press to shut up and be quiet’.22 In
this light, he infers that this politics, no doubt, betokens ‘escape from freedom’.23 What character-
ises Giroux’s discussion is solely that he does not go into detail about Trumpism specifically in
terms of the role of social media.
This type of discussion with a focus on a fascist ideology is also offered by Jason Stanley. He
claims that Trumpism internalises the core of fascism: the ‘mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellec-
tualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety and Sodom and Gomor-
rah’.24 He reiterates that Trump ascended to power by efficaciously using these political tools a
combination of which characterises every fascist type of politics. This is precisely why Stanley is
intrigued particularly by ‘fascist tactics as a mechanism to achieve power’.25 Finally, he reveals
the most remarkable implication of Trumpist politics in purely comparative terms: ‘Arbeit
macht Frei’.26
Essentially, Connolly takes the same position as Giroux and Stanley. What sets him apart is his
unique standpoint that Trump aspired to be a fascist and achieve and maintain power and a trium-
phant nation on the basis of his ‘hyperaggressive self’.27 Connolly contends that ‘Trump’s image of
the aggressive individual and the triumphant, walled nation fit together’.28 This is why he maintains
that ‘the Left must … expose and attack Trumpian intimidation of it [intense criticism from the
democratic Left]’.29 So, let us consider his concept of aspirational fascism in more detail below.

4. Aspirational fascism
According to Connolly, Trumpism resembles Nazism, particularly in the sense of its rhetorical
strategies, use of affective contagion, Big Lies, working-class supporters and the charisma of
their leaders. First, he points out that Trumpism is typified by the ‘rhetorical power of the
Trump phenomenon’, ‘counterrhetorical skills’ and ‘affective communication’.30 Trump, says
Connolly, is a ‘relatively skilled rhetorician’.31 Second, Connolly claims that Trump
used ‘aggressive gestures, simplifications, Lies, shouts, repetitions, grimaces, triumphant circling
to register acclaim, and thinly veiled threats’.32 This is, according to Connolly, precisely why
the use of ‘affective contagion’ is a powerful political expedient on which Trump kept a firm
grip, and he has thereby ‘infuse[d] the visceral register of cultural life among target constituen-
cies’.33 Third, Connolly stresses that while producing ‘fake news’, Trump drastically changed a
situation even with disadvantages for him; in this regard, Big Lies have worked quite effectively
to his advantage. Fourth, the white working and lower middle classes, says Connolly, have ‘sit
on the razor’s edge of time’, wherein ‘82 percent of white evangelicals’ in these social classes
endorsed Trumpist politics.34 From these perspectives, Connolly in effect sees Trumpism in the
same line as Nazism, which captures the essence of destructiveness, a necrophilous desire that
had led Hitler to viscerally appeal for the German people to support him and thereby brought
about the total collapse of Germany. Yet Trump, Connolly alleges, engaged in fascist efforts in
order to achieve his political objectives. In this light, he concludes:
Trump, I want to say, is not a Nazi. He is, rather, an aspirational fascist who pursues crowd adulation, hyper-
aggressive nationalism, white triumphalism, a law-and-order regime giving unaccountable power to the
police, a militarist, and a practitioner of a rhetorical style that regularly creates fake news and smears
opponents to mobilize support for the Big Lies he advances. His internal targets of vilification and intimida-
tion include Muslims, Mexicans, the media, the judiciary, independent women, the professoriate, and (at least
early on) the intelligence services. The affinities across real differences between Hitler and Trump allow us to
explore patterns of insistence advanced by Hitler in the early days of his movement to help illuminate the
Trump phenomenon today.35
4 T. SAKURAI

