The point I think is that at least half could apply to nearly an government or group, I don't know who this guy is or why his rules are important and merit any discussion, but generally generic rules written generically that can be interpreted any which way aren't super helpful in any discussion.
In his essay, Eco says no instance of fascism will present itself with all items. He starts out by saying that fascism is very hard to define, so the 14 item list is meant to be a soft guide more than an absolute rule book.
I am starting to accept that this is a conversation we are going to be having over and over again, even after Elon and Trump. We are rightly traumatised by the excesses of the past, so it's very easy to imagine that any slight will inevitably lead to full on fascism.
This last qualification of fascism could be key, it differentiates 20th century fascism to what we are seeing today. We don't yet know whether this new form of fascism is just as harmful. For instance, when debating about whether Elon—who meets many of the elements in Eco's list—is a nazi or not, people are having very different conversations. There is no nazi party Elon can be a member of so that's not what I've been interested in. For me it has been more about the possibility of Elon advocating the same extreme policies fascist parties did. We could say he shares some of the worldview as the white supremacists, but would he go as far as implementing a 'final solution' to remedy the diagnosis?
Every fascist leanings gets compared to Germany where it's more akin to Italy, East European or South American models of strong man and/or militaristic.
Everyone compares everyone to the worse so anything short of that gets way too much acceptance. I don't think Elon or the movement he's part of is full on Nazi not will become one. It's still bad and shameful.
