Anatomy of Fascism

Book Review — How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley

“The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division.” — Jason Stanley

As a high school history teacher, I studied fascism before, most commonly in the context of the most horrific events of the 20th century — the Armenian genocide during World War I, the genocide of up to two million Cambodian citizens at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and, the most recognized example, the Nazi Holocaust.

I learned and, for the most part, until recently, taught about these incidents as though they were historical and social aberrations. Unimaginable atrocities brought on by circumstances that were unlikely to repeat again any time soon, if ever.

Then why has the cycle of fascist ideology leading to genocidal violence been repeated multiple times just in the past 100 years, the most recent act of dehumanization continuing to unfold today with the Rohingya Muslim people in Myanmar? “Never again” has been an anti-fascist rallying cry since prisoners liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp began chanting it as they were freed at the end of World War II in Europe. So, how has humanity so frequently found itself in the violent grips of fascist ideology and its abhorrent manifestations since then?

And are we on the verge of fascism here in the United States?

Jason Stanley’s brief and cogent book, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them helps us trace the emergence of fascism and connect the dots between the various economic, political, social, and religious forces that conspire to make it possible again, and again.

A friend who recently finished the book described, with equal parts equivocation and fear, the “aha” moment she experienced as Stanley laid one brick upon another –the myth of an idyllic past, the undermining of truth, the terror of the dangerous “other”– to reveal the formidable wall that stands before us today.

I experienced a similar mental evolution from deliberate resistance to reluctant acquiescence, a kind of solemn surrender as Stanley laid out what seemed to be a playbook being enacted by Donald Trump, his Republican enablers, and the silent forces of hegemony operating behind the scenes to get the people to believe we are the enemy of each other.

It is a playbook around which my mind has a hard time wrapping itself, having grown up with the myth of (United States of) American exceptionalism dominating textbooks, media, and popular culture since my first steps; having grown up in a bubble of relative comfort and privilege that has sheltered me from the moral monstrosity this nation has been for many.

Fascism is a virus that either arises somewhere out there, in a land where democracy has not oxygenated the air being breathed — or one that has haunted our past only to be defeated for good. It has been crafted into a kind of science-fiction that many in the mainstream of our nation cannot fathom (I realize, actually, there are millions of BIPOC and immigrants in the US whose relationship to systems of power has exposed them to elements of fascist authority to which many of us are naïve).

If we are to follow Stanley’s reasoning in How Fascism Works, the infrastructure has already been built for a more broad progression into fascism and, unless we mount a massive campaign of collective resistance, we are only one skilled authoritarian away from being locked in this prison we refused to see.

So, are we on a path towards fascism in the United States? Here are the tributaries Stanley lays out:

• Glorification of a mythic past — “Fascist politics characteristically contains within it a demand to mythologize the past, creating a version of national heritage that is a weapon for political gain” (pg. 20). The very heart of Trumpism beats in the slogan, “make America great again,” a hearkening back to some idyllic past that has never actually been experienced before by most people living in our nation. Between this rallying cry and the defense of Confederate monuments, the mythic past is alive and well on one side of the political narrative today.
• The use of propaganda to stir emotions and divide and conquer — “fascism elevates the irrational over the rational, fanatical emotion over the intellect” (page 35). Stolen election. QAnon. Rioters taking over our cities. Have we ever seen a group of people more fervently certain about narratives that are so far from evidenced truth? Perhaps most importantly, many of these narratives are not even intended to be fully believed by the blindly trusting masses; rather they are spun with the goal of sowing doubt and creating chaos.
• Anti-intellectualism — “in antidemocratic systems, the function of education is to produce obedient citizens structurally obliged to enter the workforce without bargaining power, and ideologically trained to think that the dominant group represents history’s greatest civilizational forces” (page 49). Mythical narratives have become fact and questioning them have nearly become crime (barring the 1619 Project from school curriculum and critical race theory from federal initiatives). Critical thinking and questioning are weakness.
• Unreality — “A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequence” (page 57). Truth has become anything proclaimed by the outlets with whom we have come to agree most, so much so that people will believe the narrative presented to them by One America News Network over evidence from their own experience. Climate change is a hoax. COVID 19 is part of a plan to sterilize the masses through forced vaccinations. Mask wearing is part of a global conspiracy to take away individual liberties. Stanley concludes, “Allowing every opinion into the public sphere and giving it serious time for consideration, far from resulting in a process that is conducive to knowledge formation via deliberation, destroys its very possibility” (page 70).
• Hierarchy — “Fascists argue that natural hierarchies of worth in fact exist, and that their existence undermines the obligations for equal consideration” (page 83). White supremacy. Christianity masked as religious freedom. Trump’s referring to several darker nations as “shithole countries.” The re-emergence of eugenics and definitions of fitness. In all of these there is a clear statement that some human lives are of inherently greater value than others.
• Victimhood — “In fascist politics, the opposing notions of equality and discrimination get mixed up with each other” (page 93). 2050 and the inevitability of our minority-majority nation stokes the most divisive form of nationalism and “us” vs. “them” mentality. The dangerous other is coming… to our borders, to our suburbs, to our homes.
• Appeal to law and order — And because that dangerous other is approaching, we need to enforce law and order on them. Kyle Rittenhouse can wade into a crowded protest and pass by police with a loaded AR-15 in hand, ultimately shooting three people and killing two of them. He is lionized as a hero. Black Lives Matter protestors taking to the streets, almost entirely peacefully, in the wake of the murder of Breonna Taylor are confronted by police, beaten and arrested because, “They are criminals. We make mistakes” (page 115).
• Sexual Anxiety — “If the demagogue is the father of the nation, then any threat to patriarchal manhood and the traditional family undermines the fascist vision of strength” (page 127). Banning transgender people from the military. An escalating focus on controlling women’s bodies. Trump’s appeal, “Suburban women, will you please like me?” If we could just return to that mythic past when patriarchy was the clear order of things, then we would all be better off.
• Dividing rural and urban populations — “Fascist politics feeds the insulting myth that hard working rural residents pay to support lazy urban dwellers, so it is not a surprise that the base of its success is found in a country’s rural areas” (page 148). Trump liberally labeled cities such as Portland, Seattle and New York “anarchist jurisdictions” and focused much of his late campaign on the ostensible rioting and violence in cities that just want to destroy the country. Making groups of people who live distant from each other think they are enemies has always been a go-to strategy for those in power who want to hide that they are the true enemy.
• Work will make you free — “To have a life worthy of value, for the social Darwinist, is to have risen above others by struggle and merit, to have survived a fierce competition of resources” (page 177). The racist myth of the welfare queen or the undeserving immigrants taking our jobs. The bootstrap mentality that ignores barriers and structures of inequity that have been built into our system from the beginning. They are struggling because they are lazy and have no work ethic but our struggle is glorified and uplifted. “Fascist politics preys on the human frailty that makes our own suffering seem bearable if we know that those we look down upon are being made to suffer more” (page 183).

For this novice student of fascist ideology, the power and insight of How Fascism Works is not in the revelation of new or undiscovered knowledge but in the cogent weaving together of various seemingly disconnected strands to reveal a coherent web. Like shining a black light on a spider web, Jason Stanley reveals for the reader the insidious network of forces situated right in front of us.

As a lifelong educator, an activist, a father, and an optimist, I am not prepared to accept that we are fated to become ensnared in this web. I believe in the power of the people to work for and move closer and closer to collective liberation. But reading this book has also made me aware that fascist control in the United States is nearer than I ever imagined.

We need to open our eyes and act before we walk into the spider web right before our eyes.