Caesarism: A Question of Violence

With US President Donald Trump's decision to mobilize the National Guard and military over the head of California Governor Gavin Newsom to suppress protests in Los Angeles against the government's brutal deportation policy. There is a threat of further authoritarian escalation. “This is what autocracy looks like,” stated the New York Times. Others went a step further and spoke of a fascist seizure of power. The question of how to conceptualize current authoritarian developments is currently the subject of lively debate.

In May, literary scholar Carolin Amlinger and sociologist Oliver Nachtwey intervened in the ongoing debate with an article, arguing against both too narrow and too broad an application of the term fascism. Instead, they propose talking about “democratic fascism” because, unlike historical fascism, it takes place “amidst the normal functioning of parliamentary democracy.” They base this on common definitions of fascism and emphasize the ideology of ethnic-based ultra-nationalism and violence as a core feature. Following the social-psychologist Klaus Theweleit, they also consider the practical experience of violence to be fundamental to fascism. This contributes to the formation of a patriarchal bodily armour in male alliances. Militias with their unbridled violence are therefore always part of fascism.

Is this the non-state?

Violence as an integral part of fascism also raises the question concerning the political order. Amlinger and Nachtwey discuss this question based on the materialist analysis of National Socialist rule by the lawyer and political scientist Franz L. Neumann. He conceived of the Nazi state as a “Behemoth,” the negation of Hobbes' “Leviathan”: competing gangs such as the NSDAP, SS, Wehrmacht, secret police and SA, which under National Socialism unshackled themselves from the legal constraints of the rule of law as mediated by parliament. In this way, they gained undisguised access to executive power in their respective areas.

According to Neumann, a fundamental characteristic of Nazism is the regression of the state, i.e., the shift of the state of emergency back to the “inside” of the body politic: the dialectical transformation of the rule of law into the rule of violent rackets. Under National Socialism, this dynamic radicalized cumulatively, culminating in the antisemitic persecution and elimination of Jews in the Shoah.

Amlinger and Nachtwey maintain that what is currently referred to as fascism is not a “power cartel of an unleashed behemoth” and is also not to be equated with Italian fascism. It is “more of a joint venture,” a loose association bound by economic interests. But there is a “fascist moment” in a contradictory situation: there is still real political competition for power, “elections take place, even if the authoritarian incumbents shape the conditions of political competition asymmetrically.” “Trump's fascism” is not about “creating a new behemoth, a state monster,” but about dismantling democracy “from political liberalism.”

Neumann, however, grasped the Behemoth as a “non-state” and not as a “state monster.” The difference in state theory is that, unlike the Leviathan, the Behemoth, as an association of competing rackets, has no unified centre. And that raises the question of the usefulness of the conceptual construct proposed by Amlinger and Nachtwey. For the assumption that there is a democratic variant of fascism may be true regarding the strategy of some actors because they are capable of implementing parts of their ideological program within the framework of parliamentary democracy. However, as far as the political order is concerned, the proposal tends to obscure the analysis. A clear analysis is crucial, however, for understanding what we are dealing with—and for developing appropriate counterstrategies.

The rule of the plebiscite

In Neumann's works published after “Behemoth,” there is a term that is much more appropriate in this context: Caesarism. Neumann, who fled Nazi persecution in 1933 as a Jew and socialist, first outlined the concept in Behemoth. But it was not until his last lecture, given shortly before his death in a car accident in the Swiss mountains, that he provided a conceptual sketch entitled “Fear and Politics.” At the time, he was working as a professor of political science at Columbia University in New York on a general theory of democracy and dictatorship, which he developed in line with the critical theory of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno and in exchange with sociologist Helge Pross.

The fragmentary draft on Caesarism brings a necessary differentiation to the debate. It allows us to decipher the dictatorial potential inherent in authoritarianism itself. In his essay, Neumann lists a series of historical epochs to substantiate the concept. According to Neumann, the various Caesarist movements blamed the decline of society on the elites they sought to combat and presented themselves as the authentic expression of the “will of the people.” He describes this program as a “false concrete view of history” that is closely linked to conspiracy ideologies. He points to the Caesarist tradition in 19th-century North America during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Today, Trump is continuing this historical legacy by hanging a portrait of the eponymous figure of this era, Andrew Jackson, immediately after his return to the White House. Jackson, a proponent of slave-owner-democracy, was US president from 1829 to 1837.

Caesarism is based on a particular understanding of democracy that draws on mythical images from antiquity. It is no coincidence that during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, Trump's likeness was displayed on placards in the style of Caesar: dressed in a toga and a laurel wreath, the highest military honor in ancient Rome. Above and below, in white letters on a black background, was written: “Third Term Project. For Trump 2028 ... and beyond!” In this Caesarist understanding of democracy, the dual character of modern democracy—on the one hand, “rule by the people,” but on the other hand, mediation of contradictory (and unequal) social interests through parliament—is dissolved into the rule of the plebiscite.

Caesarist movements increasingly equate the “will of the people” and executive power, which can also be observed in the current transformation of statehood. This transformation is an adaptation of the state to changing economic requirements, and is characterized by a substantial shift of power within the separation of powers in favour of the executive. In the “era of the deal”, that follows the “era of too big to fail”, governing by decree and measures is necessary to respond agilely to global economic and geopolitical upheavals and, crucially from a materialist perspective, to the increasing concentration of economic power. This is a development that occurs periodically in capitalism and is currently particularly evident in the tech industry.

Politics of power concentration

In a situation where the state increasingly has to regulate individual economic cases, the legal form becomes an obstacle, as Neumann emphasizes. This structurally erodes the function of parliament as a mediating body between social power groups. Their objective differences can less and less be resolved in laws that apply to everyone. In addition, the separation of powers and thus also parliamentary power are being undermined by attacks on the legislature's budgetary rights. This goes hand in hand with a weakening of the courts, which stand in the way of the executive's need to govern through and through and to demonstrate its power. Comparable attacks on the judiciary can currently be observed in Germany, where the federal government has announced that it will ignore court rulings on issues such as border controls.

As Neumann emphasizes, the growing concentration of economic and political power is accompanied by increasing social powerlessness. This forms the ideological condition for Caesarism, which is currently being fuelled by economic upheaval, inflation, and the climate crisis. Existing “neurotic fears” in capitalism are thus reinforced and increasingly lead to projective coping mechanisms, such as anti-Semitic delusions. This is where social media comes into play because it digitizes plebiscite, the acclamation of the Caesarists, the jubilant cries of the will of the people. The invocation of the plebiscite, i.e., the suggestion of mass participation in political power, for example through platforms such as X, Truth Social, or TikTok, serves to seemingly compensate for the experience of powerlessness. On the one hand, this suggestion obscures the growing access of gangs to executive power, which is currently still legally restricted. On the other hand, participation is only simulated, creating a destructive vicious circle.

This can result in an unleashed dynamic of violence, both from fascist gangs on the streets and from the executive branch, the first signs of which are already clearly visible with the brutal deportation policies. But it is crucial to differentiate analytically so that the concept of fascism remains available as a tool and can be effective as a political concept when the rule of law actually turns into tyranny.

This article was first published in German in nd.Die Woche (Si apre in una nuova finestra)