How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley The Politics of Us and Them

What's it about? How Fascism Works (2018) provides an analysis of the politics of manipulation and division. In it, you’ll explore how authoritarian ideologies construct narratives, undermine truth, and seek to reshape society in their image. By the end, you’ll be equipped with a deeper understanding of how fascism really works – and how to identify it in the world around you. If you feel that the political ground beneath your feet is shifting, you’re not alone. It’s clear that we’re living in times of rapid change, of social upheaval, and even of so-called “vibe shifts.” Some yearn for a return to simpler times, when things were clearer, and perhaps even for a renewed sense of common purpose. Others, meanwhile, seek understanding – how did we start down this troubling path? What agendas are actually driving these changes? And, if possible, how can we reverse course? In the Blink ahead, we’ll take a look at all of these questions. The sections that follow offer a liberal perspective on how societies can drift toward a more authoritarian mode of politics. While fascism itself is a term with complex and often debated history, the author’s analysis here seeks to prove that an intentional deepening of social divisions can only lead us down a dark path – one that can end with the complete breakdown of social solidarity. We’ll also examine the ways in which truth and reality itself can be undermined by authoritarian politics, resulting in disoriented populations that are susceptible to manipulation. But perhaps most importantly, we’ll visit past episodes where the lights of humanity seemed to dim – or even go out entirely. These episodes are, of course, those of fascisms of the past, and understanding how they functioned is essential to making sense of where we are today.. After all, it’s only by understanding the past that we can learn from its lessons. So, with that said, let’s now turn to the basics of how fascism works. If we want to truly understand how an ideology like fascism can take root and grow, our investigation needs to start with its foundational building blocks. These components don’t come out of nowhere, after all – they often take shape by drawing upon philosophical and political principles from various nationalist, authoritarian, and revolutionary traditions. And while different political groups might emphasize some aspects more than others, nearly all fascist tendencies draw from a common set of principles that fuels their worldview. Perhaps the most important component is the power of storytelling. In this case, the story of a romantic, idealized past, a golden age when the nation was stronger and more ethical. This mythologized past contrasts with the chaos of the here and now, a present where the nation has become weak and immorality reigns supreme. The only way to face down these challenges is to return to such a past, to a time when things were better. Benito Mussolini recognized the power that such narratives had to sway hearts and minds. In the case of Italy in the early 1920s, political conditions weren’t great – the country had supposedly emerged as a victor from the First World War, yet it was still struggling with economic decay and political violence. To combat this, he proposed the “return” to a golden age, one where the nation was imagined as a unified society, one based on Roman virtues. By doing so, he’d put an end to the nation’s weakness – and promised a resurgent Italian influence on the world stage. One aspect common to these sorts of narratives is an emphasis on promoting virility, or masculine strength. This means placing the patriarchal family firmly at the center of social life. The narrative starts at the top, with the leader of the nation. He is to embody the father figure of the whole people. And his fitness to rule is seen as natural, just as it often is with patriarchal authority in so-called “traditional” family structures. This linking of the family structure and national leadership is all part of a specific strategy – one which connects the desire for a “simpler time” to accepting an authoritarian leadership style. Once this acceptance starts to take hold, the story goes one step further. To truly create a united “us” – those who are the true successors of the idealized past – it’s necessary to define an opposing “them,” those who are not included in the national “family.” The creation of such an “other” is often justified by portraying group differences not as social constructs, but as deep-seated, natural distinctions. These might be based on racial, religious, or cultural lines, which are promoted as unchangeable realities. Once these divisions are entrenched, any political challenge to it can be framed as a hostile act against the fabric of the nation itself. This paves the way for attacks on the very institutions that have the potential to launch such attacks, which is what we’ll look at next. Once fascist movements have successfully laid the foundations of an “us versus them” dynamic, they often move on to shifting the way people perceive reality itself. After all, if people are too attached to a shared understanding of truth, it makes it that much harder to promote social division. A common place where such efforts begin is within institutions like universities – these are settings that by design are about promoting debate and reason, and exposing students to diverse perspectives. This is why fascists of past and present often denounce universities as hotbeds of “Marxist indoctrination.” Such accusations aim to discredit educational institutions, painting them as run by out-of-touch elites – and therefore fundamentally at odds with the nation’s supposedly traditional values. At the same time, experts and academics who promote ideas that contradict fascist narratives are labelled as corrupt, biased, or worse, part of some shadowy foreign agenda. The goal, of course, is to discredit any other voice of authority that might end up challenging fascist narratives. Then, when voices of reason are sufficiently quiet, what the author calls ‘unreality’ begins to take hold. This constitutes a worldview fueled by misinformation and conspiracy theories. The goal of unreality isn’t