What Is Fascism? Understanding the Past, Naming the Present

Fascism didn’t sneak up on us. The right has been preparing for decades. Here’s how they built the playbook—and what it’s looked like through my own lifetime.

May 21, 2025

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

— George Orwell

Fascism is a word we’ve been hearing a lot lately—and not without reason. From book bans to anti-trans laws to calls for a national abortion ban, the authoritarian creep is no longer subtle. It’s strategic. It’s coordinated. And if we want to resist it effectively, we need to understand its origins.

Let’s get grounded—in the facts and in our stories.

Growing Up in the Reagan Era: The Personal Is Political

I was born in 1978. When I was five years old—1983—my dad left. My mom was suddenly raising me and my siblings on her own. Like so many women in that era, she had to rely on the social safety net just to survive.

But this was also the height of the Reagan era.

And while my mom was navigating food stamps, housing support, and trying to keep our family afloat, Ronald Reagan was actively making that safety net harder to access. He framed poverty as a moral failure, not a structural issue. He gave us the mythical “welfare queen” and slashed support systems that kept families like mine from falling apart.

And I didn’t know any of that then.

All I knew was that Reagan seemed “nice.” When I got my Presidential Fitness certificate in 4th grade, I was so proud that the President of the United States signed it.

This is the dissonance so many of us live in: we grow up inside systems that impact our lives long before we understand how. The political becomes personal, but not always immediately. Sometimes the realization doesn’t come until much later.

My Awakening: High School in the Clinton/Gingrich Era

By the time I was in high school (1992–1996), the political landscape was heating up. Bill Clinton was president, and Newt Gingrich was leading a Republican resurgence. I remember how the news treated it like a war—“liberals vs conservatives,” “Clinton vs Gingrich.”

This was my first real sense of party politics. I began to understand that Democrats were supposed to be more aligned with working-class interests, even though they were, by then, moving away from that. Republicans seemed business-oriented, more concerned with markets than people. But again, I was just a teenager. I was watching patterns start, not yet understanding their long-term consequences.

What Is Fascism?

According to Oxford Languages:

fascism | ˈfaˌSHizəm |

noun

An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.

Extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behavior.
Very intolerant or domineering views or practices in a particular area.

The word has Italian roots—fascio, meaning bundle, from Roman symbols of unity and power. From the beginning, fascism has meant strength through control. Obedience over dissent. A single story told loud and often.

Key features include:

Glorification of a single ethnic or national group
A demagogic leader demanding loyalty
Suppression of dissent and the press
Nostalgia for a mythic past
Control over reproductive rights and social norms

From Mussolini to MAGA

Fascism isn’t new. We’ve seen it before:

Mussolini’s Italy (1922–43)
Hitler’s Germany (1933–45)
Franco’s Spain (1939–75)

Each relied on national mythologies, militarized masculinity, and authoritarian suppression. Each fed off fear.

Fascism & Weaponizing Motherhood

The U.S. Right’s Long Game

The Heritage Foundation

Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation has been shaping right-wing policy for decades. Their 1981 Mandate for Leadership set the agenda for Reagan’s presidency. Later, they supported Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America, and today they are behind Project 2025—a chilling authoritarian playbook.

Source: Heritage Foundation1

The 1994 Political Shift

I remember this. Democrats had won it all in 1992, but by 1994, Republicans took back the House. Gingrich’s aggressive messaging (backed by Heritage) defined the national conversation. And Clinton, far from being a progressive hero, leaned into welfare reform, criminalization, and trade deals that gutted labor.

This is when my awareness began to crystallize. I could feel the shift. But like most of us, I didn’t yet know what it meant.

Becoming a Mother During the Tea Party Era

When the Tea Party began to rise in 2009–2010, my son was just two years old. My husband and I don’t see eye to eye on politics, so I couldn’t even enjoy the historic moment of having our first Black president. I stopped listening to NPR because I didn’t want to hear the vitriol coming from my partner’s direction.

We were in survival mode—caring for a child with health challenges, facing my own health issues, just trying to do life. And while we were doing that, the far right was growing stronger. Fear-based, corporate-funded, and organized.

This is how fascism creeps in—not with jackboots, but with talking points and voter suppression bills and narratives designed to keep people divided and exhausted.

From Tea Party to Trump

Trump didn’t invent anything. He channeled decades of Republican strategy:

Discredit journalism
Stoke white grievance
Blame immigrants
Promise to “restore order”

The Tea Party had primed the base. Heritage had supplied the ideas. Clinton-era neoliberalism had abandoned working-class people. The conditions were ripe.

Sources:

A Woo-Woo Theory (That Tracks)

I’ll leave you with a bigger frame. According to astrologer and scholar Demetra George:

• We’re leaving the Age of Pisces (hierarchy, religion, empire)

• Entering the Age of Aquarius (rebellion, innovation, collective power)

• We’re still in the Dark Moon phase—the death rattle of patriarchy

I believe this: fascism is patriarchy’s last gasp. A desperate attempt to hold onto control as the world shifts.

Source:

George, Demetra. Mysteries of the Dark Moon. HarperCollins, 1992.5

So What Do We Do?

We name it.

We trace its roots.

We build new systems of care and collaboration.

We tell better stories—grounded in truth, community, and justice.

Tell Me What You Value

I’m collecting feedback for future work on messaging, organizing, and collaborative leadership.

👉 Take the 3-minute Values Survey here

From Sparta to MAGA: How Fascists Weaponize Motherhood

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?