Fascism is monarchism as reborn as kitsch. Louis XIV saying "I am the state" is grand rhetoric; the monarchy was bigger than he was. Monarchism is a system; people have some idea what to expect, and the result is "normalcy". Life goes on. Fascism is both overdetermined and chaotic: rigid systems subject to the whims of power. Normalcy is impossible. Hitler saying "I am the state" is a fantasy fueled by people who want it to be true, a fantasy of simplicity, of masters who are only masters and servants without agency. And that fantasy is supported by powerful conservative forces who were once opposed: by disaffected monarchists and capitalists, the first out of sincere need for the same fantasy, and the second out of self-interest and cynicism.

That paragraph covers both the psychology and the economics of fascism. It's obvious and I've said it over and over over 40 years, but I'm reading debates among the earnest and highfalutin, both the idiot Stanley and Snyder and those who mock them. Varieties of whig history. It's annoying the fuck out of me.