First, the self-professed fount of Progressive thought showing his outright hatred of anything with which he disagrees.
The fascism we are most familiar with began with Mussolini in 1919 Italy and spread. These regimes arose in very different times but echoes of fascism can still be heard in right-wing rhetoric. Fascism at its core is uber-nationalistic. It expresses and demands patriotism on the scale of religious fanaticism. Fascist propaganda specializes in patriotic mottos, songs, and slogans. Flags, flag symbols and flag clothing are to be ubiquitous. Fascism glorifies the nation and the military. Fascists promote an aggressive foreign policy and tend to disproportionately fund their military when the money could be better spent elsewhere. This nationalist militancy bleeds over into a love of paramilitary organizations and militias.What I find fascinating is that he does not recognize that the very thing he preaches against is exactly what his fellow travelers are guilty of doing. It is right out of Alinsky: Accuse your opponents of doing what it is you yourself are doing. Then again, maybe he knows exactly what he's doing. He goes on in this vein for an additional eight paragraphs. Rather than giving him any more coverage here, you are free to go read his diatribe at the link above.
Hate speech and fear mongering about "others" is a tool that promotes obsession regarding national security and traditional values. Robert Paxton, foremost expert on fascism noted, "The use of ethnic stereotypes and exploitation of fear of foreigners is directly out of a fascist's recipe book.
"Making the country great again" sounds exactly like the fascist movements. Concern about national decline, that was one of the most prominent emotional states evoked in fascist discourse, and Trump is using that full-blast...". Right-wingers use ethnic and religious stereotypes to attack Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, etc. Fascism remains feverishly anti-immigrant. "English only" is an American echo of the Nazi's "German only" agenda.
My response to him is considerably shorter.
Your definition of fascism is so broad that it includes anyone who does not fully embrace the morally bankrupt Progressive cause. By your definition Ronald Reagan was a fascist. So was John F. Kennedy. So was FDR. So was one of your Progressive heroes, Woodrow Wilson.I realize this will not sway this true believer in the Progressive cause, will not cause him to re-evaluate his beliefs or core assumptions about his cause or those of the people who oppose his beliefs. He has faith his convictions are the only correct ones and that no others need apply. He is what Lenin called “a useful idiot.” And should his Progressive 'utopia' ever come to pass here in the US, he will be one of the first to be put up against the wall and shot because he will have outlived his usefulness to the cause, just as the Bolsheviks did to their useful idiots after they took power in 1917.
If you include the TEA Party's push to reform government such that it will become one that will forcefully and rigorously leave people alone to live their lives as they see fit with little or no interference, then it is indeed fascist. If its call for the government to follow the Constitution of the United States and stay within the limits as defined by it as fascism, then it is indeed a fascist organization. If the TEA Party's demands that the government actually follow the law and do away with the increasing overreach and burdensome administrative rules, regulations, and laws fostered by cronyism created by the numerous agencies and departments in the Executive branch that go far outside the laws as created by Congress and outside their charters, then it is indeed a fascist organization.
That members of the TEA Party have a deep seated and justified distrust and, dare I say, hatred of Marxism, socialism, and Progressivism (all branches of the same ideology) isn't in dispute. They have such feelings for those tyrannical political beliefs because of what history has shown us, with one aspect of which is the blood of millions of innocents they have spilled, all in the name of building some “bright future” that always devolves into oppression, imprisonment, slavery, and murder as instruments of achieving the delusional and unreachable socialist utopia.