crypto-fascist

American  

[krip-toh-fash-ist] / ˌkrɪp toʊˈfæʃ ɪst /

Or cryptofascist

adjective

1. secretly supporting, affiliated with, or conforming to fascism.

   Their policy of conducting closed-door military trials for noncitizens only has been called crypto-fascist.

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noun

1. a person who secretly supports or is sympathetic to fascism.

   Although initially a crypto-fascist, he soon transitioned to open declarations of support.

Etymology

Origin of crypto-fascist

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

In a since-deleted tweet, Zink described the novel as “a utopian critique of the crypto-fascist aesthetics of commercial art.”

From Washington Post

But they, rather than the likes of Greene, must be the future of the Republican Party if it is to survive as a viable political institution rather than a crypto-fascist sect with Mar-a-Lago as its Jerusalem.

From Washington Post

There’s a chapter in this new book where you put together tweets reacting to Reacher, and one person whose tweet you include describes the Reacher books as “crypto-fascist.”

From Slate

A public intellectual with a flair for costumes and camp, Wynn, who in videos has dressed as a eunuch and a crypto-fascist, is a progressive liberal who can flay her enemies even as she seeks to understand their beliefs.

From Los Angeles Times

We are a long way from 1996, when the critic Suzy Menkes, writing in the Times about couture camouflage, deconstructed khaki, and crypto-fascist tailoring, could correctly say that “the linkage of fashion with war is problematical” and reason that fashion’s “raiding of blood-soaked references” might “seem crassly exploitative.”

From The New Yorker