Anarchist Antiauthoritarian and Antifascist Cultural Politics in Europe and the United States, 1890s–2020s

Kirwin Shaffer

Anarchist Antiauthoritarian and Antifascist Cultural Politics in Europe and the United States, 1890s–2020s

Kirwin Shaffer Pennsylvania State University – Berks College

Abstract

As 2024 entered late fall in the northern hemisphere and elections in the United States sucked our attention to the reality of a second Donald Trump administration, no shortage of commentators warned of the threat of fascism ascending into power in Washington and thus joining recent hard-right electoral victories across the globe. Former officials in Trump’s first administration called him a fascist—a description echoed by Trump’s opponent in the election. But exit interviews of US voters revealed that Trump gained measurable support from groups that historically have been victimized by far-right and fascist militants. Men and women of African and Latino descent increased their support of Trump and his far-right agenda. Arabs and Muslims did too, despite Trump’s “Muslim ban” during his first term in office. How to explain these shifts within the parameters of everything we know about classic fascism: ultranationalism, nativism, opposition to immigration, ethnic purity, authoritarianism, opposition to liberal democracy and socialism?

Author Biography

Kirwin Shaffer, Pennsylvania State University – Berks College

Kirwin Shaffer is Professor of Latin American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University – Berks College. He has published four books on anarchist politics and culture in Latin America: Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (University Press of Florida, 2005) and re-issued as Anarchist Cuba: Countercultural Politics in the Early Twentieth Century (PM Press, 2019), Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897-1921 (University of Illinois Press, 2013/2020), In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History (University Press of Florida 2015/2017) co-edited with Geoffroy de Laforcade, Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of U.S. Expansion (Cambridge University Press, 2020/2022), and A Transnational History of the Modern Caribbean: Popular Resistance across Borders (Palgrave Macmillan/Springer, 2022). He is currently working on a book project on a Latin American anarchist approach to global history (tentatively titled The World through Anarchist Eyes: Latin American Anarchism and Global History).

A propaganda image of a hand holding back the jaundiced, bloodied hand of fascism from grasping the globe

Published

2024-11-25

Issue

Vol. 2024 No. 2 (2024): Anarchist Antiauthoritarian and Antifascist Cultural Politics

Section

Articles

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