Aspirational Fascism: The Struggle for Multifaceted Democracy under Trumpism

Forerunners: Ideas First

by William E. Connolly

Coming to terms with a new period of uncertainty when it is still replete with possibilities

This quick and engaging study clearly lays out the United States’ current democratic crisis. Examining the early stages of the Nazi movement in Germany, William E. Connolly detects synergies with Donald Trump’s rhetorical style. Tapping into a sense of contemporary fragility, Aspirational Fascism pays particular attention to how conflicts between neoliberalism and the pluralizing left have placed the white working class in a bind. Ultimately, Connolly believes a multifaceted democracy constitutes the best antidote to aspirational fascism and rethinks what a politics of the left might look like today.

Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
 

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Economics, Theory

142 pages, Paperback

Published October 12, 2017

About the author

William E. Connolly is a political theorist known for his work on democracy and pluralism. He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His 1974 work The Terms of Political Discourse won the 1999 Benjamin Lippincott Award
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Reviews

[Michael Erickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like the longest book I've ever read in my life. Content and my own political views notwithstanding, it just was not written well. Needlessly verbose and academic; I genuinely had to take a break after every paragraph and parse out what the author was actually attempting to convey, and more times than not I found that I couldn't.

Under the hood, there are some compelling topics here. What I (think I was able to) came away from this was a loose understanding of how and why an agitated class that feels left behind by society could gravitate towards narcissistic individuals who they do not hold to the same standard as people in their own in-group. But the book kept teasing methods to wrangle these types back into a larger multipolar democracy, and when we got to that chapter I was so bogged down in jargon that I started to doubt whether English was actually my native language.

As an example, I am going to share a single sentence, verbatim, as it appears in the book:

Here is one thing Nietzsche says about the evolution of a now rather stable assemblage, such as a religion, a state, a practice of punishment, a practice of sovereignty, a species, or a specific constellation of climate and civilization, all the components of which are both interlinked and set on different time scales: "the cause of the origin of a thing and its eventual utility, its actual employment and place in a system of purposes, lie worlds apart; whatever exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken over, transformed, and redirected by some power superior to it: all events in the organic world are a subduing, a becoming master, and all subduing and becoming master involves a fresh interpretation, an adaptation through which any previous 'meaning' and 'purpose' are necessarily obscured or even obliterated."

Imagine an entire book of this.

I'm convinced that this is not a book intended for colloquial, pedestrian (read: 'real') human beings; this felt like a vehicle for high-level academic circlejerking, which is a shame because a more accessible exploration into modern nascent fascist movements feels like an important book to have right now. I recommend looking elsewhere for that though.

[Kai · Rating 1 out of 5]

Y I K E S

[Mathilde · Rating 2 out of 5]

jsuis déprimée, surtout que ça l'a été écrit pendant son premier mandat pis qu'on est 8 ans plus tard face au même criss d'affaire qui a aucun criss de sens

[Roger Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good effort.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally, the academic paper pushers are getting on the bandwagon.

[Charles M · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my opinion it makes more sense to compare Trump to modern right wing populists/proto-neofascists seen in Europe today instead of the fascists of old

[remi ✿]

week 2

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viscous with Latinate, academic jargon, but if you can manage to wade through it the book offers a serious and sympathetic consideration of the grievances of the white working-class instead of the reflexive contempt offered by most leftist academics (is there any other kind). That's not the main thread of the book, but it is one thread the author attempts to weave into a promotion of pluralistic democracy, which he presents as a plan, insightful and (to me) ridiculously unlikely.

The book is rich in resonances, no small thing, and got me re-reading Nietzsche, of all things, with a fresh perspective. Definitely not for everyone, but if you can read Nietzsche for pleasure and have an interest in contemporary American politics (from whatever viewpoint) you could enjoy the richness of this book.

[Jay Leithen · Rating 1 out of 5]

mr. connolly seems extremely disturbed and unwell

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

When didn’t people make this comparison in 2017, even when Trump didn’t quite fit the bill? But I’d have to say it was probably the one that was written the best.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good antidote to the reductio ad hitlerim. Would be interested to see this fleshed out a little more