@2a70c54d
connected trends! when capitalism is in crisis, it is more threatened by class struggle. fascism is capitalisms tool against class struggle at a time such as this one. 

the whole point is, the capitalists want to raise paramilitaries so they can go and crack the heads of striking workers without having to send to police or army in; provoke war and draft as many people as possible into it, to wreak massive destruction (clearing the ground for the post-war "recovery"); and maintain a powerful sense of "national unity" so that all people are more paranoid of their radical peers than of their reactionary bosses.

adding:
"Generally though in times of excess for the rich the population movements are geared toward greater social responsibility,  not fascism."
actually, both kinds of movements grow in these circumstances. this was also true of the 1920s and 1930s, when masses of workers flocked to support communism, fascism, and social democracy more than ever before. 

 @5d0edf53 To your second point, I'd argue that only two countries were openly fascist at the time; Spain and Italy. Everyone else in Europe as well as globally, was moving toward either social democracy or communism and/or socialism. Which in my mind, supports my original point; in eras of material excess social movements tend toward social responsibility. 

 @2a70c54d
the way i think of fascism is like as capitalism having an "immune reaction" to class struggle and class consciousness, it is a backlash meant to defend capitalism from the threat. so a period of relative revolutionary fervor (say, 1917–23) is generally followed by fascist reaction (italy 1922, germany and spain in the following decade).

in the case of right now, the rise of leftism in american politics since occupy wall street produced a backlash in the form of trump and the "anti-woke" wave. greater efforts to challenge the system equal greater challenges from the system. it seems the world can only be dragged forward kicking and screaming...