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Some Mullvad VPN customers tunnel for exit after co-founder donates millions to populist party
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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Definitions of fascism has always been problematic because it is a chimera. Personally I really like this one: Fascism is the moral belief in inequality based on identity, like e.g. ethnicity or gender. It is a bit more wide ranging definition, but pretty simple and clear. For example a democracy where women are not allowed to vote and are exploited as cheap labor at home would be fascist.
Contrast that with neoliberalism, which is the moral belief in inequality based on class / wealth. Which explains why they ally so easily.
You can't just pick and choose definitions of a word. When you use a word, the most common definition of it is how you will be understood (depending on context). Otherwise I could say that poop is worth a lot and then say that poop means gold.
Moreover, sadly, many people do not even have the slightest idea of what certain ideologies are called. They don't get further than "fascism bad nazi bad communism bad" without being able to make a distinction. This allows for easy manipulation of the masses by defaming anything you don't like as one of these things. That's all it is.
If you use a word that you don't entirely understand, research the word, and if necessary, explain how you understand the word. Allows for good-fath discussions.
Check out the book I linked. The definition of fascism is an academic question.
I took a better look at it. I understand that the definition of fascism is an academic question that has been discussed about a lot. However, that also means you shouldn't just trust one person that researched it. The text explicitly states that (paraphrasing) "it should be looked at from the left", which is just a confession of the definition being pretty biased. Therefor, the claim in the text about (paraphrasing) "his definition becoming the new consensus" is pretty flawed. It is true the word is getting used more and more like this by leftists, but that doesn't make it a consensus.
In one paragraph he says (paraphrasing) "the specific flavor is not important, the inherent ideology is ultranationalism with wanting to go back to a mythological past".
I reject this. What he is describing is literally just ultranationalism/ethno-nationalism. That's literally how he describes it himself. That's just like me saying "yeah stalinism in today's day and age is very impractical and you won't see it like this today, so in order to be able to use the term, we need to look at it broader, and at it's core, their ideology is ultra-socialist with the focus on rapid industrialization. Therefor, we should call social-democracts stalinists, because they share the same core ideology.
Wtf? If you read that with some critical thinking you'll understand why his definition is not the concensus at all.
I never implied this definition of fascism is the consensus. It is however undeniably clear and concise. There have been an actual and real problems with defining fascism, like that 12 criteria thing is pretty useless in normal political discourse.
How do you fight fascism effectively if you you can't easily define it? At any moment someone is going to come in with a sideways tackle "actually it doesn't fulfill the criteria 532.2 of subparagraph 7 so shouldn't be considered fascism!" lol.
Which is basically what the OP mainstream news is doing, see OP article with their fucking mealy mouthy both sides approach. This approach helps the actually fascist Örebro so if they do happen to get into power and commit a ethnic cleansing...
Needless to say I definitely consider ethno-nationalism or even just strong nationalism as at least partially fascist. And I think the specific leadership configuration like authoritarian dictatorship doesn't really matter than much or have anything to do with the ideology.