Orcinus, whom everyone should read, cites Robert O. Paxton’s essay "The Five Stages of Fascism," The Journal of Modern History, March 1998. Paxton identifies five stages in fascism's arc of flight:

1. The initial creation of fascist movements
2. Their rooting as parties in a political system
3. The acquisition of power
4. The exercise of power
5. Radicalization or entropy

1. The initial creation of component movements (explained below)
2. Some violent national passion
3. Period where an inadequate state struggles to fulfill the aspirations of the masses
4. A coup d’état
5. Period of rapid economic growth
6. Humiliation, implosion

Falangist movements are generically different from fascism in two ways: their origin can be traced to one of many potential groups; fascist movements suffer violent mutual antipathies. For example, in Austria, 1934, the fascist chancellor Dollfuss was taken hostage in his office and murdered by Austrian Nazis. More famous is the February 26th (1936) incident in Japan described vividly in the opening chapter of John Toland’s outstanding Rising Sun, in which the Imperial Way faction sought to seize control of the government. Suppressed by regular troops, it opened the way for Tojo Hidekei’s Control Faction to establish a totalitarian state.

The other big difference is that countries drift into fascism; falangism comes with a bloodbath. Falangism implodes, discredited; fascism descends into a blood-dimmed tide, like WW2 or civil war. The violence of the February 26th Incident was limited in scope; seven officials, including the great economist Takehashi Korekiyo, were assassinated. The “Night of the Long Knives” occurred almost eight months after the Nazi Party had secured a political monopoly).

Had one been alive at the time, and an experienced observer of parliamentary politics, the ascent of the fascists would have seemed a farce. The maneuvers in the Reichstag and the parliaments of Hungary, Austria, Romania… all were guided by helplessness and denial on the part of the elites. These were almost to a man, ultra-conservatives and aristocrats. In Germany, coalitions of every other party had desperately shut out the Communists; now a coalition excluding the Communists and the Nazis was impossible, and the Nazis were not a normal political party. Chancellor Von Papen and conservative kingpin Schleicher, along with a cabal of financiers, therefore, pushed through a “joint government” with Adolf Hitler as a stopgap measure (23 Jan 1933). After that, Hitler subordinated his reluctant, aristocratic patrons.

While the Nazis were unusual even for fascists in their ruthlessness, the ascent to power of other fascist groups was fairly similar. In all cases, foreign pressures were decisive.

Compare this to the ascent of falangist movements: in Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Argentina (1976), there was a bloody coup d’état and a civil war. In Spain, Gen. Franco’s golpe touched off a war that killed nearly 365,000 people. Foreign intervention in the scores and scores of falangist coups, putsches, golpes, and other horrors have been influential once the killing began.

Although allegations fly about CIA involvement in this or that coup, my own research has led me to suspect that in the majority of cases foreign intervention was opportunistic rather than causative. In general, falangist movements are extremely xenophobic and inward looking, focused narrowly on internal enemies. Fascist movements are not obviously civil wars; falangist regimes obviously are, even though the enemy of the falangist regime is to be found everywhere.

This brings us back to my original quandary: how relevant is the above to our present situation in this country?

The answer is, “More than you might suppose.” Fascist movements arise gradually and require homogeneity to triumph. A splintered fascist movement is unlikely to get to first base; I cannot find a single example of a fascist regime arising from a multiplicity of fascist groups. That, in it, is encouraging. The heterogeneity of American would-be fascists is astonishing, and becoming more so. But this is no protection against falangism. Falangism is organizationally polyzygomatic; it always arises with a host of supporting organizations. These can espouse the prevailing religion, or reject it; they can be market fundamentalists, or they can be business nationalists. Hatred of liberalism (in the political sense of the term) is a necessary and sufficient condition. A proliferation of (potentially rival) militia is not a problem for falangism; it is a problem for fascists. Mistrust of the government and a denigration of it are obstacles for fascists, but never for falangists.

Another anxiety is the suddenness of the onset. Countries drift into fascism; but falangism arises from a violent crisis - a coup, usually preceded by extreme civil breakdown. The difference between America’s response in 1930 to the onset of the Great Depression, and that of other nations to the same crisis, has a lot to do with the relative trust with which political participants regard each other.

Fascist Architecture
This is actually a gratituitous change of subject; those of you with an interest in art will want to see how various totalitation states tried to make their point with material culture.

Ceacescu’s palace of the people
Slides of one of Saddam’s palaces
Albrecht Speer’s plans for Berlin;
color photos of surviving Third Reich buildings
Guerrini, et al., Fascist Architecture
Some views of Pyongyang

American control group
(Inserted to convey a sense of architectural taste in the 1930's; Hall of State, Texas, 1936)

Falangist Architecture
A fine example of falangist architecture - Franco’s El Valle de los Caídos
To me, architecture is always a statement of the philosophy of power in a state. Please observe I have only included a single example of falangist architecture. I would greatly welcome photos of any specimen of buildings designed during the periods 1976-1983 in Argentina, 1964-1984 in Brazil, and 1973-1990 in Chile.