The Army’s warning feels less like history and more like a mirror. Scapegoating looks the most dangerous to me, though all three signs are in play. You can see it in the targeting of immigrants, the “real American” purity tests, the Red scare talk, the rallies, the book bans, the attacks on the press.
People look away because admitting the truth is terrifying, and ignorance has been carefully cultivated by propaganda and decades of hollowed out education. Fascism doesn’t storm in it seeps through culture, through laws, through “policies that only affect someone else.” We’re not on the edge of it anymore. We’re already inside it.
The document warns that fascism thrives on “indifference and ignorance.” Why do you think so many people are still unwilling or unable to see these clear warning signs?
I see the signs, yet, like too many others, I am not out in the street protesting (at least, not often/continuously), in many ways I am continuing on as always, with maybe a bit extra digital activism, but not really doing much in real life. As I think, “Why is nobody doing anything?”, I have to include myself in those who are not really taking the needed action.
Brilliant and deserves a wide audience and when you post it on blue sky or Twitter please tag influencers who already subscribe to you or those likely to agree with you among progressive journalists and content creators.
Thanks! Always a great compliment coming from you.
Yeah, I'll be reaching out to folks a little later today. It was kind of late in the day Friday when the post went out, so I didn't want to tag people when they're likely not paying attention to their phones — in fact immediately after I sent out the article, I realized my timing was likely a poor choice given it was Friday night.
Everything tRump has done starting tRump 1.0 & when I said years ago our reproductive rights were in serious danger but I was told that would never happen… the fact that tRump commuted so many criminals sentences, the January 6 insurrectionist, the targeting of anyone not white & the general disrespect for women & the constitution are just some of the things I don’t know why so many have been unwilling or not seeing what the hell is happening.
It really is wild how much he has done and yet retains support. Interestingly, the 1945 war doc also speaks of how Fascists view women:
'Fascism treats women as mere breeders. "Children, kitchen, and church" was the Nazi slogan for women.' — The Purpose of the State, Page 8
Does that sound familiar?
There's one key point of the 1945 document I didn't cover for this article, which is how the Army said was the best way to combat fascism. You'd think that given it was the Army, that like the old saying that to a man who only has a hammer every problem looks like a nail, that the Army would have called for a military solution. But instead, if you read the document, it says the best way to combat fascism is to make our Democracy work. It talks about preventing mass economic insecurity because that is the greatest breeding ground for fascism.
In many ways, it says precisely what I have been saying in the series I'm currently writing on the death of Liberal Democracy and throughout my work: that MAGA and fascism are only half the problem, that neoliberalism itself has become so rotten and failed that it's just as responsible for MAGA as MAGA's vile ideology, because but for the failures of neoliberalism, the MAGA ideology would have had no fertile ground to grow and spread.
My understanding is that his polling numbers are down, but that the policies do not get the pushback they need, the lower courts do push back, but the hand-picked Supreme Court goes along and enables; Republicans in Congress are cowed, and by the time we get to midterm elections, we’ll be so much further down this horrific road—if we even have free and fair midterm elections.
Great stuff. This really proves the point that we are not wrong in calling them fascists.
The Allies said that denazification was the hardest job they had after the war. We can see why--not only were they good at what they did, but people went along with it.
The best I could come up with is what I have in the messaging guide I put together. The short of it is to identify those who are diehard MAGA (actual white-supremacists/theocrats/etc.) and those who are just there due to life circumstances (such as economic disillusionment) and brainwashing (I honestly see it as a cult), then:
- Offer offramps to those sucked in—I know it's hard to have sympathy but the diehards are counting on us not doing this.
- Crush the diehards as publicly as you can, every opportunity you have. Humiliate them by focusing on how they're exploiting the ones sucked in. The goal is to spike resentment against these in a very public and repeated manner.
Additionally, the Dems need to acknowledge how they too have failed large swaths of the country and commit to do better. Another part of the manual from 1945 is that the best way to combat fascism is to make Democracy work. If we can't make Democracy work for all Americans, then fascism will inevitably grow and take over. Fascism can only exist where those who claim to uphold democracy have failed. That fascism now exists in the right is absolute proof that the left/Dems have failed at democracy too.
