Fascism today

This book is written from an antifascist perspective. It gives a broad overview of fascist ideology and worldview as well as its numerous varieties and branches, although it focuses on the US context. Reading this book was interesting but a little heavy.

The book uses research literature, news articles and interviews as sources, and many of the source works found their way on my reading list. Mostly, the text was easy to understand, although it felt quite slow to read. The only term that wasn't defined was racialism/racialist ("a belief that race determines human traits and capacities"), and it is used a lot in the book. The book would have benefitted from a closer proofreading.

Content wise, one of the most interesting aspects of the first part was the multifaceted relationship between the far right and the radical left. They have contradictory goals, but their drive to change society partially stems from similar reasons, e.g. critique of capitalism. This also explains why some far right groups in Finland have, seemingly smoothly, managed to combine questions of ecological sustainability to ethnic nationalism and white supremacy. It was also interesting and new to me to read about some leftists activists collaborating with fascists and authoritarians on certain issues, such as opposing imperialist wars (for moral vs. isolationist reasons). Thankfully, this practice was also sternly criticised by the author. Other types of confluence between the far right and the far left, such as National Anarchism, were new to me, and I found reading about them very intriguing but also quite... surprising, for lack of a better word.

One strategy that I wasn't quite certain about was naming terrorists. I kind of understand the decision: all other fascists are also discussed by name, which I get. But I'm not sure if the same should be applied to convicted and, in many cases, dead mass murderers. Often, one of their goals is infamy, and printing their names furthers that aim. I'm not sure what's the benefit of naming them, though.

The second part of the book dealt with antifascist action. It introduced some very good tactics, such as disrupting events and making scientific information more accessible/understandable to counter pseudoscientific, racialist talking points.

Reading this book made me reflect on my own position as a leftist: what am I willing to do for equality, and what have I done already? What tactics am I comfortable with? I do believe in the diversity of tactics, but I'm somewhat hesitant about some ideas presented in this book, e.g. doxxing. It was talked about a lot in this book, and its downsides were not discussed. I understand the arguments for using it, and the far right uses it as well, but I think normalising it can be quite dangerous. In certain cases, such as revealing the identities of leading organisers and full-on members of fascist organisations, doxxing can be an effective way to disrupt fascist activities, but it should be used very carefully. The effect that doxxing by fascists has had on online antiracist activists was touched upon briefly, but I would've liked to read a bit more critical consideration about the issue. Then again, this book was about fascism in the US, and the situation there is a lot worse than in Finland. The author does mention that each country's situation is unique and the approaches should be tailored accordingly.

While reading this I realised that prior, despite how much we talk about facism and antifa, I would not have been able to explain exactly what makes facism exactly facism, and now I can which feels very empowering. Extremely well written -- not too jargony as to be hard to follow and super clear in its x to y to z of how alt right figures develop. I found it especially enlightening wrt why things like paganism, occultism, and folk are so appealing to and rife with fascists. Very good ground work read and very much recommend.

Gonna be honest, this was sitting on my shelf for a month. And then in my bag for another month. I've been meaning to start down the research rabbit hole of current politics, especially as I'm an organizer and there's a lot more to know besides my limited experience. For some reason, though, I was afraid to pick it up and go.

I realize in retrospect that the fear was simply that it'd strike too close to home. And it did! I live in Portland, and the author lives in Portland, and he was talking about events I attended. It helped to pull it into a larger picture of what's going on in the US. And it was terrifying and relieving to learn that some of my own observations weren't just one-offs I'd made up in my head - they're becoming universal. It's not the city I live in, it's the whole damn country. Burley does a terrific job of outlining the threats, and helping you come to your own conclusions.

I've been vacillating between 4 and 5 stars because of one minor detail that's actually a major detail for me, and that's the use of "transgendered" - aren't there editors who're supposed to catch those things? - but, knowing that the author has already gotten that feedback, and knowing he's responsive to it, I'm going with the 5 stars.