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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
Progressive Insurance Spokesperson
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- [01:01]
Historian or Political Commentator
23Rd, 2024 the New York Times ran a feature on historian Robert Paxton, who is considered one of the world's leading experts on fascism. They trace the Trump timeline. In early 2017, Paxton urged restraint from calling the president fascist. In an essay that he wrote for Harper's Magazine, Paxton noted that while Trump's first term rhymed with fascist politics, he said not to treat everyone you don't like as a fascist. He then bowed out of debating the topic any further until January 6 happened, and then Paxton changed his mind. On January 11, 2021, he wrote in Newsweek that the insurrection attempt, quote, removes my objection to the fascist label. A few weeks before the last election, he told the New York Times, it's bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that's very much like the original fascisms. It's the real thing. It really is. Now, Julian, both you and Matthew recently read Paxton's 2004 book the Anatomy of Fascism, and Matthew covered it in his roundup of anti fascist text a few weeks ago. I didn't want to feel left out, so I read it and I completed it last week. And I must admit, there were points where I thought I was reading a text specifically written about the current Trump administration. But instead of giving an overview of the book, I had a different idea for today's brief. I'm going to read a few sentences from the text and then let's discuss how and if it fits into what's going on in America right now. Sound good?
- [02:43]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, let's do it.
- [02:44]
Historian or Political Commentator
Okay. So before we begin, what are your overall thoughts, though, from reading the book?
- [02:49]
Political Analyst or Commentator
It's a fantastic scholarly read. I was initially struck by the observation which, you know, is it's part of what's difficult right now around this word is that people struggle to define it and to define what fits fascism and what doesn't. And that one reason for this is because it originally emerges in the 20th century as the era of mass political movements is beginning. And fascism difference differs therefore, from earlier, more philosophically based political theories. You know, where you're debating socialism versus liberal politics or what have you. It's based less on intellectual principles and more on this emotional mood of nationalist pride and grievance with these quasi mystical appeals, as Paxton says, to destiny and to greatness. It's an excellent historical survey of both successful and failed fascist movements around the world.
- [03:44]
Historian or Political Commentator
Yeah, I really enjoy, because it's. It's rooted in academia, but it doesn't read like an academic text. I think it flows much better than that, although there are parts where he really goes into historical incidences and weighs them out. So it does have that flavor to it. But, you know, sometimes you're reading an academic text and it really is just bogged down in jargon and it takes a while to get through. And it did not take me a while to get through this book, although you have to read it closely to really understand some of the connections he's making. And I think what jumped out most at me is when he makes clear early in the book that no two fascisms are the same, because as you flag their nationalist projects, so that means that every fascist movement will be coded with the symbols and the ideas that are unique to that country and that time. So he doesn't actually even offer a definition, definition of fascism until the very last two pages of the book. And then he spends 200 plus pages talking about the broad contours of it, mostly through the lens of Mussolini, Hitler, although he also talks a lot about Eastern Europe. And he also spends time showing how fascism differs from authoritarianism and totalitarianism, Since I'm a serial underliner, which is one reason I can't personally stand digital books or I don't listen to audiobooks. Let's start from the beginning and we'll work our way forward. So, as I read the sentences, they are presented chronologically in the book, but although the story is not told chronologically necessarily.
- [05:16]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah.
- [05:16]
Historian or Political Commentator
And remember, the idea here is just to give our own views on how these sentences align with what we're seeing in America right now. So first up, quote, fascist movements could never grow without the help of ordinary people, even conventionally good people. Fascists could never attain power without the acquiescence or even active ascent of the traditional Elites, heads of state, party leaders, high government officials, many of whom felt a fastidious distaste for the crudites of fascist militants. The excess of fascism and power also required wide complicity among. Among members of the establishment. Magistrates, police officials, army officers, businessmen. End quote.
