Canadian Mark Kingwell wrote an excellent essay on patriotism and support for US troops. (It’s required reading, so go ahead and read it and come back.) But Kingwell closes with this doosey: “There is a word for this combination of military celebration, disdain of objection, intimidation of dissent and abuse of sentiment. The word is fascism.”

Is that, in fact, how we should define fascism? Thinking Mussolini might be a good authority on the subject, I checked out his manifesto, ““The Doctrine of Facism.” The word “doctrine” is a tip-off, because Mussolini certainly understood fascism to be a deeply spiritual way of doing politics. Here’s my summary of his doctrine:

1. Fascism (think “fasten-ism” or “fascinate-ism”) is a serious, austere spirituality devoted to the individual’s submission to a superior, transcendent Will.
2. The fascist state seeks to push the People to the very edge of their peak capacities, something best accomplished through war.
3. Fascism is pragmatic and non-utopian; therefore, war is inevitable. There is no such thing as “progress.”
4. The state is God; there is no other. The state names what is right, what is good, and directs the People toward it.
5. There are no divisions, no classes, no distinctions among the People. They are one nation, united under the god-state.
6. Yet, individuals are not born equal and must prove their rank through acts of selfless heroism. The State also seeks to prove itself through feats of heroism and expansion in competition with its neighbors. Democracy is an unnecessary distraction.
7. The People must be surveilled for changes of mind and interest. It’s for their own good. The police state is just the beginning.
8. The State and the People recognize each other when they meet. The People find their completion in the State and long to fulfill its Will.
9. Organized religion insofar as it promotes self-sacrifice and heroism.
10. Fascism is proud that it is fascism; it does not cower or hide.

Notice the Nietzschean “will to power/might” translated into a political program, a direct violation of Nietsche’s understanding of the individualistic, self-driven ubermensch. Here the herd is commanded to become ubermensch, with self-appointed shepherds leading the way. The god-state says, “You will become supermen on my behalf, and you will love it.”

Social Darwinism is consciously applied by the nation-state to the nation-state on behalf of its own viability. This is the “realist” school of international relations directing a totalitarian state without let or hindrance. The god-state reasons, “Since the world is red in tooth in claw, I will force my People to be red in tooth in claw on my behalf.”

Socialism and democracy are rejected almost out of hand. Yet the market will be directed largely by the god-state, so that if fascism endorses capitalism, it is a limited and contained capitalism. Corporate mergers allow the god-state to more easily direct the economy from afar (because there are less actors to keep track of) while still allowing competition to foster innovation. Industries that are especially vital to the state might even become state-owned, giving fascism an air of socialism but without the ideology of class struggle. Fascism retains democracy’s populist instincts without using any of democracy’s forms.

Theologically, it resembles henotheism, a variant of polytheism where neighboring city-states each pledge allegiance to their own god(s) but still recognize the existence and validity of their neighbor’s gods. In fact, if they are conquered, they abandon their own gods and begin to worship their conqueror’s gods. Translated into Christian terminology, fascism-as-ideology is correct Doctrine, the state is God, and the People are the Church.

So what in Mussolini’s understanding of fascism is missing from Mark Kingwell’s characterization of fascism? Certainly fascism is characterized by “military celebration, disdain of objection, intimidation of dissent and abuse of sentiment.” But the religious and philosophical underpinnings of fascism are missing from the US situation. Bush has used theological language to make his case, but he has not advanced it as an ideology capable of sustaining a wide, populist, fascist movement.

You can make an argument for neo-fascism, pseudo-fascism, or sub-fascism, but not fascism itself. What the Bush administration is advancing militaristic nationalism. Some neoconservative pundits have branded this neonationalism “Great Nation” conservatism. (David Brooks advances a more moderate version in his misnamed essay, “Manifesto for a Lost Creed.”)

Does anyone seriously believe they’ve identified self-conscious, explicit strivings for a fascist god-state among the Bush administration’s neoconservatives and hawks? The problem any revivalism of what sociologist Robert Bellah called America’s “civil religion” is that it is inimical to fascism. Americanism-as-ideology brought us universal suffrage, the end of slavery, the Progressive era, national parks, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, and the Great Society. If “Great Nation” nationalism manages to revive this Americanism, its very revival will undermine “Great Nation” conservatism.

But there is a competitor for the title of Americanism, seen in the so-called “Indian Wars.” the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the “Know Nothing” party, the Klan, the McCarthy era, and the Cold War. This is the Americanism of “manifest destiny.” Manifest-destiny Americanism, like fascism and “civil religion” Americanism, also has its own elements of spirituality that are central to it. But unlike fascism, it is dependent on the same constitutional republic structures as “civil religion” Americanism. America has a heritage of militaristic nationalism coupled with rugged individualism, but it has no history of fascism. Anyone wanting to institute an American fascist god-state will need to start from scratch.

So the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans is between two competing versions of Amercanism, between manifest destiny Americanism and civil religion Americanism, between Joseph McCarthy and Woody Guthrie. (The two can even co-exist from time to time, as in Teddy Roosevelt.) Calling “fascism” when there is none present is a losing strategy. Red-state Americans know better and will write off any boys calling wolf as just that.

If liberal Americans want to win, they need to come out arguing on behalf of America’s civil religion tradition. Otherwise, they shouldn’t even bother to come out and play.