It seems to be a pitfall of the thinking “it can’t happen here.”
What? Everybody thought fascism would come from the inside in the US. Even if you slept through the first Trump term this has been a thing since the 1930s. Surely during the Cold War, and definitely for everybody outside the US itself, but… I mean, were you alive during the whole “war on terror” nonsense?
Had the post-Reagan, post 9-11 US fascists successfully brainwashed even left of centre normies into thinking that was not the case? Were Americans that oblivious?
Everybody in this space, yeah, absolutely.
Everybody who is informed and has been paying attention, definitely.
Everybody in the voting public of the US, not so much.
American exceptionalism is a real thing. The vast majority of the country has been fed fairytales about how they live in a perfect utopia where things are always getting better. They were taught that they were the richest, strongest, smartest, nicest, and most popular country in the world. Hollywood and the press barraged them with the message that everybody wants to either be them, be friends with them, or they’re an evil person with no understandable motive that seeks to destroy them so that they can take over the world and rule with an iron fist. They won every war they’ve ever fought in, usually showing up to save the day in conflicts that aren’t their own, just because they’re that kind, generous, and always looking out for the little guy. Nothing bad ever happens within the impenetrable borders, and when it does, it’s just a freak accident or a single bad apple.
A shocking number of people began to interpret “American” exceptionalism as something that only applies to the largest part of the population, the straight, cis, white, Christian. Suddenly everyone outside any one of those categories becomes un-American and therefore the evil person who cannot be understood and deserves no sliver of empathy in attempts to do so.
Those people voted for Trump.
Twice.
In 2024 they made up the popular vote. That’s the majority of America. That’s what this country was then. That is “everybody.”
It’s crazy how long it’s taking for people to wake up. It seems like if the election would happen today, Trump wouldn’t win, but that approval rating might swing if his opponent is anything other than a straight, white, masculine, cisgendered man, with multiple children who all celebrate Christmas together.
When will the truth become mainstream? What additional atrocities will need to occur before Trump becomes as universally hated as Hitler? I honestly feel like we’re not there yet. If anything happens to Trump now, it seems that nearly half the country will turn him into a martyr before realizing they are free of the figurehead of a fascist oligarchy.
Given the amount of people still proudly sporting Trump merch in the rural area I live, I do think he’d still win. I literally don’t understand these people, the sheer lack of… anything. Awareness. Empathy. Self-preservation!?
The only person I vaguely know well enough to take a crack at why she’s like this, is because she herself is a raging narcissist who wants to be special and feel special. So she aligns her views with the person who tells her “You’re special!” and gives her that desperate validation. Morals become secondary to feeling good rather than being the source of it. It’s incredibly sad.
Sure, Mr or Ms “I knew it all along”. But even most respected analysts thought the first Trump term was “fascist-adjacent”. Even though Slavoj Zizek was correct that voting outsiders is the correct thing to do to shake up the corrupt status quo, he was wrong to say that Trump isn’t fascist until the second term. Hindsight is 20/20.
I mean… yeah, but also I’m very well on the record disagreeing with that and calling Trump a fascist since day one. Not that I expect you dig through my online presence to corroborate it.
I’m not American. The presence of fascists in US politics has been a commonly accepted truth in anybody anywhere left of demochristians for half a century. This isn’t “hindsigh”, it’s “I recommend always reading what people say about your country in foreign newspapers”.
And for the record, we got fascists, too. We’re just less shy about calling them that, maybe? Certainly don’t have any delusions about ourselves in terms of being inoculated from fascism at a fundamental level. The idea that Americans would have survived Bush, let alone the overtly fascist Trump without noticing or acknowledging it seems outright bizarre to me, but there you go.
I mean, Stephen Miller isn’t even shy about it. Even if you are the kind of European that would argue Berlusconi wasn’t a fascist and could maaaaaybe entertain Trump is on that same level of “just horny criminal idiot” you surely would have had zero questions after hearing five minutes of Dracula Hitler back in 2016.
m not American. The presence of fascists in US politics has been a commonly accepted truth in anybody anywhere left of demochristians for half a century.
I am an American and idk where this idea comes from because I’ve been noticing a decline at least since high school political science forced me to pay attention for the first time. It’s been hard not to notice the slope getting steeper every day.