- [06:04]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, I mean, I think that inevitably we're going to be going a little bit back and forth between what's happening today versus what was happening in the period where fascism really emerged and how to compare and sort of see how much of a good fit it is. What the sentence that you just shared seems to underline the adaptive power of populist rhetoric. And what I mean is that it can persuade different types of people that the strongman has their interests at heart and more importantly, that they share a common enemy. Even if you don't agree with all of his ideas, at least he'll get rid of the criminal. Illegal immigrants. Right? We saw this in the last election. Or he'll make sure that the communists, in this case the woke Marxists, don't take over. He's going to restore the rightful pride of the nation and make things great again. Then there's also the intimidation factor that we've seen with rank and file Republican senators and congressmen. Right. It'll make people with plenty to lose feel that they should just go along to get along. But the fascism that emerged in the 20s and 30s is very much shaped by the interwar period in Europe and the rise of real, legitimate communism. And Ruth Ben Guillot makes the argument that today's style of authoritarian strongman is more in the mold of Putin and Orban and Modi. And she actually makes the case that Trump is closer to Berlusconi in Italy. He comes to power in the, in the mid-90s than Mussolini, per se. She makes a case of a strong man as actually the more common trait in autocracy than the strict ideology of fascism.
- [07:42]
Historian or Political Commentator
That last sentence really jumped out at me because the complicity among this establishment is really important because we know that Trump has the support of businessmen, but he does not seem to have the support of anyone in the armed forces, except obviously, like, whoever he installed, like Hexaf and the different people. But to really implement fascism, it would seem that he would need the support of the armed forces. And I don't personally see that as happening. I'm not ruling it out at this point because we are seeing regional local police forces go along with, you know, breaking up protests at Tesla factories, things like that. So it's definitely possible. But I don't see that as likely at this point. So next up, next sentence. Fascism does not rest explicitly upon an elaborated philosophical system, but rather upon popular feelings about master races, their unjust lot, and their rightful predominance over inferior people. Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program.
- [08:55]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Maybe they had concepts of a program. I mean, this really resonates with the disorientation of not only today's mood of post truth and alternative facts, but also the current incoherence that we're seeing and the incompetence of the MAGA coalition, who seem sort of unified only by their will to power, which right now requires systematically crushing opposition and eliminating any checks and balances, getting rid of people who are not loyalists. I don't know if fascism is the right word for what's happening now, but we are in this breakneck process that is recklessly reshaping our government in ways that do enable massive corruption and unprecedented authoritarianism.
- [09:37]
Historian or Political Commentator
We're recording this on Thursday, so two days before it drops. And just this morning, Bobby Kennedy posted a video on Twitter saying that he's going to be cutting 10,000 more HHS workers to go along with the 10,000 that have already lost their jobs. So the 25%, about a quarter of the HHS workforce, predominantly, it seems, according to the Wall Street Journal, people who are, for example, employed to help poor people get health insurance or to track infectious disease spreads. And we also know that they're cutting the workforce to look at a lot of the vaccine science. And I bring this up because I know that, you know, we're talking about sort of the administration writ large with Trump. But Bobby Kennedy offers a similar, you know, sort of parallel to what's happening here with hhs, because talk about no secret of having no program. The man just keeps talking about making America healthy again. All I've seen since he's hired is him posting. He was hanging out, playing tennis, he's been on the softball field, he's going hiking in Coachella. And then all of a sudden, once in a while, he appears to make these, these grand or grandiose statements on social media. Like that. That is disassembling public health as we know it. And I think it just, it fits in with the larger Project 2025 playbook, which is to basically throw everything into chaos and then point to the private market as the only place that can fix it. Because where are all these scientists and researchers going to go who are public servants? They're going to have to try to find jobs in Silicon Valley for all the biotech companies, for example. And I don't think it's going to work out how they think it's going to work out. But that is, that is, at least from where I'm looking at it, the. One of the major goals overall, writ large of the administration.
- [11:37]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah. I wanted to say, with the tennis observation that you made, did you catch that reference to Djokovic, which. Well, why Bobby Kennedy sees him as being this incredible paragon of integrity?
- [11:49]
Historian or Political Commentator
Oh, sure, yeah. His anti vaxx stance.
- [11:51]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Absolutely.
- [11:51]
Historian or Political Commentator
Yeah.
- [11:52]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah. So he, he bowed out of the Australian Open, which is a tournament that he's won, I think five or six times. He's won it more than anybody else because they required vaccination. I think it was in 2021 or 2022.
- [12:02]
Historian or Political Commentator
Yeah. And so, yeah, he's courageous for that reason. It's, it's.
- [12:07]
Political Analyst or Commentator
But Bob, he's not anti vax. He supports vaccines. He just thinks Djokovic is a, is a hero.