Connolly herein reaffirms the importance of understanding of ‘how fascist movements work on the
visceral register of culture’.36 The focal point of his discussion is no doubt whether Trump was
aware of the essential direction of US politics, negatively represented as Trumpism, and regarded
himself as a fascist, or, more accurately, whether he was aware of his own political leadership
and policies in the literal sense of politics adequately and sufficiently per se. The main point at
issue is whether Trump was able to articulate a vision regarding what he was expected to perform
in the political arena pertaining to public affairs. Unfortunately, he was not. It seems that what he
found important therein was solely to achieve his private objectives as well as private things as an
extension of those, and thereby to indulge his narcissistic urges via politics.37 In other words,
Trump limited politics to the private sector at the business level, and was therefore vaguely
aware of doing politics in the sense of res publica, particularly when he made a remark – in my
view, the reduction of politics to a private issue and little awareness about public affairs are at
the centre of Trumpist problems.38 The reason for these unconscious desires is simply because
Trump conceived of his function as president as an extension of his business.39 In many respects,
it seems that pathological issues of Trumpism involving Trump’s individual personality can be bet-
ter addressed in terms of narcissism, rather than in terms of authoritarianism.40 To be sure, the per-
spective of the synchronisation of narcissism and authoritarianism is adequate.41 In particular,
Erich Fromm’s psychoanalytic theory is of enormous relevance for illuminating issues of Trumpist
politics as can be seen in recent critical theoretical works.42 Perhaps, however, Trump is still insen-
sible even of those facts concerning his own behaviour that exhibited features pertaining to fascism.
Therefore, he essentially cannot be a fascist on the grounds that fascists are all conscious that they
themselves are fascists. If this is true, then Connolly’s standpoint is not valid.
Here I am not arguing that Connolly is completely wrong about what he observes in political
reality. However, he is not at all reasonable in his usage of the word ‘fascism’ in the social context
of liberal democracies in the sense that he unconsciously seeks to understand Trumpism simply in
terms of what Trump was doing without noticing cardinal aspects of political realities that arise
involuntarily. If Connolly’s view was not inappropriate, then it would be true that it is reasonable
to disregard or gloss over the implications of unexpected effects of both what is done and what is not
done, which most often emerge as unexpected results. This demonstrates that Connolly observes
politics while ignoring to a large extent the meanings of the difference between what one is conscious
of by doing something and what one is unconscious of by it. We human beings, in the first place, are
not so sensible that we could always be keenly aware of a context in which we are doing something
and particularly of what will be caused by what we are doing in a certain social context wherein we
are embedded. It is indeed difficult to believe that Trump was so calculative and strategic in a
nationwide politics, even though it could be argued that he did politics strategically as he managed
to do business. I am not sure how far he was conscious that he himself did politics in the sense of res
publica/ta politika. For these reasons, the relevance of the concept of aspirational fascism must be
called into question.
Apart from Trump’s unconscious state of mind, the meaning of the consciousness and uncon-
sciousness of one’s existential position involving politics is herein fleshed out. In politics, one’s
awareness of a political position that portrays some certain political way of acting is particularly
important because it leads one not solely to take its way, but also to evoke and share some common
visions whereby one can understand, and be entangled in reforming, politics and the world through
one’s political positioning. Additionally, in the political arena there is no essential meaning to think
of one as a democrat without regard to one’s awareness of democracy. For in the realm of politics
one’s position and positioning are relevant only if one is acutely aware of what they mean. Similarly,
it makes little sense to label one as a cosmopolitan without one’s consciousness of cosmopolitanism.
To what extent is it politically useful for one to call oneself a cosmopolitan and also for others to call
one that when one is insensible of cosmopolitanism? Generally, in a dialogue we succeed in inform-
ing an interlocutor of what cosmopolitanism denotes when finding and calling one a cosmopolitan
and when this person does not know about it adequately, precisely on the grounds that to be a
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 5

cosmopolitan without a detailed knowledge of it does not make particular sense. On the contrary,
labelling someone with a specific concept that has negative connotations, e.g. a fascist or a totalitar-
ian, does rather contribute solely to making a negative impact on politics. This indeed occurs to
Connolly in his book that depicts and defends democracy simply in terms of the democracy/fascism
dualism. This is patently obvious in his words:
the democratic Left must also identify more young leaders in multiple settings who are charismatic in demo-
cratic ways and who can inspire large constituencies as they counter the appeal of Trumpian authoritarian
charisma.43

Undoubtedly, Connolly believes that both authoritarianism and fascism originate solely from the
non-liberal side in his sense. How does he explain, then, that Trumpism emerged literally from
the liberal side, that is from the US? Connolly’s above description gives the impression that he
has never considered that some of the fascist governments in history flourished in exactly the
way he describes as ‘democratic’.44 It appears misleading to construe and find solutions to fascist
types of politics in agonistic terms, for those involuntarily seek to destroy the platform of agon
per se.45
Apart from the democracy/fascism dualism, labelling, as can be seen in his usage of the words
authoritarian and fascist, often makes adverse socio-psychological effects on politics that simply
bring about some negative political phenomena even in the pluralist, democratic side with which
he firmly aligns himself.46 In this respect, the concept of postfascism is fully bereft of any constraints
attaching to these effects. This is due to its semantic connotations wherein it does not matter
whether one is aware of one’s fascist positioning and what it means that one is doing something
through political activity that can have fascist political implications whether consciously or
unconsciously.