always for people to actually believe in such falsehoods, though. Instead, promoting unreality helps to sow widespread doubt and suspicion throughout society. Take, for example, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a fabricated text from 1903 that falsely claimed to reveal a Jewish plot for global domination. While not everyone believed the document’s contents literally, it nonetheless fueled widespread antisemitism throughout the early 20th century. Crucially, it became a cornerstone of Nazi ideology. The power of such a fabrication lies not in its truth, but in the doubt it sows: even the mere suggestion of a hidden conspiracy can erode trust and create a climate in which it becomes harder to know what’s real, or who to believe. In this way, the very foundations of reality are shaken. This degradation of discourse often leads to language itself becoming impoverished. What were once complex issues are reduced to slogans and emotionally-charged catchphrases. But you don’t need anti-fascist authors to tell you this – Steve Bannon, right-wing political strategist and architect of Trump’s 2016 campaign, is open about embracing similar methods. He specifically noted that phrases like “lock her up,” “build the wall,” and “drain the swamp” were instrumental to harnessing anger and fear – and getting people to vote for the candidate promising to act on those slogans. It’s a strategy that mirrors that of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, in which he emphasizes the need for propaganda to be both popular and to rely on simple, concise slogans repeated endlessly. Once this style of political communication becomes dominant, it becomes more and more difficult to engage in thoughtful debate. The stage is then set for channeling anger and anxiety towards carefully chosen scapegoats, a dynamic we’ll examine more closely next. With a state of unreality sufficiently established, a population becomes far more vulnerable to arguments based on emotion over fact. This is also the stage where a burgeoning sense of victimhood is cultivated, but with a cruel twist – the narrative suggests it’s not minorities or other oppressed groups who are the real victims, but instead it’s the dominant “us” who is under siege and facing threats to its status and traditions. Adding insult to injury is the fact that calls for equality from minority groups are reframed as discrimination against the majority. A telling example involves President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, who vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. His argument? That providing the newly freed Black Americans protections after the Civil War amounted to giving them more rights than those of white citizens. And when the dominant group is led to feel that its position and authority is being unfairly eroded, this becomes a powerful source of resentment. There are many ways in which this sense of victimhood is multiplied, but a particularly effective one is in the manufacturing of moral panics – especially ones centered on law and order. It often goes something like this: perceived “them” groups, already defined as different, are portrayed as a direct threat to the security of “us,” the dominant group. Phrases like “criminal aliens” paint broad strokes on entire groups, regardless of whether they’ve broken the law or not. And when such groups dare to protest, they’re quickly labeled as “riots” in need of harsh suppression. Anything to protect “us” from “them” – even if it’s outside legal norms. Together with this also comes the manipulation of sexual anxieties. Typically, these revolve around threats to traditional gender roles – and the need to protect them. The narrative goes that if patriarchal norms are undermined, women and children become vulnerable to the perceived dangers posed by the “other.” One way this plays out is with out-groups being depicted as predatory, as was the case historically in the United States with the dangerous caricature of the “Black male rapist.” This moral panic led to lynchings and widespread racial terror. Minority groups can also be depicted as corrupting “our” youth with their immoral ways of life. This is seen clearly in the contemporary moral panics targeting transgender youths in the United States. This involves “discussions” about “gender ideology,” which is framed by opponents as a corrupting influence destroying traditional family values and societal norms. To make matters worse, these moral panics are often tied to the perceived decadence of cosmopolitan urban centers and the liberal elites who are seen as enabling, or even encouraging, such societal shifts. In this narrative, it's not just that minorities need to be controlled or suppressed; rather, it's liberal democratic politics itself – viewed as weak, corrupt, and permissive – that is blamed for allowing minority influence to grow in the first place. This framing of liberalism as a source of decay sets the stage for glorifying a romanticized “heartland” as the pure and unspoiled core of the nation. In the next section, let’s take a look at how this dynamic plays out in practice. When it comes to powerful stories, the perceived urban-rural divide functions as a compelling way to resonate with large swathes of the population. On one side, you have cities depicted as centers of moral decay and political corruption. And on the other, there’s the idealized image of the “heartland” – a glorious place where purity and tradition abound, untouched and unspoiled by the perversions of liberal decadence. Its inhabitants are made out to be hardworking citizens in self-sufficient communities that have lasted the test of time. Of course, such a depiction of the heartland, while deeply appealing, is mostly a myth. But it’s proven to be a resilient way to tap into a population’s desire for simplicity as an answer to an age of political chaos and social complexity. In fact, it’s an idea that was embraced by Nazi propagandists on a regular basis. They often cast farmers as guardians of the nation’s racial health and its ability to reproduce itself. In other words, the very essence of the nation’s vitality. In sharp contrast to the idyllic heartland is, of course, the urban center, often depicted in these narratives