Guide is available here (completely free, just scroll down for online viewing):
Good job giving your 2 cents without reading the doc. The document specifically speaks to what Fascism would be like if it were to rise in the United States. I’m not the one calling it fascism, It’s the United States War Department, given that the very title of the document is “Fascism!.”
I’ve taken no part in taking some analysis of Weimar and extrapolating to the U.S. because I didn’t have to. Take it up with the people who defeated the Nazis if you don’t like the fact that when they warned us of what American fascism would be like if it were to rise within our borders they described MAGA. I think they know what they were talking about given that they faced and crushed the fascists in the battlefield.
So, maybe try to spend more time reading and less time patting yourself on the back for being able to use the words catechism and anachronism so you don’t embarrass yourself.
Oh, nice attempt to change the goalpost. Were you there for the training? Did you write it? Who "builds morale” by going into analytical detail of what fascism might be like if it ever rose up in the U.S. while we’re fighting a World War against outside enemies, lmao? “Hey guys, I have an idea for how build morale with the enlisted, instead of focusing on the fascist Nazis, we’re gonna spend a bunch of time fantasizing about how we might actually become fascists ourselves.”
Next, you don’t just wake up one day with gas chambers. It’s a process. The Nazis were fascist even before they were in power, long before their very first act of fascism. The very strategy of rising to political power via “ultra-nationalism” “in the name of Americanism” while pushing “master race” ideas, exploiting “economic stress” and “pitting racial groups” against one another, scapegoating minorities with “anti-Negro” and “anti-foreign-born” sentiment, while undermining our international presence with our allies while trying to brand your enemy communists (there’s more but I’m not retyping the manual here)—all covered in the manual when describing what American fascism would be like and a perfect descriptor of MAGA when combined—is what makes a group fascist. Fascism is not a set of actions, it’s an ideology, one described in detail in the warnings by the people who defeated fascism in the battlefield for generations to come so we’d know if it rose within our borders, the ideology that perfectly describes MAGA today.
Additionally, fascism operates within Constitutional processes. The concentration camps were legal, just like ICE detention centers that hold people—many of whom have no criminal conviction—in subhuman conditions that mirror prisons where we stash criminals who have been trialed and found guilty of crimes. The gas chambers were legal, just like sending people who have never been found guilty of committing a crime to CECOT, a torture prison beyond U.S. jurisdiction where most people don’t leave alive (and I’m not even counting those who were renditioned in violation of due process). Just because our MAGA SCOTUS rubberstamps the fascism, that doesn’t make it any less fascist. Hitler also had all his fascism legalized by their legal system.
So no, I don’t need to “prove it with unlawful acts and remedies in law” because that’s not how fascism works. I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but unlike those in the fascist MAGA cult, these false arguments will not work here.
Anyone who still supports MAGA today given what Trump has done since Jan 20 unequivocally supports fascism/is a fascist. At least grow some spine and own it. Even the most morally bankrupt Nazi at least had a stronger moral spine than MAGA, because despite how vile they were, at least they didn’t pretend to be something other than a fascist.
Finally, it’s not my problem whether it’s 1% of Americans who support fascism or 50%. You don’t get a pass on being an America hating fascist based on your success in brainwashing the general population. You’re a fascist if you espouse the hallmarks of fascism. Whether or not you’re a fascist is not a matter of what those on the left call you, it’s a matter of the life you choose to live. Don’t want to be called a fascist? Don’t be a fascist. Otherwise, own your place in human history alongside the vile scum America fought and defeated in WWII, or abandon the fascist ship while you can.
No rant here. The Nuremberg trials convicted Nazis for the crimes they committed, not for being fascists. Whether or not MAGA is fascist has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they commit crimes in furtherance of their fascist ideology. Your conflation of the two are absolute proof of your absolute ignorance or your absolute bad-faith argument.
Note: There's a reason why an international criminal court had to charge, try the Nazis, given that by their own "legal" system by the time the fascist had captured their courts and legislature, all their actions were legal. This further proves the absolute falsehood of the premise you're proposing.
Feel free to go learn a thing or two if you're just too ignorant of History in general and fascism in particular, or to get lost if you're just arguing in bad faith.
The Army’s warning feels less like history and more like a mirror. Scapegoating looks the most dangerous to me, though all three signs are in play. You can see it in the targeting of immigrants, the “real American” purity tests, the Red scare talk, the rallies, the book bans, the attacks on the press.