5. Postfascism
According to Traverso, postfascism is a twenty-first-century political movement that has thrived
under social conditions of free market capitalism and takes over some essential features of tra-
ditional fascism. He asserts that our society is situated in a ‘period of postfascism’ and stresses
the conceptual impact of fascism, particularly in ‘transhistorical’ terms.47 Postfascism, says Tra-
verso, burgeons unpredictably, and more problematically, extinguishes the salient deliberative pro-
cesses involuntarily and unconsciously through preserving a ‘plebiscitary model of democracy’.48 In
his view, this type of politics thus emerges everywhere in contemporary society, particularly under
free market capitalism, primarily through involving ‘xenophobia’ and ‘nationalism’,49 that is to say
‘democracy can be destroyed from within’.50 This is precisely why Traverso keeps a firm grip on the
concept of postfascism.
On the other hand, Traverso reveals theoretical difficulties with the concept of populism. He
argues that precisely on the grounds that the concept does not depict ‘fully-fledged political phe-
nomen[a]’ and instead ‘erases the distinction between left and right, thus blurring a useful compass
to understand politics’,51 populism merely concerns a ‘style of politics rather than an ideology’.52 It
therefore serves to blur the ‘fundamental nature’ of debate on far-right and far-left politics.53 For
this reason, Traverso contends that in quantitative terms the concept of populism is effective in
obliterating qualitative aspects of politics that the concept of postfascism captures.
In addition, postfascism must be distinguished from neofascism. With respect to the latter con-
cept, Anna Cento Bull posits that it is characterised particularly by the ‘revolutionary nature of fas-
cism’, therefore by ‘radical and uncompromising views’.54 In this respect, neofascism shares the
essence of fascism. This is indeed exemplified by the prominent theorist of fascism Roger
Griffin’s assertion: that fascism is ‘a revolutionary form of ultra-nationalism that attempts to realize
the myth of the regenerated nation’, ‘a myth which applied in practice creates a totalitarian move-
ment or regime engaged in combating cultural, ethnic and even biological (“dysgenic”) decadence
6 T. SAKURAI

and engineering a new sort of “man” in a [sic] alternative socio-political and cultural modernity to
liberal capitalism’.55 From this perspective, neofascism indicates a postwar crusade in favour of a
wartime fascist ideology to revolutionarily destroy some of the salient facets of modernity pertain-
ing to humanism in postwar and contemporary mass society, thereby aspiring to catalyse a radical
upheaval. It is evident that the nature of neofascism is voluntary, ideological and political as is that
of fascism. By contrast, the remarkable features of postfascism are rather involuntary, postideolo-
gical and impolitical. As such, neofascism and postfascism are positioned completely opposite each
other. Nevertheless, they are both involved in demolishing deliberative processes of democracy
while resting on modernity. In this regard, they are completely identical.
Traverso deduces that postfascism is rather the ‘result of the defeat of the revolutions of the
twentieth century’.56 This signifies that it emanates from social conditions under which people
lost hopes for any other political manifestos put forward by communism and the Third Way. He
says:
A fundamental pillar of classical fascism was anti-communism. … There is nothing comparable in the post-
fascist imagination … Communism and the left are no longer its foremost, mortal enemies, and it does not
transcend the limits of a radical conservatism. In this postfascist mental landscape, the Islamic terrorist
who has replaced the Bolshevik does not work in the factories but hides away in the suburbs populated by
postcolonial immigrants … after the collapse of communism and the social-democratic parties’ embrace of
neoliberal governmentality, the radical right is in many countries becoming the most influential force opposed
to the ‘system’, even as it resists showing any subversive face and avoids any competition with the radical left.57

