American Patriot: The Social and Political Networks of Banal Fascism in the United States

Abstract

The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol exposed the rising white nationalism and fascism that had long existed in the nation’s cultural and political infrastructure. This dissertation explores this rise as a result of banal fascism, a concept that describes the way elements of fascism seep into U.S. mainstream culture, becoming normalized and mundane. Among other theorizations, it draws from Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism and Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism to analyze the ways that a particular type of American fascism has developed over time through strategic branding and grassroots organizing by Christian nationalist organizers of the 1940s, anti-LGBTQ+ crusaders of the 1970s to the MAGA movement of Donald Trump’s presidency. Taken together, this offers a unique perspective on a hidden fascist framework and explores how political and cultural flashpoints can be used by political leaders to mobilize through banal rhetoric and strategies to spread fascist policy and legislation in the U.S. mainstream.