Crypto-fascism

In an ABC television debate during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Gore Vidal described William F. Buckley Jr. as a "sort of pro or crypto-Nazi". Vidal later clarified in an essay published in Esquire in 1969, "I had not intended to use the phrase 'pro crypto Nazi.' 'Fascist-minded' was more my intended meaning". In later reporting on this event, the term Vidal used to describe Buckley was sometimes misquoted as "crypto-fascist". The term "crypto-fascist" had first appeared in print five years earlier in a German-language book by the sociologist Theodor W. Adorno, . Adorno had used "crypto-fascism" as early as 1937 in a letter written to Walter Benjamin. In this document, the term is not linked to secret support or admiration of fascism but it is used to refer to someone who is insufficiently conscious when displaying such regressive tendencies. ==Usage==

The term was used by German Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll in a 1972 essay titled "Will Ulrike Gnade oder freies Geleit?" With alternative meaning of the prefix "crypto", similar to its use in "crypto-anarchy", the term "crypto-fascism" has also been used to refer to the embracing of cryptocurrency by overt fascists and the association of cryptocurrency with its use by the far right. == See also ==