John T. Flynn (1882-1964)

To truly understand Fascism, one must discard Hollywood's depictions of death camps, police states, stripped liberties, various forms of academic, societal, religious, political even racial aryanism, etc., all merely possible symptoms among others, for economic "top-down regulatory" control is the primary objective.

The following is taken from the 1944 book As We Go Marching by John T. Flynn (1882-1964)...

"If you would know, therefore, who are the fascists in America, you must ask yourselves not who are the men and women most vocal in their denunciations of Hitler and Mussolini. The most ardent enemies of those two leaders were some of their rival fascist dictators in Europe. The test of fascism is not one's rage against the Italian and German war lords. The test is—how many of the essential principles of fascism do you accept and to what extent are you prepared to apply those fascist ideas to American social and economic life? When you can put your finger on the men or the groups that urge for America the debt-supported state, thee autarchial corporative state, the state bent on the socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society, the establishment of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous public-works project of the nation and the institution of imperialism under which it proposes to regulate and rule the world and, along with this, proposes to alter the forms of our government to approach as closely as possible the unrestrained, absolute government—then you will know you have located the authentic fascist."

... This of course distinguishes from Communism's "bottom-up confiscatory" control of the economy, but control thereof nonetheless. American bipartisan-supported Cronyism (at least since 1913) is a very close cousin if not nearly twin of Fascism, for they share the same "top-down regulatory" methodology towards economic control, flowing from concentrated power in a central government well armed by it's central bank.

Do yourself a favor, read this book. History is repeated because history is ignored...
https://mises.org/library/we-go-marching