Fascism is best called fascism. If people are really that uncomfortable with the use of the term fascism fot the current dawn of fascism, they can opt for the term neofascism to distinguish different eras or movements of fascism.
![Screenshot from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) app for iOS, in particular its definition of the word fascism: fascism /faʃiz(ə)m ▸ NOUN [mass noun] an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. ◾ (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practices: "this is yet another example of health fascism in action." The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-43); the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ft0a!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa4cf835b-bd5d-43f9-97cf-8816b3ae9e83_640x1081.jpeg "Screenshot from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) app for iOS, in particular its definition of the word fascism: fascism /faʃiz(ə)m ▸ NOUN [mass noun] an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. ◾ (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practices: \"this is yet another example of health fascism in action.\" The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-43); the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.")
Maiming or taking down websites of factual information isn't as visually spectactular as burning or otherwise disposing of stacks of physical books, but in their essence they are all the same thing and yes, aspects of fascism.
Justifying entire organisations or government departments being dismantled based on a limited number of financial or operational inefficiencies found is fascism.
Defending liars' lies with "well, everyone knows they're untruthful, but the message they're trying to bring across deserves listening to" is fascism.
Changing narratives to blame victims for the attacks they've been and/or are being subjected to is fascism.
Singling out one group of disadvantaged people under the guise of protecting or defending another group of disadvantaged people is fascism.1
Spreading misinformation or disinformation, or being okay with others doing so as long as you support the underlying agenda or objective – even if it claims to be an anti-fascist one – is supporting fascism.
It's fascism regardless of whether people who stand to lose personal or professional standing by refusing to call it that, speak out against calling fascism fascism.
It's fascism regardless of whether people who stand to personally or professionally gain from refusing to call it that, speak out against calling fascism fascism.
It's fascism regardless of whether people who can afford to (potentially) buy their way out of having to face the worst of its consequences are willing to call it fascism.
It's fascism regardless of it not looking exactly as it was in previous iterations in different eras when the world was a heck of a lot different.2
It’s fascism even if anyone with proximity to past iterations of fascism considers it too different this time around to call it fascism.
It’s fascism even if some people are fearful of calling it that (as if calling fascism fascism is somehow going to make the fascism worse).
It's fascism.
IT'S FASCISM! And the words and actions through wich the fascism is performed are fascist! And the people verbalising the fascist words and executing the acts of fascism are fascists!
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In case this needs spelling out: yes, that includes homophobia and transphobia.
Calling fascism fascism does not devalue the term; seeking to compare different iterations of fascism as if it's a competition of who was/is worse does.
Words can hurt; that's why so many Brits and Americans refer(red) to 'internment camps' or 'detention and rehabilitation camps' or other eufemisms for the concentration camps they built to lock up Kenyan and Japanese-American people respectively; perhaps in a failure of education, people associate the term 'concentration camp' with the six extermination camps in Nazi-occupied territory and not the literal hundreds (if not thousands) of other concentration camps across said territory, let alone anything their own countries built and maintained and locked people up in. Past or present, calling concentration camps anything but concentration camps helped and helps justify their existence. (See also: calling Israel an apartheid state.) Perhaps that's why various politicians currently appear so perfectly comfortable speaking of building camps to lock people up in (as long as they refer to them as 'detention centres' or 'wellness farms').
Mussolini, Hitler and Franco are dead, but fascism is alive and present. This new dawn of fascism we are all currently witnessing not being as bad (yet!) as fascism was in previous iterations, does not justify arguing against use of the term. People can choose to argue against the use of the words fascist and fascism or they can choose to fight the actual fascism happening right now so any current or future iterations never get to do the extent of harm that previous ones did. If you're on the side of arguing that things aren't bad enough yet to call it fascism already, perhaps you're on the wrong side.