- [12:12]
Historian or Political Commentator
No, he's, you know, that is one of my major grievances. It has been for a long time. But now that it looks like David Gere is going to be running this quote unquote vaccines autism study like the Washington Post, when they broke that story, called him a vaccine skeptic. When the W. Wall Street Journal broke the story this morning about the 10,000 workers, it also seemed they called Kennedy a vaccine skeptic. Stop calling him a fucking vaccine skeptic. Like, that is not what's going on. And obviously most people who are aware of what he's doing know that. But you're still speaking to a broader audience that has to understand this is an anti vax movement that's two decades in the making. All right, so next up, sentence. The fascisms we have known have come into power with the help of frightened ex liberals and opportunist technocrats and ex conservatives and governed in more or less awkward tandem with them.
- [13:11]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Oh, man, now you're just trolling. I mean this, I get what you're saying now. This could so easily describe what is emerging in the US Today. That's the coalition he just described, the coalition. You know, MAGA gets called racist a lot, and I don't think that that is technically wrong. But I would say one unique aspect of today's drive toward, at the very least greater authoritarian dominance is that it has this perverse version of Americanism about it. I mean, what I mean is that as long as you are anti woke and pro Trump, you could be Indian, you could be black, you could be Jewish. It's less about the master race than loyalty to the master and cruelty toward the scapegoats. And one thing that often gets pointed out about the difference between fascism in Italy and fascism in Germany is that Mussolini didn't come to power using racist and anti Semitic rhetoric. It was more about national identity. But by 1933, following the example of Hitler, he aggressively took up that messaging too.
- [14:15]
Historian or Political Commentator
You and I are going to do an episode in a couple weeks where we're going to sort of do this, do a similar, similar thing where we're going to look at Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's new book, Abundance, which I'm currently reading and you're going to start reading very soon. And something jumped out at me in the first chapter, which I've heard before. But the way they frame it around housing policies was really interesting where they write that conservatives posture like conservative, like Red State, specifically posture like conservatives, but act like liberals in that they, they will take all of the social services like Medicare and food stamps and everything. They want those. But they're also, they're always talking about how they don't want to be taxed more. They don't want any taxes when those two things don't get along.
- [14:58]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah.
- [14:59]
Historian or Political Commentator
But then they also, what they're looking at the housing policy lens through is that liberals posture like liberals but act like conservatives when it comes to regulations. And it's fascinating because they bring the data to that. And so when I read that sentence, that frightened ex liberals, that really jumps out at me because they look at the NIMBY versus the YIMBY movements and it should show how they compare and what that does and how the highest rates of homelessness are always in liberal cities and states. So there was that, there was that piece of it that jumped out about me in terms of, in terms of enabling this sort of administration.
- [15:40]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, I mean, I think of sort of the, the contradictory stereotype of the person who has that sign in their front yard that says, you know, all, all people are people and no one is illegal and we support gay and trans rights and all of this kind of stuff, Black Lives Matter. And then they're at the, they're at the city council meeting saying, no, no, no, no, you're not building Section 8 housing in my neighborhood.
- [16:01]
Historian or Political Commentator
So the section that I'm referring to, I just flipped open the book. The headline of it is the problem with Lawn Sign Liberalism. Okay, good.
- [16:10]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Well, good. I'm, I'm already primed.
- [16:12]
Historian or Political Commentator
And then also opportunist technocrats. I mean, this gets into something we've covered. And I'm going to return to this at the end when we think big picture. But to me, that is really why we can't label what's happening specifically to previous fascisms because of the technological advantages, specifically the Internet. That's happening. And in fact, when Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, they were on each other's podcast recently talking about the book, they talk about how the sort of neoliberalism that we're experiencing is specifically fueled by technology. And that's a really important component in this conversation. All right, short sentence up next. Quote, fascism is inconceivable in the absence of a mature and expanding socialist left.
- [17:00]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, and this is a really interesting one to think about in terms of where, where it may not fit entirely with where we are today, because historically, Paxton is referring to how fascism only emerged in the 1920s after socialists had developed enough political participation to have disappointed the working class, because you need that working class support. So it meant that anti establishment grievance politics could have a more right wing flavor, which of course we are seeing right now. But the Bolshevik Revolution and the expansionist ambitions of the Soviet Union, where they were trying to foment revolutions in neighboring countries, they were exerting influence over communist parties within those countries. All of that also created anti communist sentiments, which helped, you know, foster that kind of grievance politics from the right. I think in today's world we see, for example, that the post Soviet states are especially vulnerable to new fascist movements, and so are European social democracies with a disillusioned working class who are susceptible therefore to anti immigrant rhetoric. But in the US it's not so much the influence of actual socialist policies creating imperfect outcomes as it is this overblown threat of a fabricated Marxist core to what is essentially a liberal, corporatist, fairly centrist, sometimes quite hawkish Democratic party. I think that culture war propaganda has very effectively inverted progress on social issues as somehow representing authoritarian leftism. You're forcing us to hire black people and we refuse because that's racist. Right. It's like so nuts. And, and also you'll see that combating disinformation or pseudoscience is then classified as being this authoritarian censorship. And, and so therefore freedom has been coded into actually supporting the really repressive authoritarians. I just want to say here, my bonus this week will unpack how these Trumpian inversions actually relate to a Putin era propaganda strategist whose name is Vladisav Surkov.