Traverso admits that the rise of postfascism does not signify that we have actually lost hope. Rather,
he argues that the left has failed and that the emergence of postfascist politics in liberal democracies
betokens it – Obama’s and Hollande’s failures do represent this. Trumpism emerged exactly under
this condition where people were overcome with loss. Traverso defines Trump as:
a postfascist leader without fascism, adding … that the US president’s fascist behaviour is unconscious and
involuntary, for he has probably never read a single book on Hitler or Mussolini. Trump is an uncontrollable
and unpredictable loose cannon. When we put things in proper historical perspective, it is clear that this is not
the same thing as classical fascism. The historical comparisons allow us to draw analogies, but we cannot map
Trump’s profile onto a fascist paradigm from the interwar period.58

Traverso dismisses Connolly’s suggestion for the idea of aspirational fascism. This is simply due to
Connolly’s purely comparative view that sees Trump and Hitler in functional terms in the same
line. As a result, Connolly fails to grasp the essence of Trumpism, which was shaped by Trump’s
unwitting actions rather than by his leadership. How does Connolly, in terms of aspirational fas-
cism, depict Macronism, which seems to share with Trumpism, for example,its neoliberal, postideo-
logical and charismatic features?59 What is evident here is that neither hyper-aggressiveness nor a
Big Lie scenario works in Macronist politics. The political persona of Macron, as Traverso argues,
even captures the essence of postfascism rather in the sense of the ‘homo economicus who has
arrived in the political arena’.60 Macron is a typical one who:
does not want to set the people against the elites; rather, he offers the elites to the people as a model. His is the
language of enterprise and banks: he wants to be the president of a productive, creative, dynamic people that is
able to innovate and earn money. But so long as the law of the market rules the world, the vast majority of
people will always lose out, and this will continue feed nationalism and xenophobia.61

Traverso draws attention more to Macronism than to LePenism. Macronism can remain in the pol-
itical arena by attributing fault to the latter under capitalism, which is precisely Macron’s serene
place to live. In other words, this young, economic elite politician can linger as a political ruler
by pledging to erase social injustice that stems from economic class factors rather through taking
advantage of his enemies. ‘Macron is the zero degree of ideology’ and ‘attract[s] voters of both
the right and the left’, says Traverso.62 Here the primary issue, no doubt, is neoliberalism and its
character structure. Roger Foster argues that neoliberalism has come to be predicated upon a From-
mian social character that consists of the ‘self-made individual’, whose life is built entirely upon
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 7

neoliberal capitalism.63 This self indeed best works to one’s advantage under neoliberalism, which
allows one to focus exclusively on maximising profit by taking advantage of others. It is herein poss-
ible to discern a neoliberal social character that is best portrayed by Macronism as well as by
Trumpism.
Additionally, Macron exhibits ‘an authoritarian propensity that gives his presidency a “descisio-
nist”, Bonapartist character’.64 If these are true, then postfascism goes place everywhere in liberal
democracies in this neoliberal and postideological political climate beyond the difference between
right and left while unconsciously concealing its own postfascist craving based on economic elitism.
Needless to say, this is equally applicable to Trumpism. For these reasons, ‘democracy can be
destroyed from within’. Traverso reflects on the left and its raison d’être. In doing so, he seeks to
observe contemporary politics and identify difficulties with it beyond the political positionality
of the right and the left. In many respects, Traverso takes a quite different position from Connolly.

6. Problems with the concept of postfascism

Despite the positive side of the concept of postfascism, it entails some theoretical problems. First,
the concept is theoretically inapplicable to analyse non-right-wing political phenomena, for post-
fascism consists solely of right-wing political features. However, as discussed above, the idea of
postfascism can be deployed beyond the difference between the political right and left. Having
said this, it would seem that we should clarify the intrinsic limitations of the concept, tracing
this back to the original category of fascism.
Second, apparently the concept does not specifically involve politically relevant categorical fra-
meworks, except neoliberalism. This is evidenced by the impolitical, postideological and involun-
tary characteristics of postfascism, and it thereby becomes difficult to exhibit its conceptual
relevance to politics.65 For this reason, the concept cannot be defined with respect to the issue of
what postfascism politically denotes as does fascism. However, this can even be considered as an
extension of a political positioning specific to the category of fascism involving modernity, that
is as an extension of its trajectory. It therefore does not signify a problem that springs from concep-
tual difficulties with the concept itself. Rather, it would seem that it is derived from modernity per se
to the extent that postfascism is the corollary of the defeat of both political sides in the right and left
political struggle in the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century.

