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Over the past few weeks, we've been breaking down the history, subtext, and evolving meanings

of the buzzwords you hear all over the news and social media.

This is the ABCs of the culture wars.

Our final word is F for fascism.

We don't have a lot of terms in American society that are kind of cross political, cross

cultural.

Fascism is one of them.

That's Professor Nicholas Ensley Mitchell.

He teaches education theory, policy, and practice at the University of Kansas.

And he's right, you hear this word all over the political spectrum.

From the press account of California Governor Gavin Newsom calling Homeland Security Advisor

Stephen Miller a fascist, in all caps, on X, to then presidential nominee Donald Trump

calling former Vice President Kamala Harris a fascist.

She's a Marxist, communist, fascist.

So how do we make sense of the word fascist being thrown around like this?

Well, Professor Mitchell has been writing about the history of the word,

and he's offering a perspective that I haven't really heard in mainstream conversations about fascism.

So I think we can talk about this really as just a meme in the sense that we talk about other memes on the internet.

Fascism, it's a succinct way of talking about an oppressive cultural regime or government or, you know, even vibe.

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