“The worst thing about fascism is anti-fascism”.

Along with his opinions on democracy, this is easily the most controversial take by Italian communist Amadeo Bordiga. And on the surface, it seems bizarre that it came from a dedicated Marxist. If anything this comes across like a pearl-clutching, middle class “centrist” more concerned with demeanor than liberty. But in order to understand it, and what use it has to America right now, we have to understand context.

Bordiga was one of the Marxists who lived through Mussolini’s regime. What he found among the Italian partisans was that pretty much everyone just wanted to return to pre-fascist Italy. None of them, it seemed, had asked themselves: How did we get here? What was it in pre-fascist Italy that had enabled Mussolini and his movement in the first place? Bordiga argued that fascism was the inevitable outgrowth of liberal democracy. As the capitalist system began to decay, the veneer of respectability would fade, and the illusion of democracy would give way to a fascist dictatorship when those in power realized that “consent of the governed” was no longer compatible with their goals. Without a revolutionary communist movement there to overthrow & destroy fascism, the process would become cyclical. Anti-fascism becomes the reset button by which the rise of fascism starts all over again.

Now, we should take a second to mention a couple points where Bordiga’s full of it before carrying on. First, his general opposition to anti-fascism is heartless as all hell. Fascism is a genocidal, bordering on omnicidal, ideology. Not resisting it with everything you have & every chance you get is to be an apathetic jackal. Of course his broader historiography works fine, but the “Don’t fight fascism because it’ll breed fascism” view is nonsense. Second, the breakdown of capitalism by itself isn’t the primary thrust of fascism. We’ll be breaking this down a little more later, but suffice to say it’s ahistorical to view fascism simply as capitalism in decay.

Right now we can see a reflection of sorts of his situation here in America. Many liberals and self-proclaimed “socialists” (read: social democrats) are simply trying to escape to pre-Trump America, so much so that they’ve begun rehabilitating George Bush of all people, despite his administration arguably kickstarting the path to Trumpism and the horror his government wields. They have not bothered to ask how it is we got here, or at least, they have not thoroughly interrogated the situation enough.

Of course, we can point to Russia, we can point to the electoral college, and we can point to his supporters use of direct action (going against the usual relative politeness on the campaign trail), but this only explains Trump. It does not explain how someone like him could’ve seized the state machinery, or even cleared the primaries. This shallow analysis concludes that Trump is an anomaly, rather than the natural expression of a country built on, and maintained with, racist, sexist, imperialist, nationalist violence.

So how is it that America found its way to a fascist? Historically, fascism emerges as a total response to the breakdown of oppression and nothing existing to fill the void. It’s no coincidence that fascism is totalitarian, as it is a response to a totalizing threat. It’s not simply “capitalism in decay”, but the decay of all existing power structures. Can we accurately call the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, Salazar, Metaxas, or Franco simply “decaying capitalism”? Of course not! Never mind the other features of fascism, capitalism has a multitude of methods for recovery. The history of the US tells us this.

Trump came to popularity and power in response to reemergence of feminism, the rise of Black Lives Matter, the nascent socialist movement, the illegitimization of US imperialism at home, and a growing critique of the federal government. Any honest analysis of Trump, and by extension the alt-right, must be done by accepting as reality the conditions which produced him.

What we must not do is play into the absolutely spineless “centrist” narrative that Trump is a response to the Democratic Party going “too far to the radical left”. Never mind that social democracy is incredibly tame, this particular narrative assumes – implicitly or explicitly – that the conditions which produced these demands are unimportant. Furthermore it frankly denies the fact that Trump’s rhetoric is the platform of the GOP with the mask off, and is usually used to dismiss internal issues within the Democratic Party. It is a denial of reality in favor of a mythological “pragmatic” or “realistic” approach to politics.

So what can be done? While Trump might not leave power soon, even if the otherwise spineless Democratic Party manages to pass impeachment – the far-right have made it clear they are willing to prevent a peaceful transition of power – we can make sure that a new Trump never emerges again. We have to prepare the new world in the shell of the old, lest the black mold of fascism ensnare us again. We must go beyond the ballet box and begin building revolutionary unions, mutual aid associations, community defense organizations, and push both beyond and outside the state.