It is possible to do an internet search for a date range. Looking at 2016, there were many articles regarding fascism and Trump. Here is just one:
It is true that many people were uncertain if Trump was a full on fascist, or if he was thwarted by a lack of reading. Which sounds like a lie. I am cherry picking this quote from the article, the article itself is not particularly cherry picked.
Do you think that Trump is consciously using fascist tropes, or do you think that he’s just sort of stumbled into this?
I doubt it’s conscious. I don’t think he’s a bookish man. I’m sure he’s never read a book about Hitler or Mussolini.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/02/is-donald-trump-a-fascist-an-expert-on-fascism-weighs-in.htmlEdit: editing for clarity.
Honestly, even at the time that entire “benefit of the doubt” garbage read like some combination of active collaboration and outright denial. It’s nuts that Trump rode it to a second term, honestly. As late as the week of the election people were having haughty conversations about the lack of ties between Project 2025 and the Trump campaign and those morons still elected them again because Harris was too weak on Israel or whatever.
I mean, I’d normally not assume an entire culture is incapable of parsing reality, but there are still supposed American leftists going “they’re both the same” on this site right now.
Which reminds me I’m trying to cut off American politics from my media menu as much as possible, so maybe it’s time to mute this stuff and move on with my day, because man, what a group of weirdos.
I think they’re right. Fascism is at its core a blind grasp for power by any means necessary. You don’t have to know anything about the history of fascism to do the exact same things as the ones of the past because it just sort of happens naturally. Now, Trump is obviously made aware that he’s following fascist tropes, but he just says they were smart guys and he likes how they think and moves on…unless you actually use the word “fascist.” That means “bad,” so clearly he can’t be that, no matter how much he does literally everything a fascist would do.
the democratic process had been breaking down since the beginning of the cold war, just because the exact moment wasnt known doesnt mean it wasnt inevitable.
Just because you were ignorant and bought the propaganda doesn’t mean everyone has. The US has always been an imperialist bully built on rampant capitalism, nationalism, and a misguided self-image of being exceptional. Instead of whining and incorrectly projecting that everyone was as gullible as you, perhaps you should focus on asking others to help you understand the US and its place globally in history, so you are less susceptible to more propaganda.
If even a fraction of the general US population was willing or capable of recognizing the reality of what the US is and has done, we’d be much better equipped to deal with the situation we’re in. Instead, most choose to get indignant if you even dare to suggest they may be or were the bad guy at any moment ever.
Your media has been covering up for this descent into fascism my entire lifetime and I’m in my 30s. After 9/11 they literally, jingoistically called for the US to invade foreign countries, fear-mongered for views, all while dragging my country into those wars lest we end up like “freedom fries” France. I guess if you grew up in the Obama era, there would have seemed like a brief respite from the descent into fascism, but it was all political spin and no substance. Sitting where I am, the Democrats are a right-leaning party. THAT’S your “left wing” so anything further right is obviously going to be fascist in a country so nationalistic.
Trump LITERALLY incited an insurrection during his first term. Any “respected analyst” that wouldn’t call him a fascist just had too much faith in your already very broken institutions.
Mx is the gender neutral btw.
Lol, many, many people knew that fascism would come from within and warned as such. Coincidentally, Sinclair Lewis wrote a book titled “It Can’t Happen Here” in 1935 about how a fascist would come to power in America. It’s been a while since I read it, but I recall it having some eerily similar parallels to Trump’s rise to power.
Came to say this. I recall especially the books private, paramilitary “marching clubs” being turned into law enforcement, which feels a lot like how the Proud Boys and 3% have fallen out of the media at the same time as ICE has co-opted their tactics.
“We’ll have fascism in [America], but we’ll call it anti-fascism” - Huey Long
The whole of US political commentary 1935-1939 feels very relevant today.
“We’ll have fascism in [America], but we’ll call it anti-fascism” - Huey Long
The fascists declared antifa enemies, so I guess we won’t?
Maybe we should use a similar playbook but inversely to defeat fascism from within.
Yeah, precisely, a lot of successfully propigandized people believed American Exceptionalism grants a 100% nullification to internal Fascist corruption…
But, uh, more clever or curious or historically interested people have long known that… thats not true at all, lol.
Which, of course, is why the Republicans have been, for at least 40 years, had as a consistent plank of their policy and rhetoric be… public education should be defunded and destroyed.
Turns out, being uneducated actually grants a +100% bonus critical weakness to all kinds of propoganda.