7. Conclusion
While Connolly’s aspirational fascism simply depicts US Trumpism, Traverso’s postfascism out-
lines some of the essential features of several Western types of far-right political phenomena.
The intersection of those theories is obviously their focus on the authoritarian character structure
of a political movement, but the former does not pay attention to neoliberalism as well as liberalist
ideologies in terms of fascism, thereby, crucially, overlooking within issues. In the light of a com-
parative discussion of these authors, I argued that although Connolly’s concept contributes to unra-
velling certain far-right movements, it suffers from severe conceptual limitations, particularly in the
sense of its redundant analysis with a focus on strategic categories such as media usage and rhetoric.
Moreover, I showed that theorists should prefer to use Traverso’s conception of postfascism: it cap-
tures the clear essence of broader far-right political movements in the West and is more convincing
because it involves an accurate account that grasps the key elements of the far right in liberal
democracies in involuntary and unconscious terms, rather than in strategic terms.
However, the fact that Connolly’s aspirational fascism is inappropriate to analyses of far-right
and fascist phenomena in liberal democracies does not necessarily signify that it loses its whole rai-
son d’être, nor does it detract from its relevance. Rather, it can foster reflection on some possibilities
of liberal democracy in an authoritarian society at the national level, probably in some of the third
world. This indicates that Trumpist US society is not included in this category. I indeed cannot find
8 T. SAKURAI

the US under Trump in need of this theoretical attempt. More importantly, Trumpism stems from,
and is indeed an anomaly in, liberal democracy per se. Unfortunately, Connolly’s analysis fails to
discern this vital issue because it has ironically succeeded in rigorously separating democratic poli-
tics in the name of the ‘pluralising Left’ from fascist politics in the name of ‘aspirational fascism’ and
vice versa. The grammar of aspirational fascism does not explain why Trumpism, which Connolly
finds harmful to pluralist democracy, has prospered in a liberal state, that is in a liberal democracy;
this must be considered the most salient difficulty with the concept. The idea of postfascism has no
theoretical aporia as does aspirational fascism in favour of the agonistic dualism, or rather, it is
much more convincing in the sense of a deeper understanding of difficulties with liberal democracy
in fascist, categorical terms.

Notes
1. Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History; Passmore, Fascism.
2. Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment; Fromm, Escape from Freedom.
3. This paper employs the word ‘Trumpism’ to signify a political movement centred around the personality of
Trump, bolstered by his supporters and opponents as well as by their fanatic reactions to his impolitical and
unwitting remarks, and does not stress its ideological aspects as are sometimes mentioned – see, e.g. Aguirre,
‘Trumpism, an Ideology for the Extreme Far-right Globally’.
4. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism.
5. Ibid., 23–5; cf. Chotiner (Interview with R. Paxton), ‘Is Donald Trump a Fascist?’.
6. Jacobo, ‘This is what Trump told supporters before many stormed Capitol Hill’. Quite surprisingly, despite his
hesitant attitude towards labelling Trump a fascist, Robert Paxton has in the end called the president a fascist
in the light of the rally speech. See Paxton, ‘I’ve hesitated to call Donald Trump a fascist’.
7. The opposite view is offered, e.g. by Valencia-García, ‘This is American fascism’.
8. In this article I apply the adjective ‘postideological’ not in the sense that our times have made a nonsense of
ideologies, but in the sense that the contemporary period has made a nonsense of some of them per se. How-
ever, even the latter position is in effect ideological, e.g. as ideologies nowadays similarly fulfil the role of ‘com-
mon sense’ – see Freeden, Ideology, 2–3. For these reasons, my stance does not contradict a criticism of the
view of ‘a post-ideological age’ – Freeden, ‘Confronting the chimera of a “post-ideological” age’.
9. See, e.g. Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History and A Brief History of Fascist Lies; Traverso, The
New Faces of Fascism.
10. On right-wing extremism in Europe, see, e.g. Braunthal, Right-Wing Extremism in Contemporary Germany;
Mammone et al., eds. Varieties of Right-Wing Extremism in Europe; McCann, The Prevent Strategy and
Right-wing Extremism.
11. Jamin, ‘Two Different Realities’.
12. See, e.g. Kaplan and Weinberg, The Emergence of a Euro-American Radical Right.
13. See, e.g. Berman, ‘Populism is not fascism’; Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History; Mudde and
Kaltwasser, Populism.
14. See, e.g. Atkins, ‘Introduction’; Beyme, ‘Right-wing Extremism in Post-war Europe’; Mammone et al.,
‘Introduction’.
15. Sakurai, ‘A Frommian Perspective on the Socio-psychological Structure of Post-fascism in Liberal Democra-
cies’; Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism.
16. See, e.g. Hawley, The Alt-Right; Hermansson et al., The International Alt-Right; Reid and Valasik, Alt-Right
Gangs.
17. See, e.g. Boggs, Fascism Old and New; Connolly, Aspirational Fascism; Giroux, American Nightmare; Stanley,
How Fascism Works.
18. Connolly, Aspirational Fascism.
19. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism.
20. Boggs, Fascism Old and New; Connolly, Aspirational Fascism; Giroux, American Nightmare; Stanley, How Fas-
cism Works.
21. Giroux, American Nightmare, 29.
22. Ibid., 59.
23. Ibid., 25.
24. Stanley, How Fascism Works.
25. Ibid., 5.
26. Ibid., ch. 10.
27. Connolly, Aspirational Fascism, 15.
28. Ibid., 15.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 9

