Fascism

In the 1930s, diverse European and American fascists promoted seven basic ideas: (1) dictatorship, with the Fascist Duce or the Nazi Führer leading a police state to enforce conformity of thought; (2) imperialism, seeking control over territory and resources abroad; (3) glorification of military force, hierarchy, and uniforms; (4) a neomercantile economy with the state defying international market practices; (5) Manichaean ideology, denouncing perceived evils, particularly communism and liberal democratic reform and revolution (Mussolini was more anti-liberal and anti-Masonic than Hitler, while the latter was more racist and anti-Semitic; both opposed communism and democracy); (6) reactionary nationalism, including nostalgia for a heroic past (Mussolini yearned to restore the Roman Empire; Hitler glorified pagan, white tribal warriors. To Hitler, Jews were a foreign race and nation. A romantic, mystical irrationalism spurred racial, tribal, and linguistic conflicts.); and (7) a populist appeal to the working and middle classes (populists preach a career open to talent, but appeal to less well-informed people. Fascistic leaders flatter the common folk's dogmatism.).

Military power developed to oppose communism, flourishing from 1947 to 1991. With the Soviet Union's collapse, Islamic terrorism, spurred by U.S. support of Israel, has become the new threat to justify military spending.

A democratic imperium or informal empire has backed anti-democratic, foreign regimes and established hundreds of U.S. military bases abroad. Expenditures for military bases, personnel, and weapons have stimulated the domestic economy and developed the Sunbelt.

American capitalism and corporate power lead the international market, but U.S. monopoly of the expanded world economy is not a threat. There are few Americans who think that a single capitalist could become the master of the international stock market. There are many oligopolists, but monopoly of the world economy is no longer a threat as it seemed to be in the 1930s.

Anti-communism, a form of Manichaeism, was very popular from 1917 to 1991, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the great threat disappeared. Presently, certain neoconservatives pin evil in the Middle East on Arabs or Muslims.