- [19:08]
Historian or Political Commentator
I agree with all that. And so what really is frustrating to me as someone who aligns with like more social democracy, meaning that I want more social programs, I want more socialism in our, in our political system. But I'm not anti free market when it comes to startups and businesses. Is that real progress that could be made specifically in health care, to me. But I also personally think public transportation should be nationalized and fixed because it's, it's ridiculous. It was just, I'm going a little tangential here, but it was just this morning came out that up here in Oregon and some Washington train lines had to stop service because there's so much rust on the tracks and in the cars. And meanwhile China is just building high speed rails at like no one's business and we can't even and get one. We're looking at possibly implementing a one hour Seattle, Portland to Seattle train service in the next decade. And that's so ridiculous. That should have been done decades ago because it was possible. And so you have all these things that actual social programs, which most Americans would be down for if they understood what social services entailed, gets conflated with all the culture war stuff. And that's completely intentional because they want to confuse things like DEI and the meritocracy with actually serving the citizens. And, and that's, that's frustrating. But I do agree with you that this specific sentence doesn't fit perfectly into what's going on today. Yeah, so let's see the next couple of sentences here. Quote. Considering fascism simply as a capitalist tool sends us astray in two respects. The narrow and rigid formula that became orthodox in Stalin's Third International denied fascism's autonomous roots and authentic popular appeal. Even worse, it ignored human choice by making fascism the inevitable outcome of the ineluctable crisis of capitalist overproduction. Closer empirical work showed to the contrary, the real capitalists, even when they rejected democracy, mostly preferred authoritarians to fascists.
- [21:28]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, I mean, bear with me here because I'm kind of obsessed with this period. So let's start with Stalin and this reference to the Third International right, which may be unfamiliar to some. Both Germany and the USSR were diminished in the wake of World War I. And these old enemies actually found common cause with each other in what was a very active but secretive pact to help one another regain military might. And this lasted all through the interwar Weimar period. Stalin also found the social democratic movements in European countries to be more threatening to his goals than emerging fascist movements. So as part of the 1928 Third International, sort of like the Conference of the International Communist parties. He instructed the Germany, the Communist party in Germany to vote with the far right parties and to oppose the more moderate leftist social democratic parties. And some historians say that this actually helped Hitler come to power. And I think that capitalists of that time were not especially enamored of fascists either because they actually engaged in state economic interventionism and championed many social programs that would endear them to the working class, which is how they got popular support. And Stalin's line was that regardless of the differing ideologies, an alliance with the right in Germany was justified by a shared goal of defeating the capitalists. Really bizarre stuff and, and really underlines that like whatever the ideologies are. You have these, these power struggles and these expansionist agendas that were really defining of this particular post imperial period. And Stalin also celebrated the destabilization of capitalist powers in the period that was leading up to World War II because he thought it would be good for communism. In a 1930 speech, he said as much. By 1936, Stalin was actually beginning his Great Purge, which, you know, we've used this word a few times recently, was the ultimate purity test. He executed tens of thousands who opposed or criticized him, mostly from within his own party.
