Introducing the read-along! "How Fascism Works"

Knowing more makes a scary thing less scary

As I mentioned last week, I’m going to experiment with doing a read-along of what I’m reading that feels urgent, helpful, and worthy of community and conversation.

This week, I’m introducing the first book: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley. This book feels so contemporary that it wouldn’t shock me if knew what I had for breakfast this morning.

Author Jason Stanley is a philosophy professor at Yale. His grandmother and father (age 6 at the time) came to the US as refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939.

I haven’t finished the book myself, so you’re in for the ride right along with me.

And to make it even easier to join, I’m going to send a free copy to the first 3 people who message me! (More detail at the end.)

N.b.: The read-along is now its own "column" of Rhyme/Schemes which means that if you have zero interest in this, you can uncheck it in your subscription and still receive other posts!

How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

The Preface & Introduction

“Many people are not familiar with the ideological structure of fascism, that each mechanism of fascist politics tends to build on others. … I have written this book in the hope of providing citizens with the critical tools to recognize the difference between legitimate tactics in liberal democratic politics on the one hand, and invidious tactics in fascist politics on the other.”

— Jason Stanley

When I reached for the bold title How Fascism Works, I was subconsciously hoping for the answer to the question: What is going to happen to us?

But of course, Stanley is a philosopher, not a psychic. What this book can do, though, is answer the question of what has been happening to us.

It is a book about fascist politics, as opposed to fascist rule. That means Stanley is getting at the mechanical innards, the lines of code, the rusty toolbox with “Fascism” stamped on its lid. This book is about how the tools of the fascism toolbox are used to gain power.

Fascist politics can exist in a democratic nation

Jason (I’m going to call him Jason, because Stanley is too close to Snyder, the author of On Tyranny) explains that fascist politics can exist whether or not you have fascist governance. To me, this is important because it spares us from being locked in a debate about whether or not we’re living in a fascist state, whether or not Trump is a fascist dictator, et cetera.

Suffice it to say that yes, fascist politics are absolutely being employed by Trump and many others in this era.

“I wrote this book as a warning about fascist politics, essentially the danger of rhetoric that encourages fear and anger as a means to foment ethnic and religious division, seeping into public discourse. Today, the effects of such talk seem clear, as that rhetoric now shapes the outcome of elections and makes its way into policies.”

Politics quickly become policies

Since 2015, many who are sympathetic to MAGA have said we shouldn’t take Trump’s language too seriously or too literally—we should focus on what he actually does.

But Jason argues that, “In the countries in which these tactics [of fear and division] are most successful, we now see the clear emergence of fascist policies.” For example, in India, once “liberal and secular,” the elected Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi “has moved to implement disturbing policies” around different rights to citizenship for Muslims and Hindus.

And in the US, Trump’s “Muslim ban” was rewritten repeatedly until the Supreme Court would let it stand (when the administration added North Korea and Venezuela to the list). Jason writes: “It is no longer a salient topic of discussion in the U.S. media. Trump’s fascist political tactics quickly were made material in policies of explicit exclusion.”

“When observing the tangible effects of Trump’s rhetoric, many in the media look to the streets for hate crimes by skinheads, or for other examples of extrajudicial violence aimed at Trump’s targets…but not actually committed by the Trump administration. This is dangerously confused. [It forces] us to look away from the structural consequences of fascist rhetoric. By ignoring the state apparatus erected by those who entered into office through fascist politics, we behave as if fascist political tactics cannot transform once-democratic states into fascist ones.”

This, Jason argues, is how democratic Germany transitioned into Nazi Germany. Historians call the process “Gleichschaltung.” This was marked, he says, fealty to the party’s leader. Without comparing the leaders themselves to Hitler, he does point out that in India, Brazil, and the U.S., loyalties are shifting toward either a single leader (as opposed to the constitution, party, or people) or an ethnic identity.

Creating self-fulfilling prophecies

A third strand of the rhetoric-becomes-reality theme is the fact that fascism’s ethnic divisiveness harms the groups it would also like to marginalize through policy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Fascism in power seeks to make its rhetoric into reality—for example, by immiserating and impoverishing populations it represents as diseased.

Like when the Trump administration demanded that CDC flyers about preventing the spread of Coronavirus be taken down specifically in immigration courts.

Or it can be a tactic to achieve its unsavory goals, like the cruel child separations at the US—Mexico border being used to deter future immigrants.

“This, too, is familiar from history … harsh anti-Semitic rhetoric, followed by exposure of its Jewish citizens to the brutality of its camps, let to a large exodus of Jews from Germany.”

This book is fundamentally hopeful

Amazingly, this book’s attitude is not that we are hopeless. I’ll finish with Jason’s uplifting message at the end of the preface:

“A moral of this book is that fascism is not a new threat, but rather a permanent temptation. The United States has captured the attention of the world not because of its fascist history, but because of the heroism its residents have exhibited in internal fights against it. From the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, the United States has fought against white Christian nationalism, no less than Europe has fought against its own ultranationalist movements. …

It remains for us to join that struggle, realizing that it’s not to overcome a moment, but rather to make a permanent democratic commitment.”

Yes!

Takeaways:

• Fascist rhetoric is a tool for winning power, which can then lead to fascist policies and governance.

• Fascist politics’ primary danger is that it dehumanizes certain people and justifies harming or repressing them.

• Today’s waves of refugees around the world “reinforces fascist propaganda that the nation is under siege.”

• What do you think about all this?

  ---

What’s next?

This book’s 10 chapters each discuss one tool of fascism:

1. The Mythic Past

2. Propaganda

3. Anti-intellectual

4. Unreality

5. Hierarchy

6. Victimhood

7. Law and Order

8. Sexual Anxiety

9. Sodom and Gomorrah

10. Arbeit Macht Frei

And I’ll dive into the first 1 or 2 chapters next, depending on how much I have to say about it and how loudly I hear from y’all that you want a chance to grab your copy and read along in real time!

---

So, are you in?

There are at least 3 great ways to get your copy of How Fascism Works:

1. Look up the book in your local library system through WorldCat

2. Order a copy through Bookshop.org.

3. Leave a comment or message me and I’ll mail a copy of the book to the first 3 people who say they’re in!

Comments will go behind a paywall, soon

I want people to feel comfortable discussing the book(s) without fear of being dragged into a comment-section battle with random passersby who don’t have any investment in dialogue or relationship. In other words, I want those of us discussing the book all have a little skin in the game — the game of a community of reflection — too.