I haven’t read it but I will, eventually. But I must ask, I wonder though if George Lucas read the book and drew inspiration from it? Even some of the themes on how the republic fell and rise of the empire has kinda happened in real life. The toxic masculinity and alienation has real life parallel contributing to the decline of democracy, aside from the more obvious such as institutional corruption, wealth inequality and complacency. I also think Lucas was inspired from Hannah Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, where she concluded that loneliness is precursor to totalitarianism. Anakin’s downfall is because he is lonely and alienated, and essentially told to “suck it up”. There is parallel to his experience and those in real life who have turned to the far right/dark side.
Lucas actually has directly stated that the original Star Wars trilogy was to some extent based off of the Vietnamese resistance to Western Imperialism.
“We’re fighting the largest empire in the world, and we’re just a bunch of hay seeds in coonskin hats that don’t know nothing,” he says, referencing the American Revolution against the British Empire, and how he based the heroes of Star Wars on real-life rebellions against powerful empires.
Lucas and Cameron discuss how during the Vietnam War, America became “the Empire.”
“The irony is that, in both of those, the little guys won. The highly technical empire – the English Empire, the American Empire – lost. That was the whole point,” Lucas says.
Another part of this same discussion with James Cameron, from another article:
https://www.cbr.com/george-lucas-vietnam-war-star-wars-inspiration/
Cameron pointed out how the Rebels are a small group using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized Empire. Today, Cameron added, the Rebels would be called terrorists. “When I did it,” Lucas replied, “they were Viet Cong.” In other words, Lucas viewed the Vietnamese as the rebels and America as the invading villains.
He further explained that Star Wars was a “vessel” in which to place his worldview that the United States had become an empire during the Vietnam War, doomed to fail like every empire before it.
Its uh, honestly rather obvious, but uh, right wingers consistently fail at basic media literacy, so … ?
I’m talking about the Star Wars prequels. George Lucas touched upon alienation and loneliness, which is what Anakin was feeling and then exploited by Palpatine. It is starkly prescient and parallel to real life.
“when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” - Sinclair Lewis
Fricken spot on. I say this quote a lot when I see what’s happening.
Especially because there’s a gun store near me and their logo is the American flag hanging on the cross. Not joking.
As a German, on the contrary, it was blindingly obvious. Starting with your massive(ly overblown) patriotism. No insult intended.
As a Black American the number of white people saying “Who could have known” what we have been screaming at them is infuriating.
As a leftist, the people who said we were overreacting about the Patriot Act 25 years ago (and continuously since) are now saying that we devolved into fascism quickly.
Lots of insult intended. More insult than you can imagine. If you’re reading this and you have been complacent, it’s time to get into the streets.
When I was getting really nervous that Obama and the Dems, when they had a trifecta, back a decade ago now… when they had that, and they were not going to repeal the Patriot Act?
My other white ‘leftist’ “friends” called me racist for being too critical of Obama.
Oh lordy do I still feel the rage at their immense, performative, entitled hypocrisy.
It’s painful to watch. And aware it’s always been far worse for you. I’m sorry. You lost the birth lottery (edit to make it clearer: in the eyes of some assholes).
(I did too in biological ways critically btw, but I still ‘enjoy’ the German health system and white privilege)
I did not at all lose the birth lottery. Being Black is fucking awesome. I just need the rest of y’all to act like you have some sense.
I agree. (except for the obvious of course, that a lot think different)
Yeah, as an Australian, when I learnt as a teen that they do the “pledge of allegiance” everyday in school, I kind of wondered how easy it would be to hijack that into something evil.
They slipped “God” into it in the 1950s. So probably a sizable factor in why we have Christian nationalists now
I’m not sure how many classrooms do this, but it is becoming less common.
I remember doing it in elementary school, but not later on. I can say that as a kid it doesn’t mean shit. It’s just an annoying chore you have to do to start the day.
No offense, but Americans were (or still are) literally the only ones oblivious to this. Fascism in the USA did not start with Trump’s second term. It did not start with his first term either. This has been progressing practically ever since the declaration of independence.
Most at least slightly educated people saw this clearly decades ago. Most weren’t saying anything, because we had bigger problems.
The main issues here consist of:
- lack of an at least semi-functional education system
- ubiquitous propaganda
Nothing about the current state of the USA is surprising whatsoever to most people who weren’t born there. Americans have been exploited and manipulated for generations, and this is the effect. As pointed out by other commenters, there are countless books, essays and works of fiction discussing this phenomenon.