- [23:39]
Historian or Political Commentator
The thing that jumped out about me, this, thank you for that overview too, but I'm going to get a little more specific in terms of just one thing which is ignoring human choice because something that I just feel that really has come out, especially in the age of social media are all the binaries. And we treat people who don't agree with our politics like they're sort of automatons, like they just, they all believe some one thing or they're completely ignorant of something, as if they didn't have their dis, their reasons for voting or choosing not to vote or whatever it is for the way that they, they exist. And you know, one thing that is coming out and has been clear is that a lot of people with the conservative town halls that have been happening, which are not all liberals coming in, they're definitely pissed off conservatives and people who voted for Trump and maga, people who are going in and giving it to them, is that unfortunately, because the right wing media ecosystem has been weaponized, they were not told the totality of what things like Project 2025 would do. But now that they're actually starting to experience it and you know, you can track back and be like, hey, this, this has been the goal for years. It was online and you can, you can definitely have those debates, but what you can't do is say that they didn't have any agency around the decisions that they made and human choice. And sometimes, unfortunately, and I think Paxton does a really good job at showing examples of this, is that people will choose authoritarian and fascist governments without always thinking perhaps about all of that. And I'm currently reading another book by Pankaj Mishra, the World After Gaza or the World Beyond Gaza. I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the exact name right now, but it's. He goes into showing how, after the Holocaust, how it wasn't like there was this worldwide. Let's remember, let's. Let's bolster up the Jews. He actually points out that in America, in Germany, in. In many countries, they were not treated much better than after the Nazis. It wasn't until the mid-60s that the Holocaust was remembered as something that, oh, we could. We should never let this happen again. But it took a long time for societies to move on and actually recognize and grapple with everything had happened. And I kind of feel like we're something similar here with what's going on with this current administration.
- [26:09]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, there's another point in the book where Paxton says that capitalists only really support fascists when their backs are up against the wall, because the rest of the time, they'd much rather have a more authoritarian but still stable democratic society within which they can succeed without the chaos that comes from fascism and also without what often inevitably happens, which is the fascists end up seizing their assets at some point or jailing them if they're not loyal enough.
- [26:39]
Historian or Political Commentator
Next up, fascist regimes function like an epoxy, an amalgam of two very different agents. Fascist dynam, dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism in the left and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies.
- [26:57]
Political Analyst or Commentator
What a great sentence. Yeah, I mean, I hear a juxtaposition of law and order and a return to the greatness that has supposedly been upended by the immigrants, the Marxists, the queers, the feminists, with this emotional will to power and this appetite for a kind of violent transformation under the charismatic and heroic leader. And that is one of the key features of fascism, is like really embracing violence as being beautiful and necessary and part of how we become great again. And in the US we do see a conservative party that has, over time, been frustrated by the gridlock of democratic norms and the checks and balances that. That stop them from getting to really do what they want to do and that they've not wanted to accept the social progress of the last 70 years. And that party has now been hollowed out and parasitized by this new class of MAGA lunatics who are willing to justify their lawlessness by demonizing a caricature of the entire left, regardless of whether that's true or not.
- [27:58]
Historian or Political Commentator
Yeah, this made me think of Jon Stewart's segment from Monday evening on the Daily show where he just, just pointed out the blade. And we know this already, but the blatant hypocrisies around free speech that are currently going on. Yeah, and that, that to me is the most frustrating aspect. It's just like if you're. If you're actually going to be for free speech, then be for it, because that entails allowing speech that you do not agree with. And the fact that the hypocrisy is just so in our face makes, Makes covering this stuff and makes living in the society just especially challenging at this moment.
- [28:34]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, I mean, it really, it really shows that they don't actually care about any of the principles that they're espousing or holding up as to justify what they're doing. Because really, it's just about, our side is right, our side is right. Whatever we do is good, Whatever you do, whatever you say is bad. And we can use any kind of rationale for, you know, explaining. Explaining why it's bad. Oh, free speech until the shoes on the other foot. And then we're perfectly happy silencing you.
- [29:01]
Historian or Political Commentator
So this next one's interesting. Near the end of the book, Paxton notes that America has never been free of fascist impulses and writes that the fringe groups would have to somehow maintain attain mainstream power in order for fascism to be implemented. Then he predicts what fascism in America would look like. So here's the quote. No swastikas in an American fascism, but stars and stripes or stars and bars and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.
- [29:48]
Political Analyst or Commentator
You know, I'll get personal here for a moment because having grown up in a police state myself under apartheid South Africa, I was the kid. Every new kid whose house I went to probably throughout my schooling knew that in something like the fourth or fifth grade, I refused to sing the national anthem in music class. We were there to study music. I did not want to sing a political anthem that justified the apartheid regime. And I got in big trouble for this. And every parent would say, oh, you're at that kid who refused to sing the national anthem was like, yeah, I'm that kid. My entire life I've been disgusted by nationalism and its mouth breathing, masturbatory cousin patriotism. The abstract symbols, the flags, the self aggrandizing identifications of national pride. Like all of that just seems totally empty to me. And it's always, I mean the reason I'm deeply suspicious of it is I feel it's always a vehicle for justifying superiority and oppression and cruelty and saber rattling because now we're going to go to war against the people who are not from our great nation. So to me I don't see a really big difference between the hammer and the sickle, the stars and stripes, the swastikas, or indeed the crucifix in the sense that these are all devices for instigating and intoxicating and transcendent loyalty that too easily ignores moral clarity and courage and concern about the facts. I see them really as being part of the, what Robert J. Lifton refers to as the thought terminating cliche that enables cult indoctrination.