People look away because admitting the truth is terrifying, and ignorance has been carefully cultivated by propaganda and decades of hollowed out education. Fascism doesn’t storm in it seeps through culture, through laws, through “policies that only affect someone else.” We’re not on the edge of it anymore. We’re already inside it.
🙇🙇🙇
I don't think I could have said it any better and as succinctly as you just did it here.
If you've never considered writing before, you should.
This is the piece that bothers me:
The document warns that fascism thrives on “indifference and ignorance.” Why do you think so many people are still unwilling or unable to see these clear warning signs?
I see the signs, yet, like too many others, I am not out in the street protesting (at least, not often/continuously), in many ways I am continuing on as always, with maybe a bit extra digital activism, but not really doing much in real life. As I think, “Why is nobody doing anything?”, I have to include myself in those who are not really taking the needed action.
Brilliant and deserves a wide audience and when you post it on blue sky or Twitter please tag influencers who already subscribe to you or those likely to agree with you among progressive journalists and content creators.
Thanks! Always a great compliment coming from you.
Yeah, I'll be reaching out to folks a little later today. It was kind of late in the day Friday when the post went out, so I didn't want to tag people when they're likely not paying attention to their phones — in fact immediately after I sent out the article, I realized my timing was likely a poor choice given it was Friday night.
Everything tRump has done starting tRump 1.0 & when I said years ago our reproductive rights were in serious danger but I was told that would never happen… the fact that tRump commuted so many criminals sentences, the January 6 insurrectionist, the targeting of anyone not white & the general disrespect for women & the constitution are just some of the things I don’t know why so many have been unwilling or not seeing what the hell is happening.
It really is wild how much he has done and yet retains support. Interestingly, the 1945 war doc also speaks of how Fascists view women:
'Fascism treats women as mere breeders. "Children, kitchen, and church" was the Nazi slogan for women.' — The Purpose of the State, Page 8
Does that sound familiar?
There's one key point of the 1945 document I didn't cover for this article, which is how the Army said was the best way to combat fascism. You'd think that given it was the Army, that like the old saying that to a man who only has a hammer every problem looks like a nail, that the Army would have called for a military solution. But instead, if you read the document, it says the best way to combat fascism is to make our Democracy work. It talks about preventing mass economic insecurity because that is the greatest breeding ground for fascism.
In many ways, it says precisely what I have been saying in the series I'm currently writing on the death of Liberal Democracy and throughout my work: that MAGA and fascism are only half the problem, that neoliberalism itself has become so rotten and failed that it's just as responsible for MAGA as MAGA's vile ideology, because but for the failures of neoliberalism, the MAGA ideology would have had no fertile ground to grow and spread.
My understanding is that his polling numbers are down, but that the policies do not get the pushback they need, the lower courts do push back, but the hand-picked Supreme Court goes along and enables; Republicans in Congress are cowed, and by the time we get to midterm elections, we’ll be so much further down this horrific road—if we even have free and fair midterm elections.
Great stuff. This really proves the point that we are not wrong in calling them fascists.
The Allies said that denazification was the hardest job they had after the war. We can see why--not only were they good at what they did, but people went along with it.
How do we get MAGA to see and understand this? It has and is so obvious!
Thanks for the great question!
The best I could come up with is what I have in the messaging guide I put together. The short of it is to identify those who are diehard MAGA (actual white-supremacists/theocrats/etc.) and those who are just there due to life circumstances (such as economic disillusionment) and brainwashing (I honestly see it as a cult), then:
- Offer offramps to those sucked in—I know it's hard to have sympathy but the diehards are counting on us not doing this.
- Crush the diehards as publicly as you can, every opportunity you have. Humiliate them by focusing on how they're exploiting the ones sucked in. The goal is to spike resentment against these in a very public and repeated manner.
Additionally, the Dems need to acknowledge how they too have failed large swaths of the country and commit to do better. Another part of the manual from 1945 is that the best way to combat fascism is to make Democracy work. If we can't make Democracy work for all Americans, then fascism will inevitably grow and take over. Fascism can only exist where those who claim to uphold democracy have failed. That fascism now exists in the right is absolute proof that the left/Dems have failed at democracy too.
