Hitler and other fascists definitely took inspiration from the colonial apparatus of America, but that’s not all fascism is and was. That’s not to say its not an important part, but it’s not the only part.

Before we go further I want to reiterate that this is not a defense of American colonialism. It’s just that it’s undialectical to describe it as fascist.

It did do all of those things. Slavery, genocide, etc. But I think there are a few key distinctions

1.Existentialism

The United States engaged in its conquests “peacemeal” per se. Of course there were issues with the technology at the time, but Hitler attempted to conquer the whole of Europe in about half a decade, Japan attempted to conquer China in 8 years. Why did these fascist nations do this? Because there was an existential crisis of capitalism. If they did not engage in rapid Conquest then their economies would’ve collapsed. It is also why we see the reemergence of fascism today, because of the decline in the rate of profit and that, finally after 400 years, the west has ran out of places to plunder. However, America again existed in early stage capitalism. It’s expansion was not predicated on an existential crisis to preserve the system, but simply to out compete other empires and colonies. It took another 70 years from independence for the US to reach it’s mainland extent.

It’s similar to why I wouldn’t call Napoleonic France fascist. I certainly don’t like it, and he engaged in colonialism, slavery, and conquests, but he represented a different historical phenomenon that shared his name.

You might argue the abolition movement could constitute as this, but even without the US being a constituent nation of the empire, Britain still took until 1833 to abolish it. It certainly was one of the fears of the colonists, but it was, again, a driving force of inter-imperial competition rather than an existential threat (although of course the slave owners probably saw it as such).

2.Reorganization of society

This is, in my opinion, the biggest indication of fascism. Looking at all the fascist coups and “counter revolutions”* of the 20th and 21st century, fascism necessitates a mass reorganization of society in some form or another. Most notably the mass removal of social democratic labor laws and restrictions of Bourgeois political freedoms. This is a key part of fascism entirely because of the existentialism mentioned in the last part.

However, as noted previously, the USA did not engage in a mass societal change. There were certainly political changes and societal upheaval, sure, but for the most part the point of the war for independence was

1. The laboring class’s wish for more political freedoms away from the British crown, and a cessation of exploitative tarrifs and taxation

2. The ruling class’s wish and will for independence from the British crown and parliament in order to further expand their own imperial possessions and engage in further accumulation outside of the trade restrictions of the Empire.

The key thing is that this is a continuation of the status quo, and not a reactionary revolt to a new state of society. Perhaps you could consider it reactionary, but really the independence war has much more in common with bonapartism (the seizing of power by a ruling class with some reforms in order to stave off revolutionary reorganization) than fascism.

*Counter revolution is the wrong word here, but I really don’t have a good term to describe it. I am taking from one of Hitler’s speeches at his putsh trial as he says “I am a revolutionary against the revolution.” And I feel that encapsulates fascism to a tee, but “counter revolution” is already a term, and even describing fascist takeovers as revolutions doesn’t feel accurate either