Fascism hides in a society, cloaking itself in tradition and respectability while it feeds off corruption and weakness and fear, and emerges when it has so changed reality there’s no recognizing it anymore.
It doesn’t belong to any country or time. It is an omnipresent threat.
It doesn’t belong to any country or time. It is an omnipresent threat.
We’ve convinced ourselves fascism was a European phenomenon, an aberration belonging to the 20th century at a specific moment. But it’s always lurking and ready to bloom. It’s there whenever an insecure man with an army of insecure men wish to reverse history for their benefit.
We can’t be honest about everpresent fascism because the story of America, the myth of America, reads that we eradicated it, that we tore fascism up by its root. That we were the antidote to fascism. It’s allowed fascistic strains to take up here and around the world.
But the truth is, in defeating the fascists, we stopped a strain of fascism. But even in doing so we embraced fascistic thought and practice, we welcomed fascist help in our business and our hegemony. We’re in complete denial about fascism and have allowed it the cover of denial.
Fascism is an aspect of humanity, a side-effect of society and power. We didn’t vanquish it. We didn’t extinguish it. And pretending otherwise only grants fascism the cover it needs to feed off corruption and fear and prepare to rest its ugly head again.
