What Is Fascism? A Philosophical Prolegomenon.

Is fascism a phenomenon that resembles such natural kinds as protons, platypuses, or diamonds or is it more like the color red, which fades into pinks, purples, grays, white, or black with never anything like a boundary? To discharge the metaphors, is it possible to choose among and combine in almost any imaginable way the elements of being antidemocratic, leader-cultish, hostile to the rule of law and civil liberties, racist, misogynistic, nationalistic, militaristic, anti-rational, religiously intolerant, propagandizing, inegalitarian, politically violent, and fostering of coziness between the state and business and of the opposite between state and any organization of employees?

Fear of Fascism and Fear of "Fascism"

I have both a fear of political and social trends reminiscent of fascism in the United States and Europe and a fear of overusing the word the word “fascism.” Much use at all, I think, would be overuse.