29. Ibid., 28.

30. Ibid., 6–7.
31. Ibid., 15.
32. Ibid., 16.
33. Ibid., 15.
34. Ibid., 22–3.
35. Ibid., 7.
36. Ibid., 30.
37. Freeman, ‘Trump’s Deep Narcissism Acted as a Distorted Mirror for Millions of Voters’; Blotcky, ‘Trump sup-
porters who won’t accept the election result are suffering from collective narcissism’.
38. For example, Dionne et al. explicate these kinds of Trumpist problems in terms of ‘little distinction between
private interests and public duties’ (Dionne et al., One Nation After Trump, 128).
39. Gove, ‘Donald Trump Interview’.
40. See, e.g. McAdams, The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump; Zeiders and Devlin, Malignant Narcissism and
Power. On this, it is worth noting that Traverso stresses that fascist politics is not reduced simply to issues
of a leader’s personality (Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism).
41. Kellner, American Nightmare.
42. Ibid.; Sakurai, ‘A Frommian perspective on the socio-psychological structure of post-fascism in liberal democ-
racies’ and ‘The socio-theoretical relevance of Erich Fromm’s psychoanalytic conception of narcissism’.
43. Connolly, Aspirational Fascism, 26.
44. See, e.g. Stromberg, Democracy: A Short, Analytical History.
45. On ‘agonistic democracy’, Connolly, Identity/Difference; Mouffe, Agonistics.
46. This is elucidated simply by considering what happens to a relationship if a group starts calling a certain person
living outside it a schizophrenic. This person may feel disdained and start distancing from the group. For this
reason, we should apply to a specific person concepts including negative implications as carefully as possible,
particularly in the light of a careful consideration of whether the use of a concept is constructive for both sides.
47. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism, 4–5.
48. Ibid., 28.
49. Ibid., 39.
50. Ibid., 5.
51. Ibid., 15, 17.
52. Ibid., 15; cf. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction.
53. Ibid., 19.
54. Cento Bull, ‘Neo-Fascism’, 586.
55. Griffin, ‘Studying Fascism in a Postfascist Age’, 1.
56. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism, 13.
57. Ibid., 12–13.
58. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism, 23.
59. Ibid., 35–9; Castells, Rupture, 68–75.
60. Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism, 38.
61. Ibid., 39.
62. Ibid., 37–8.
63. Foster, ‘Social Character’.
64. Ibid., 38.
65. However, even a neoliberal ideology in this sense might be excluded from the conceptual ingredients of post-
fascism because in the link between postfascism and neoliberalism the latter does not signify a supported pol-
itical position in the literal sense of the words, but rather an existential position involving one’s origins that
determine the former position. It is believed that postfascist movements justify neoliberal economy not exactly
because of their support for neoliberalism, but rather because it is simply their place to live. Neoliberal politics
is thus unconsciously embraced and nowadays its ideology has become more postideological (I have expli-
cated my usage of the word ‘postideological’ above at note 8).

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Matthew W. Slaboch, Vasileios Syros and Nicholas Tampio, as well as to anonymous reviewers for
History of European Ideas, for reading and commenting on the original manuscript.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
10 T. SAKURAI

ORCID
Takamichi Sakurai http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8282-1691

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