Right-wing politicians are also on the rise everywhere else. So while Murica is cranking fascism up to 11 like they do with everything else, it’s not isolated to here.
Canada is right behind you, fucking embarrassing. If we don’t elect a fascist piss baby next election I’d be very surprised.
From my perspective, right-leaning politicians aren’t necessarily a problem by themselves. It’s good to have a mix of various opinions and backgrounds. The problem is that ‘right-wing’ in the year 2025 is almost always just fascism. It’s like every single person associating with the right is extreme right and never anywhere in the middle.
Nobody thought? Carl Sagan did. Many did.
It always comes from within. Those who thought it is an external thread kinda had their head in the sand.
I did have an argument in my head that it always comes from within, although that’s not exactly the case with countries invaded by fascists before and their governments installed with puppet fascist counterparts.
What the fuck are you talking about. Hunter S. Thompson wrote about it, Punk rock has spoke about it since it’s inception, I’ve been worried about the fascist threat since I became politically aware during the end of Bush 2 saying we’re just waiting for a Caesar.
“Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.
Ho ho ho. Let’s not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.
Hunter S. Thompson
“Germany lost the second World War, fascism won it.” - George Carlin
So, you’re telling me 'Murica, the place known for:
- putting money above EVERYTHING
- exploiting half of the world’s countries
- supporting coups and bloody dictatorships
- invading countries using shitty excuses when the real reason is money
- never hunting down its own extremist “good” terrorists like the kkk
- school shootings
- exporting their propaganda to all aligned countries
- being super xenophobic
- being a fucking chicken because “muh freeze peach!” when it comes to glorification of nazi ideals
Wasn’t expecting fascism to grow from within???
But we’re the good guys. :(
Anyone thinking “it can’t happen here,” wasn’t paying attention in history class. It has always been a part of us from the very start.
In fact America was founded on the genocide of natives. The founding fathers were such hypocrites, preaching about freedom while owning slaves
Lol.
LMAO, even.
This particular downslope has been around for 20+ years, and it’s been arguably more like 50 years.
Hell, the only reason we have the small amount of gun control we do is because Regan was afraid of black people owning guns.
Fascism has been festering for a long time, most people only notice now because it’s finally affecting them.
Nah this was predicted decades ago. First quote i remember talking about it was “when facism comes to america it will be drapped in an american flag carrying a bible”. And thats pretty much exactly how it happened.
I was in college in 2004 when my philosophy 101 professor said with confidence that fascism was on the horizon for the US and that it would happen in our lifetimes.
Fucking Plato predicted this. And I argued with him like a jackass.
To quote Judd Hersh as Julius Livingston: We knew! We knew then! And we did nothing!
…… you quote “it can’t happen here” without realizing that the phrase itself is satirical and that so so many people already saw the trajectory ages before now and that nationalistic propaganda is abundant in mass media. It’s no shock to anyone who has ever tried paying attention or thinking critically about the implications of common ideologies.
People were calling George Dubya a Nazi. Reagan’s entire economic plan was “make the rich richer because they’ll give poor people money.”
The fact of the matter is, most Americans have been propagandized into thinking communism is the greatest threat they face. Fascism isn’t even on their radar. That’s why they get more upset about people calling others fascists than they do about fascists - they don’t have any concept of the legitimate threat, and quite a few think that authoritative power is the only thing that can fix society.
I told my mom in 2021 that I thought the next major threat the US will face is from right wing groups, because I was seeing a sharp rise in alt-right ideology and meme pages on Instagram. She just looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Really?”
It also took me way too long to wake up. I didn’t start calling it fascism until last year, and I certainly didn’t see the warning signs in the first Trump term - I just thought he was an asshole.
But it’s been going on for a while. Since Reagan at least. “Give your people bread and circuses, and they will never revolt.” Except now we have ultrabread delivered to your home and megacircuses in every living room. 70s-90s America, especially, were kind of a paradise for the middle class. Even in the 80s, when people were upset at having to work corporate jobs, consumer products were being cranked out nonstop and affordable to boot, and you could own a house. We’ve just had it too good for too long, and we didn’t notice the structure of it all eroding until the floor fell out from under us.
A lot of people very famously not only knew, but told you and told you and told you and told you.
