Thread by @peterawolf

This is not true, though.

https://twitter.com/lollardfish/status/1084522930623660032

Fascism erodes or destroys state power in order to produce situations of lawlessness or anarchy wherein fascists are the biggest gang on the block and can do whatever they like to whomever they like.

Know why the Fascists were invited to take power in Italy?

It was because Fascist gangs were literally taking over towns, attacking leftists, & raiding the countryside while blaming it on “Reds.”

Fascists claim to be the “law ‘n’ order” answer to lawlessness they help create.

Germany, 1932: Country reeling from Great Depression. Deadlocked governments rule by emergency decree. Anxiety leads to polarization leads to political street fighting.

Communists & Nazis both want disorder. One for revolution, one to pitch “Law ‘n’ Order.”

Guess who won out.

Let's go back to the birthplace of the first recognizably proto-fascist movement, away down south to the land of traitors, rattlesnakes, and alligators, where cotton had been king while men were chattels, and where Union boys had just won the battles.

After the war of the armies ended in spring 1865, the US Army was occupying/governing an area the size of Western Europe.

Infrastructure: wrecked. Economy: wiped out. Material circumstances: dire. Awash in refugees (white & black) & teeming with disgruntled demobilized veterans.

The Feds try setting up governments in the South that aren't dominated by ex-Rebels & which protect the rights of black citizens.

As you can imagine, veterans of an army raised by slaveholders, for slaveholders, weren't keen on "outside radicals" dismantling white supremacy.

So how did these demobilized, resentful Rebel vets handle the new arrangement? They flouted laws & made order impossible.

May 1-3, 1866, Memphis: Rebel vets & WWC pals attack black soldiers, women, & children. 100+ casualties. Black homes & churches burned. Blacks flee the city.

July 30, 1866, New Orleans: Blacks march in support of a constitutional convention convened to overturn Black Codes imposed by ex-Rebs lawmakers.

A mob of Reb vets & WWC attack the marchers. NOLA Police join the mob, firing blindly into the convention hall. 150+ casualties.

Rebel vets form paramilitary terror groups targeting blacks, Republicans, US soldiers & officials, & local white "scalawags" who support the regime change.

The insurgents go by many names:
-Ku Klux Klan
-White (Man's) League
-Knights of the White Camelia
-Red Shirts
-Rifle Clubs

As this cartoon from the 1868 election noticed, these weren't new insurgents so much as rebranded insurgents, often led by the same officers, and sometimes going so far as to wear their old Rebel uniforms.

Massacres continue. Between 200-300 black and white Republicans are murdered at Opelousas, LA, on September 28, 1868.

Congress passes three Enforcement Acts in 1870-71, empowering the Federal government to intervene to defend the rights of citizens & suppress the insurgents.

But while the First Ku Klux Klan is largely dismantled by the Enforcement Acts, White Leagues, Red Shirts, & Rifle Clubs still abound, trying to murder and burn their way back to power.

By the 1872 election, the GOP still opposes Dem calls for a "truce" with the insurgents.

But the situation down South keeps deteriorating. Both Dems &GOP claim victory in the 1872 Louisiana elections & set up rival governments.

On Easter Sunday 1873, White Leaguers attack black refugees sheltering at the GOP-held courthouse in Colfax, LA. 150 black men are murdered.

1874 is even worse.

In late August, White Leaguers assassinate a black GOP state senator and invade Red River Parish, LA, where they murder the GOP leadership & an unknown number of blacks.

White Leaguers stage a similar coup in Barbour County, Alabama, on election day, 1874.

Sep. 14, 1874: Still contesting 1872, White Leaguers gather in New Orleans (then the state capital) to install Democrat John McEnery as governor.

5,000 White Leaguers rout 3,500 police & LA militia in the Battle of Liberty Place. US Army troops are sent into the city on Sep. 17.

The 1874 midterms are a huge defeat for the GOP. Democrats nearly double their seats & flip the House. Northern Republicans who support Reconstruction begin to despair.

The violence against blacks down South is so bad that even Republicans think it may be "worse than slavery."

By 1875, "Redeemers" (see: white supremacist insurgents) are following the Mississippi Plan.

The insurgency no longer hides itself. Redeemers openly march, threaten, and murder opponents in hopes of cowing or converting Scalawags, while intimidating blacks away from the polls.

Republicans across the South seek military aid from the Federal gov, but Pres. Grant fears voters are "tired out" from enforcing Reconstruction.

State after state falls to the Redeemers. More outside the South come to believe that "Home Rule" is the only way to end the disorder.

The climactic year arrives in 1876. Only SC, LA, & FL retain Reconstruction governments. Redeemers feel confident enough to threaten a return to civil war. SC Red Shirts kill hundreds of blacks in their pre-election intimidation campaign.

The 1876 presidential election is a tie.

In Jan 1877, Democratic & Republican leaders "compromised": Dems would concede the White House to the GOP on the condition that all Federal troops be removed from the South.

The GOP agreed, reasoning that white voters in Ohio were more important than black voters in Mississippi.

The fight was over. The Rebels lost the war, then won the peace by turning it into another war zone until their exhausted foes invited them back into power. The Redeemers set about reconsolidating white supremacy, culminating in Jim Crow.

"Law 'n' Order" had been restored.

/END