Guide is available here (completely free, just scroll down for online viewing):
https://americanmanifesto.news/p/anti-maga-messaging-guide-v1
Good job giving your 2 cents without reading the doc. The document specifically speaks to what Fascism would be like if it were to rise in the United States. I’m not the one calling it fascism, It’s the United States War Department, given that the very title of the document is “Fascism!.”
I’ve taken no part in taking some analysis of Weimar and extrapolating to the U.S. because I didn’t have to. Take it up with the people who defeated the Nazis if you don’t like the fact that when they warned us of what American fascism would be like if it were to rise within our borders they described MAGA. I think they know what they were talking about given that they faced and crushed the fascists in the battlefield.
So, maybe try to spend more time reading and less time patting yourself on the back for being able to use the words catechism and anachronism so you don’t embarrass yourself.
Oh, nice attempt to change the goalpost. Were you there for the training? Did you write it? Who "builds morale” by going into analytical detail of what fascism might be like if it ever rose up in the U.S. while we’re fighting a World War against outside enemies, lmao? “Hey guys, I have an idea for how build morale with the enlisted, instead of focusing on the fascist Nazis, we’re gonna spend a bunch of time fantasizing about how we might actually become fascists ourselves.”
Next, you don’t just wake up one day with gas chambers. It’s a process. The Nazis were fascist even before they were in power, long before their very first act of fascism. The very strategy of rising to political power via “ultra-nationalism” “in the name of Americanism” while pushing “master race” ideas, exploiting “economic stress” and “pitting racial groups” against one another, scapegoating minorities with “anti-Negro” and “anti-foreign-born” sentiment, while undermining our international presence with our allies while trying to brand your enemy communists (there’s more but I’m not retyping the manual here)—all covered in the manual when describing what American fascism would be like and a perfect descriptor of MAGA when combined—is what makes a group fascist. Fascism is not a set of actions, it’s an ideology, one described in detail in the warnings by the people who defeated fascism in the battlefield for generations to come so we’d know if it rose within our borders, the ideology that perfectly describes MAGA today.
Additionally, fascism operates within Constitutional processes. The concentration camps were legal, just like ICE detention centers that hold people—many of whom have no criminal conviction—in subhuman conditions that mirror prisons where we stash criminals who have been trialed and found guilty of crimes. The gas chambers were legal, just like sending people who have never been found guilty of committing a crime to CECOT, a torture prison beyond U.S. jurisdiction where most people don’t leave alive (and I’m not even counting those who were renditioned in violation of due process). Just because our MAGA SCOTUS rubberstamps the fascism, that doesn’t make it any less fascist. Hitler also had all his fascism legalized by their legal system.
So no, I don’t need to “prove it with unlawful acts and remedies in law” because that’s not how fascism works. I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but unlike those in the fascist MAGA cult, these false arguments will not work here.
Anyone who still supports MAGA today given what Trump has done since Jan 20 unequivocally supports fascism/is a fascist. At least grow some spine and own it. Even the most morally bankrupt Nazi at least had a stronger moral spine than MAGA, because despite how vile they were, at least they didn’t pretend to be something other than a fascist.
Finally, it’s not my problem whether it’s 1% of Americans who support fascism or 50%. You don’t get a pass on being an America hating fascist based on your success in brainwashing the general population. You’re a fascist if you espouse the hallmarks of fascism. Whether or not you’re a fascist is not a matter of what those on the left call you, it’s a matter of the life you choose to live. Don’t want to be called a fascist? Don’t be a fascist. Otherwise, own your place in human history alongside the vile scum America fought and defeated in WWII, or abandon the fascist ship while you can.
No rant here. The Nuremberg trials convicted Nazis for the crimes they committed, not for being fascists. Whether or not MAGA is fascist has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they commit crimes in furtherance of their fascist ideology. Your conflation of the two are absolute proof of your absolute ignorance or your absolute bad-faith argument.
Note: There's a reason why an international criminal court had to charge, try the Nazis, given that by their own "legal" system by the time the fascist had captured their courts and legislature, all their actions were legal. This further proves the absolute falsehood of the premise you're proposing.
Feel free to go learn a thing or two if you're just too ignorant of History in general and fascism in particular, or to get lost if you're just arguing in bad faith.