How to Stop Fascism -Timothy Snyder

 How To Stop Fascism.   Timothy Snyder.

Those who wish to preserve the American constitutional republic should also recall the past.  A good start would be just to recall the five basic political lessons of 1933. Recalling history, we act for a future that can and will be much better.

As the United States hovers at the edge of fascism, the history of Germany can help.

To be sure, Americans have other histories to ponder, including their own.  Some American states, right now, are laboratories of authoritarian rule (and resistance).  The American 1860s and American 1930s reveal tactics authoritarians use, as well as the weaknesses of the American system, such as slavery and its legacy. At those times, though, Americans were lucky in their leadership.  Lincoln and Roosevelt were in office at the critical moments.  And so we lack the experience of the collapse of the republic.

We can certainly learn from contemporary authoritarian success, as in Russia and in Hungary, which I have written about elsewhere.  Yet the classic example of a major economic and cultural power collapsing into fascism remains Germany in 1933. The failure of the democratic experiment in Germany led to a world war as well as the Holocaust and other atrocities.

….The lessons from Germany that I present below are not at all new.  We have been trained by digital media to believe that only what happens right now matters.  But the people who intend to destroy the American constitutional republic have learned from the past.  One of the basic elements of Project 2025, for example, is what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung: transforming the civil service into a fascist nest.

Those who wish to preserve the American constitutional republic should also recall the past.  A good start would be just to recall the five basic political lessons of 1933.

1.  Voting matters.  Hitler came to power after an election which enabled his appointment as head of government.  It is much easier for fascists to begin from within than to begin from without.  Hitler’s earlier coup attempt failed.  But once he had legitimate power, inside the system as chancellor (prime minister), he could manipulate it from within.  In the American system, “voting” means not just going to the polls yourself, but making donations, phone-banking, and knocking on doors.  We are still, happily, at the stage when unglamorous actions can make the difference.

 

2.  Coalitions are necessary.  In 1932, in the crucial German election, the far left and the center left were separated.  The reasons for this were very specific: Stalin ordered the German communists to oppose the German social democrats, thereby helping Hitler to power.  To be sure, the American political spectrum is very different, as are the times.  Yet the general lesson does suggest itself: the left has to hold together with the center-left, and their energies have to be directed at the goal rather than at each other.

Read more: 

https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-fascism