“Fascism scholar says U.S. is ‘losing its democratic status’ ” read the NPR headline from over the weekend. The interview with Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale and author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, gave one perspective on what fascism looks like in America.
Stanley defined fascism as “a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation.”
That sounds disturbingly familiar. Add the word “socialist” to the above list and you’ve described Donald Trump’s political platform.
But the root of fascism is a stark divide between “us” and “them.” As Stanley put it, “fascism is based on a friend-enemy distinction, so you’re either with them or against them.” And this is where our politics has brought us: If you don’t stand on my side of the political aisle, you are my enemy.
That’s not how a democracy is supposed to work.
Our representative government is meant to represent us all. Our elected officials make decisions on behalf of and for the benefit of everyone in the area they represent — not just the people who voted for them. It seems our politics has dissolved into “if it doesn’t directly benefit me and mine, I won’t support it” (a distinction generally drawn along party lines) even if it benefits other members of the constituency. (Sidebar: It is not a “benefit” if it limits or eliminates the rights and safety of other members of the community. For example, wearing a mask. It might be your right to not wear a mask, but it is not your right to endanger others — which is why if you won’t wear a mask, you shouldn’t leave your house.)
According to Stanley, part of fascism is a devotion to the leader. It’s a kind of blind patriotism that sees only the good the leader can do and has done and the present “perfection” under that leader. But, to paraphrase an oft circulated quote on social media, real patriotism is seeing the flaws in your country, in your leaders, and actively trying to make the country better.
We are more than 200 years into the American experiment, but we might be at risk of losing our democracy. We have allowed our politics to push us so far apart that we have become a nation of “us” and “them” with no common ground in between, and this is the start of fascism — the unconquerable divide that depends on distrusting and dehumanizing each other; the lessening and “othering” of people different from us in order to elevate or secure our own position.
The United States has reached a critical tipping point. But will we find our way back to democracy or will we slide into fascism?
Hopefully, Americans will find a way to put the “we” back in “We, the People.”
