07-27-2021, 10:33 AM
This is a Crisis Era, and ruthless people rend institutions. We had Donald Trump, and I expect to have imitators in style and substance -- maybe slicker, more dedicated, and less lazy and more competent. We Americans got complacent about the strength of our institutions and traditions necessary for democracy: Trump exposed how wrong that could be.
There is a fascism tailor-made for every nation, and wherever we are we must be wary of those who would take our freedom in exchange for contradictory promises for which the demagogues have no responsibility to seek to achieve. All that matters to the fascist demagogue is power that that demagogue can abuse as a dictator. Slovakia had a fascist regime, a Nazi puppet state, from its separation from Czechoslovakia until its dubious liberation by the Red Army.
But we Americans had our KKK, and it had most of the characteristics of Mussolini and Hitler fascism as early as 1915. Different symbols, to be sure, but it even had a left-arm salute differing only in the choice of arm from the anti-human salute of other fascists. Objects of hatred were much the same. Today it is nearly impossible to distinguish the KKK from neo-Nazis.
Times are hard. Many of the economic assumptions that people have long held, such as that making stuff is a sure way to a solid living, are no longer sure. Maybe you will see people who look very different from you at the bus station or in the store. National culture is not so well defined. You may not find that troubling, but many do.
Slovakia is not so advanced down the authoritarian road as Hungary, whose once conservative democratic party has abandoned democracy (much like the Republican Party in the United States.
The best victories against fascism are prevention.
There is a fascism tailor-made for every nation, and wherever we are we must be wary of those who would take our freedom in exchange for contradictory promises for which the demagogues have no responsibility to seek to achieve. All that matters to the fascist demagogue is power that that demagogue can abuse as a dictator. Slovakia had a fascist regime, a Nazi puppet state, from its separation from Czechoslovakia until its dubious liberation by the Red Army.
But we Americans had our KKK, and it had most of the characteristics of Mussolini and Hitler fascism as early as 1915. Different symbols, to be sure, but it even had a left-arm salute differing only in the choice of arm from the anti-human salute of other fascists. Objects of hatred were much the same. Today it is nearly impossible to distinguish the KKK from neo-Nazis.
Times are hard. Many of the economic assumptions that people have long held, such as that making stuff is a sure way to a solid living, are no longer sure. Maybe you will see people who look very different from you at the bus station or in the store. National culture is not so well defined. You may not find that troubling, but many do.
Slovakia is not so advanced down the authoritarian road as Hungary, whose once conservative democratic party has abandoned democracy (much like the Republican Party in the United States.
The best victories against fascism are prevention.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.