- [31:17]
Historian or Political Commentator
Well, you just said, reminds me of the great George Carlin talking about the American flag. I leave symbols for the symbol minded.
- [31:26]
Political Analyst or Commentator
That's good.
- [31:27]
Historian or Political Commentator
One thing that's interesting though is I do see this real strong nationalism around Christian nationalism and I'm sure there's a lot of people, you know, all into the Pledge of Allegiance still. I usually see it on the political level. One thing that is striking is there I don't know how many instances of it I've seen one, but where, like the Patriot or the Proud Boys or some white nationalist group, I don't remember which one was out protecting a Tesla store. But for the most part I haven't seen too much of that. So it'll be interesting as we progress. How much of MAGA decides to become the sort of self policing groups to come out to do that? I'm not convinced there will be a ton just because these policies are going to hurt them more than most. I could be wrong on that though. Because we are such a disparate and spread out and large country it would very difficult to see any sort of nationalized movements that would be indicative of a policing force. But I also live in one of the places where they breed between Idaho, Washington and Oregon, so we'll have to see. I'm not fully convinced that Paxton's sort of outline here would fit into what's happening. I think broadly it would, especially the, you know, the Christian crosses. But I think it's sort of limited to that group. Although of course, Christian nationalism is, is a rather large group in America, unfortunately. So, so let's move on to the last one. His, his concise definition of fascism, which I said is in the last two pages of the book. Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood, and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity in which a mass based party of committed nationalist militants working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
- [33:45]
Political Analyst or Commentator
You said that was concise. I think Roger Griffin's definition is much more concise. Palingenetic ultranationalism. But most people have no idea what that means. It's about the, the rebirth of the nation, you know, sort of self, self rebirth with an ultra nationalist kind of zeal. But yeah, he's, he's, I think he's really unpacking all of that in terms of how, how the process unfolds. I think it's good. It does feel like it describes the road we're on right now, if not the complete picture of our country. The expansionist noises are actually one of the surprises for me. Like, I feel like we've predicted a lot of this stuff. But wait, what? And people seem equally split on whether Trump is just trolling to create a diversion or testing the waters to see if he might literally try to annex Greenland or take over the Panama Canal or Canada. Yeah, we do see what Paxton here refers to. The abandonment of democratic liberties in pursuit of internal cleansing, that is very much happening. It's not at a massive scale, but it's at a big enough scale and at a accelerated pace. And in, in contradiction to what the judiciary is telling him is, is acceptable. I was really disturbed. I mean, I've been disturbed by everything that's been happening in that regard over the last few weeks, but especially by the woman. I think it was yesterday, or, yeah, I think it was yesterday, where she's surrounded by these plain clothes guys who are masked, who identify themselves as police officers and arrest her, presumably because of her activities as a pro Palestinian activist. But yeah, all of that is very much in line with what Paxton's describing here. The fact that Trump released his most committed and radicalized militants from jail on day one. The, the ones who've shown their willingness to enact violence against democracy on his behalf is very chilling. They're a small group and I was heartened by the fact that so few were showing up in the streets for the various Trump trials during the course of 2024. But then, you know, right after he released all these people and, and they were very public on social media about pointing out that because they've been pardoned, they can now buy weapons. He then removed the security details from several of his political enemies, like the very next day, which is some real gangster. We've seen all of this coming with what Paxton calls the obsessive preoccupation with community decline. Right. In groups like Moms for Liberty and, and the propagandist Chris Rufo, you know, obsessively talking about critical race theory. There's also what he calls the uneasy but effective collaboration between MAGA now and the tech billionaire elites, and then the rank and file establishment gop, the evangelical Christian nationalists and the Catholic conservatives who used to be mortal enemies. And you know, it's the Catholics really, who've taken over the judiciary who are helping support the Christian nationalist aims of the evangelicals. So it's, there's enough going on here that it's, it's not good.
- [37:02]
Historian or Political Commentator
There's a bot that so tells you who stops unfollowing who and last week end wokeness stopped following libs of tick tock because they got in a spat. So hopefully some of these allegiances are, are not as solid as we once believed. But that's the one that jumped out at me throughout the book actually is that uneasy but effective collaboration because people will sacrifice their morals for personal gain. And that is probably what scares me the most out of everything that's happening, especially with the, with the sort of techno fascism that we've discussed before. Let's end on a good note. I don't know, but concise, I will say this one is more concise. I believe, quote, fascism is never an inevitable outcome.
- [37:51]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Well, I want to hear your thoughts about this in a moment. I think we're at a very bad place. I think we're in a race against authoritarian control and martial law, which is, I think they're itching to impose martial law the moment we have a mass protest movement. And that would be a way of trying to suspend elections. So I think we're trying to get to the midterms without that happening because then we can, we can swing the balance of power to some extent in the House and the Senate if people are mad enough and get active. So it seems like some combination for us to get lucky here, some Combination of MAGA incompetence, intervention from the courts, decent Republican lawmakers finding that they have a limit in terms of what they're willing to go along with disillusionment from Trump voters who are getting screwed by Doge and we're seeing some of that and then really disciplined organizing from the left. All of this is going to be crucial. I don't think Trump wants to emulate Mussolini or Hitler or Franco, but I do think he is very intrigued by the self described illiberal democracy of Viktor Orban. I think he's very enamored of Putin's so called sovereign democracy. And another quick plug here on my bonus. I think that Doge also represents a quite strong parallel with post Soviet Russia and the rise of those oligarchs due to the massive privatization there of state run enterprises. It's happening at a smaller scale here so far, but it's very similar in terms of the concentration of power as you get into that same privatization that you were actually referencing earlier. I think that just as Trump tried to stay in power in 2020, there's no reason, barring illness or death, that he doesn't try to stay on come 20, 20, 28. I just think he will. He's made those kinds of noises to test the waters. At the very least, I think we might be looking at Don Jr. Ascending to the throne with Daddy exerting massive influence from behind him. So I don't know, man. I think Democrats are in this huge transition. We're playing catch up right now. We're desperately trying to get reoriented and find effective strategies because nothing's working. I want to go back here, perhaps on a somewhat hopeful tone to Ruth Ben Guillot. She says that populations who are able to stay in touch with the importance of accountability and love, which authority authoritarians demand we relinquish, that populations who do stay in touch with accountability and love are better able to fight back against and then recover from their rule. So you know what I heard her saying in the end of her book, as I remember it, is stay courageous, keep speaking up, keep pressuring journalists and politicians and financial institutions to be honest about what they're actually supporting and to also acknowledge the anti democratic criminality of the regime.
- [40:44]
Historian or Political Commentator
The current makeup of the Democratic Party is not going to do it. There's just nothing in there. Although I will say I was heartened seeing 34,000 people show up for Bernie Sanders and AOC. Bernie will of course be 87 in 2028, so that's not going to happen. But there, there is something brewing there and I am seeing some courage from some Democrats. But as a party, nothing's going to happen. So I fall back on to the one word you said that we have to rely on right now, which is incompetence. And also overplaying their hands. Signal gate this week has shown that they are extremely incompetent. They will make similar mistakes again. There will be public health outbreaks. Measles is spreading and rapidly. The more communities it infects, the more frustration that's going to build at the lack of competence that's happening right now. And it's unfortunate, but that, that is what we have. We have those tears because the, the, I, I really like Ruth Mingyat's quote that you pulled out there. And I think, I think from, from the left, that's going to be important for coalition and rebuilding. But there is not strong enough force to counter the overwhelming power that they've accumulated. So the only thing that's going to shift and tilt the scales here is that their own party members are going to become disillusioned. It's not going to happen on the congressional level, but I'm talking about the actual people who put them in power and the people going out to town halls right now. So they just, they're just going to keep taking away things from people. And that is what's going to make people understand the stakes and that that is what will make this not inevitable, that we tip over into fascism.
- [42:32]
Political Analyst or Commentator
Yeah, I mean, Ben Guy actually uses the, the more recent example of Yair Bolsonaro in Brazil and how he was eventually removed from power and punished for his crimes because the people got fed up enough with him and there was enough of a judicial spine still intact to be able to, you know, punish him for, for what he had done.
- [42:53]
Historian or Political Commentator
We can dream.