We are living in an era here in the United States where it is critical that we are informed about what fascism is, how it works, and how it is now deeply embedded in the political and corporate media systems of our nation. Without this knowledge and awareness we are vulnerable to being unknowing accomplices in Emma Goldman's wise quote: "The most violent element in society is ignorance." — Molly
“The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination."
— Jason Stanley, from How Fascism Works
The Ten Pillars of Fascism
- The mythic past: Fascists draw on a mythical past to justify a glorious future.
- Propaganda: Propaganda in fascist politics often operates through inflammatory speech, stirring hostility and manipulating emotions, and displacing reasoned public debate with fear and division.
- Anti-intellectual: Fascist politics attacks education, expertise, and language, weakening the tools necessary for informed public debate and leaving power and group identity as the only basis for judgment.
- Unreality: By flooding the public space with falsehoods and attacking trusted institutions, fascist politics destabilizes reality and shifts truth from a shared understanding of reality to the authority of a leader.
- Hierarchy: Unlike liberal thought, which expands dignity and rights to all, fascist ideology sees hierarchy as rooted in nature, using myths to legitimize dominance by the powerful. Equality is portrayed as a denial of this natural order.
- Victimhood: Fascist politics blurs the line between equality and discrimination, portraying the dominant group as victims of a hidden conspiracy.
- Law and order: A healthy democracy ensures equal justice and mutual respect among citizens and authorities. Fascist law-and-order rhetoric, by contrast, divides society into the naturally lawful and the inherently criminal, portraying those who defy traditional norms, such as women outside gender roles, nonwhites, immigrants, or religious minorities, as threats to order simply by existing.
- Sexual anxiety: Fascist politics ties national strength to patriarchal manhood and the traditional family, treating any deviation as a threat. It exploits sexual anxiety and economic insecurity, fueling panic over race mixing, gender nonconformity, and nontraditional sexuality to reinforce ideals of purity and order.
- Sodom and Gomorrah: Fascist politics idealizes rural life as morally pure and central to national strength, while depicting cities as corrupt and influenced by outsiders. Policies are framed to protect rural communities from urban and foreign “contamination.”
- "Arbeit Macht Frei”: In fascist ideology, aid in times of crisis is reserved for the so-called chosen nation: “us,” not “them.” Those excluded are portrayed as lazy and undeserving of state aid, with hard labor seen as a means of reform, an idea symbolized by the Nazi slogan "Arbeit macht frei" at the gates of Auschwitz.
"What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been."
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