My social media feed has a lot of people pointing to Chris Armitage’s post I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%. I want to complicate it.
Once they win elections, it’s already too late.
[⋯]
Based on the historical record, there are exactly three ways this goes. Option one: Stop them before they take power. Option two: War. Option three: Wait for them to die of old age.
They tried anyway.
But here’s the thing: we already missed our chance. The window isn’t closing; it’s closed.
The Supreme Court declared Trump above the law. He’s threatening to arrest political opponents. He’s already sent the FBI after elected officials when they haven’t committed crimes. Congress is his. Most state governments are his. Billionaire oligarchs openly coordinate with him. The window slammed shut.
So let’s stop pretending we’re in the “prevention” phase and start talking about what you do when fascists already control the institutions but haven’t fully consolidated power yet. Because historically, nobody’s been here before, not like this.
I recommend reading the whole thing. I have had a number of conversations with folks over the last few months in which I said pretty much the same thing.
And I want to expand on that last point. Nobody’s been here before, not like this. Armitage observes:
No wealthy democracy with nuclear weapons has ever fallen to fascism. The 1930s examples everyone cites were broken countries. Weimar Germany was weakened by World War I and hyperinflation. Italy was barely industrialized. Spain was largely agrarian. They didn't have the world’s reserve currency. They didn’t have thousands of nukes. They didn't have surveillance technology that would make the Stasi weep with envy.
America has all of that. Plus geographic isolation that makes external intervention impossible. Plus a population where 30-40% genuinely wants authoritarian rule as long as it hurts the “right people.” The historical playbook is useless here. We’re in unprecedented territory.
All of that is both true and scary. But other unique aspects of our situation point to opportunities and give me hope.
The US military
If you know anything about authoritarian takeovers, you know that there typically comes a moment when the police & military take sides. If they side against the regime, the regime falls.
I am profoundly pessimistic about American police. But listening to people who understand US military structure & culture makes me optimistic that the US military is structurally resistant to becoming an instrument of domestic authoritarian control.
It is hard to imagine US soldiers killing other Americans. We have a uniquely strong political culture of distinguishing domestic law enforcement from military action outside our borders. We have a particularly strong military culture of refusing illegal orders. (Yes, we still do plenty of war crimes; mortifyingly, our contemporary military really is better than most on this score.) Our military is profoundly hesitant to act on American soil. We have a longstanding problem of our far right in our military — as every military does — but our volunteer-with-economic-coercion troops are significantly poor, Black, and brown, with every reason to reject the MAGA dream.
Plus Iraq & Afghanistan have produced military protocols favoring decentralization of command initiative, which makes it harder for the President to order the military around. It is hard to make them do things and there is no winning them over as a bloc.
Federalism
The complexity of American governance institutions is not quite unique, but it is pretty weird. Our overlapping municipal, county, state, and federal institutions are an unruly mess. If you ask me, the governance problems which this creates contributed to our current crisis. But it also makes it tough for the MAGA regime to command all government institutions from DC. We can already see this demonstrated in the theatre of intervention in cities including the nation’s capitol … and how badly that has mostly gone for the regime.
American ideals
Democracy and universal rights hold a uniquely important place in our “civil religion”. In many ways, this has made us vulnerable to hypocritical perversions of those ideals in this moment, which should surprise no one who knows our history. But our history also shows ways in which it has been a sword & shield in the hands of our better side. It may serve us that way again.
The information ecosystem
We are in a new moment of communication & information infrastructure. Everyone recognizes the profound impact of the internet on political culture & process in the last decade or two, and how destabilizing it has been.
I believe that on top of that we have also seen a phase shift over just the last few years. Our messy information ecosystem is at once poweful and fragmented. It seems unmistakable that this helped MAGA fascism spread and seize power. But it remains to be seen whether it is compatible with authoritarians holding power.
No, the public has not resisted as vigorously as we need to. But many informed observers have remarked on how, compared to historical parallels, a lot of us have named what is happening early, a lot of us have demonstrated resistance, and resistance has ramped up quickly.
Hope
The situation is dire. I do not believe a Restoration to the status quo ante is either possible or desirable. We all need to step up more.
But no doomerism, please. It helps the fash, and it does not reflect reality. We still have strong cards to play.
No comments:
Post a Comment