protofascist

alternative proto-fascist

1. not comparablegovernmentShowing the beginnings of fascism.First known use 20th c.

   Even Lemon, for all her protofascist beliefs, wins our sympathy.

   1991 August 9, Jack Helbig, “Marie and Bruce”, in Chicago Reader

   2 more examples

   When Newt Gingrich and his protofascist comrades took over Congress in 1994, they sneeringly boasted that they intended to take the federal government back to the 1920s.

   2008 April 7, Adolph Reed Jr., The Nation, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2009

   These logics have been resurgent on the right for years now, evident in the presence of protofascist and authoritarian leaders in Brazil, India, Hungary, the Philippines, Russia, and Turkey, among others.

   2023, Naomi Klein, “The Far Right meets the Far-Out”, in Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN

plural protofascists · alternative proto-fascist

1. historicalOne whose beliefs resembled fascism before the founding of fascism in 1919.First known use 20th c.

   The Social Darwinists are sometimes considered protofascists.

   Synonyms: prefascist

2. derogatoryOne whose opinions or policies show the beginnings of fascism.

   That congressman is a protofascist.

   2 more examples

   Along with stereotype-mongering phrases like “redneck America's life in the electronic theme park,” he occasionally reduces his countrymen to mindless proto-fascists.

   1989 April 30, Martha Bayles, “Taking Sitcoms Seriously”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   As a whole, Euromaidan supporters are emphatically not the Ukrainian-speaking proto-fascists they’ve been portrayed as in pro-government and Russian media.

   2014 February 5, David Stern, “Ukraine's Forever Revolution”, in James Bennet, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC