A recent letter here asked us to stop using the word fascist, because of its painful association with Nazis and the Holocaust (“Gabor Korthy: Casual references to fascism show disrespect to Holocaust survivors”). Unfortunately, Nazis weren’t the only fascists the world has seen. Franco and Mussolini were fascists. Fascism can be found anywhere. And it’s on the rise now in the U.S., Europe, and beyond.

What do we mean by fascism? In the same way that communism is socialism with a fist, fascism is capitalism with a fist. Both capitalist and socialist countries can be either democracies or dictatorships. Nazism, fascism’s most extreme form, arose one step at a time. So when we see those steps taken here, it deserves our concern.

No country is purely socialist or capitalist, democracy or dictatorship. But every country has leanings and trends. And since the 1980s, too many of us have turned our backs on democracy to embrace dictatorship, authoritarianism, deregulation, privatization, tax breaks for the rich. Capitalism with a fist. Fascism.

Racism and fear, fascism’s trademarks, are their tools. Power is their hunger. Truth drives them back into the shadows.

So. Can we defend democracy with silence? Can we speak out against fascism without naming it? Another letter to the editor recently recommended a good book on the subject. I’ll recommend another: Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here.” Published in 1935, when fascism was on the march at home and abroad, it offers uncanny insights into today’s America.

In the 1940s, New Deal Democrat Frankin Roosevelt outflanked Congress’s America-First fascists to rescue a Europe besieged by Germany. Today Russia is on the march into Europe. If it — fascism — does happen here, who will be there to rescue Europe from Vladimir Putin? Who will be here to rescue us from ourselves?

Charlie Bernstein

Augusta