For one thing, the Trump regime represents an attempt at concentrated government power in an autocratic center with the goal of direct control over state functions by capital — a fusion of private and public power. This makes the movement neo-feudal because a defining feature of feudalism was the direct fusion of private ownership of land and exercise of state functions.

It’s also a peculiarly American form of neo-fascism. The American influence derives from 19th century Social Darwinist liberalism, as in the philosophy of William Graham Sumner. This form of liberal ideology was dominant in the Republican party in the 1880s-1890s — and the “progressive” movement was partly a reaction against it.

The Social Darwinist liberals saw a competitive dog eat dog laissez faire capitalism as the natural order through which the “superiors” rise to the top, in the form of greater wealth. Those who are poor are “inferiors,” losers in this war of all against all. Thus they opposed any government action to defend workers or protect disadvantaged groups or provide social benefits such as public hospitals. They opposed 8 hour laws and child labor laws.

In the 1960s Murray Rothbard and others were successful in rebranding this form of liberalism as “libertarianism”. In the extreme form advocated by Rothbard, they call this “anarcho-capitalism.” So the idea is that essential state functions like police and courts would be directly owned by capitalist oligarchs. Democracy would be done away with. I regard “anarcho-capitalism” as a kind third positionist fascist ideology. It’s a feature of third positionist ideology to adapt left wing names like “national socialism,” “national syndicalism”, “national anarchism”.

It’s implicitly advocating a kind of neo-feudalism through the fusion of the power of capitalist oligarchs with state power.

You can see how Curtis Yarvin’s “neo-reactionary” or “dark enlightenment” ideology derives from this. It’s a move away from ordinary “libertarianism” because of the overt rejection of democracy and liberal values. Yarvin’s ideology has been developed further by British philosopher Nick Land. Yarvin also embraces eugenics and “race science” (scientific racism). In other words, he’s overtly racist. Yarvin’s proposal is for breaking up the world into a multi-polar order of neo-feudal techno-capitalist fiefdoms run by a CEO type figure.

This Yarvinite ideology is one of the influences on MAGA but it coincides with the blow up the administrative state ideology of Steve Bannon and Project 2025 — derived from the Christian Nationalist wing of the MAGA influencers.

Yarvin and Lind and MAGA types in general will deny they are fascist because they espouse a fale history of fascism as anti-capitalist. A similarity between the MAGA neo-fascism and classical fascism is building a mass movement around scapegoating, making allegations of some secretive elite (“deep state”), the tendency of the Trump regime to move to punish dissent and opposition, the sizeable numbers in MAGA supportive of violence against political opponents, the push for a unitary autocratic executive power.

There are differences from classical fascism. Classical fascism didn’t have the capitalists as direct actors and taking over the government for the capitalist oligarchs, as in Trump handing over EPA to the polluters, giving the forest lands to lumber companies to clear cut, etc. Also, there is no mass radical left or insurgent labor movement to suppress right now.

Rather, the aim of MAGA is to destroy all the benefits and regulatory systems that were built as concessions to working class & middle class & social movement protest over a long period (since the “progressive” era).