as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s these cities that become symbols of all of society’s ills. They are made out to be cesspools of racial and cultural mixing – and teeming with a liberal ideology that seeks to undo the nation’s traditions. Hitler, for example, wrote extensively on the urban fabric of Vienna, Austria’s cosmopolitan core where he spent his early adulthood. For him, the city was a “poisonous snake” he saw filled with what he termed “blood-mixing,” the bastardization of a pure, Germanic culture, and the influence of groups he despised. Such narratives effectively draw clear battle lines, and they often resonate deeply with susceptible communities that are already feeling left behind by modernity, and alienated by rapidly shifting cultural norms. Complex socioeconomic problems are replaced by simple diagnoses – the root of their problems and alienation is attributed to distant urban elites and their morally questionable lifestyles. And while the heartland is said to have put in all the hard work that keeps the nation’s pantries full, it’s the cities who supposedly profit undeservingly. But you don’t have to go back to Nazi Germany to see this mythology play out in reality. In 2014, Republican candidates in Minnesota state elections infamously played on this theme, blaming “big-city Democrats” for taking all the money away while forcing their urban “values” on heartland populations. Then, in subsequent interviews with voters, many echoed the myth, lamenting that the taxes they pay were all going towards urban development. In the case of Minnesota, this widely believed story was a complete myth – the state’s cities pumped much more money into the tax system than they took out, with rural communities actually receiving more per capita from state spending. The result of such narratives helps redefine who is considered a valuable and contributing member of the nation. Let’s take a look at this in more detail. With the careful construction of the urban-rural division – between a hardworking “us” and a supposedly “parasitic,” undeserving “them” – the way is paved towards the chipping away of commitments to collective well-being, like public services or social safety nets. This can be clearly seen in the varying levels of state support given to different communities in crisis. While one group may be deemed “deserving” of aid, another – such as Puerto Rico after a hurricane – is told they simply need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. When taken to its most logical extreme, this process ends up with slogans like “Arbeit macht frei,” or “work will set you free.” This, of course, was the insidious inscription over the gates of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. It perversely declared that forced labor could somehow purify people from their inherent laziness or undesirability. Of course, the road to such extreme outcomes of dehumanization is not a sudden one, it unfolds in stages. Recognizing that these outcomes are possible makes it all the more urgent to identify and understand the early warning signs. As we’ve seen, one of the first steps is the ideological isolation and devaluation of certain groups. Another is the erosion of structures that foster solidarity across lines such as class, gender, or shared social interests – replacing unity with division along racial or ethnic boundaries. Labor unions are a great example here, as they bring together working people from various backgrounds struggling for common goals. One way that they are being hollowed out in the United States is with so-called “right to work” laws, which often forbid requiring workers to sign up for unions when taking up a job. This decreases union density and bargaining power. But their real aim can be more sinister: to divide the working class against itself, particularly along racial lines. This makes it that much harder to build coalitions to resist authoritarianism. When support networks are broken and social welfare is eroded, people are left more isolated than ever – and more dependent on the whims of a strong leader claiming to be their only protector. In other words, a desperate population cries out for desperate measures, for a leader who will act decisively to redeem a broken society – regardless of democratic norms. This is where the danger escalates. With each deviation from democratic processes, the baseline of what’s taken as “normal” political behavior starts to shift. What would’ve been unacceptable overreach years before becomes normalized, it’s even seen increasingly as necessary, or strong. And with each additional transgression, it becomes easier for more and more extreme measures to be introduced. This is the most dangerous aspect of creeping authoritarianism. Because what starts with narratives of “us” and “them” can often end with the dismantling of social cohesion itself. This is precisely why we need to be vigilant in identifying this process in our own politics. Calling out these tactics for what they are is the first step towards resisting their dehumanizing influence. And it’s only by doing so that we can preserve society as we know it – one based on empathy and solidarity. In this Blink to How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley, you’ve learned how authoritarian political movements are formed through a recognizable set of strategies that aim to divide, deceive, and dominate. It all starts with a compelling vision, one of a glorious past where life was better. This comes along with narratives of a clearly defined “us” pitted against “them,” who are usually racially or religiously different to the dominant group. Truth is then assaulted, replaced by an omnipresent “unreality” where anxiety and fear become the dominant forces in society. Moral panics set in, and minority communities are further isolated. Divisions are then amplified by contrasting an idyllic “heartland” against decaying urban centers, this leading to the breakdown of the very threads that bind society together. As society approaches the path of no return, previously unthinkable political practices are normalized. This is why it’s imperative to recognize these processes for what they are – and it’s only by doing so that we can preserve a society based on shared values and understanding.