A movement with a distorted sense of individual rights that would seek to hamper vaccination in the midst of a global health crisis is reactionary to the core and hostile to human life itself. The dangerous rise of the anti-vax far-right is a symptom of a sickness in this society that we will still be confronting well after the last wave of the pandemic has finally receded.
It’s because the definition of fascism has been intentionally diluted to mean “anything I personally do not like” - especially by people who match the pre-diluted definition.
But look to the etymology of it:
Fasces. To bundle or bind.
Fascists view themselves as the ‘connective tissue’ holding their civilization together and protecting it from nefarious “OUTSIDERS”. This is an illusion that serves only as a surface level justification for destructive actions. In reality it can look an awful lot like a paranoia-based psychological contagion that causes its infested drones to reflexively congregate into an exclusive ‘in-group’ that collectively hallucinates out-groups to scapegoat. Every time an out-group is neutralized, they choose a new out-group to destroy. This will continue until there is no one else lift, whereupon they will form internal factions and start to tear each other apart.
THAT. IS. FASCISM.
And it’s existed as long as humanity has, long before we came up with a name for it.
That’s a dangerously broad definition that effectively describes almost every modern political party today. Most people want to protect their community, both from threats internal and external. When Joe Biden talks about his need to protect the “soul of the nation” from an outsider like Trump, that fits your definition exactly. When Democrat activists argue they need to punch conservative political pundits for saying things they don’t like, that fits your definition exactly.