Over the objections of a friend worried about my state of mind, I have continued reading Robert O. Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism.” Her observation was that if I was already feeling down about the state of the world, dwelling on the worst cultural spasms of the 20th century would push me over the edge. But sometimes, wise words are to be ignored. I plowed on.
“The Anatomy of Fascism,” which I borrowed from the East Hampton Library, was published in 2004. In it, Mr. Paxton, a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, explains his five-stage model of fascism — each step disturbingly similar to what is going on today in the United States and abroad.
At first Mr. Paxton was hesitant to call the first Trump administration fascist. He dismissed the uniform MAGA hats and threats of violence (“Lock her up!”) as “surface decor.” He changed his mind on Jan. 6, 2020.
Writing for Newsweek several weeks after the fact, he explained that President Trump’s “incitement of the invasion of the Capitol” should have removed any lingering hesitation to the fascist label. Trump’s “open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line,” Mr. Paxton wrote.
A political movement does not have to unfold in the same ways as Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy. As Mr. Paxton sees it, each country where fascism arises puts its own stamp on it. And though he was encouraged by the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency, he warned that it was “too soon for a responsible historian to say whether he’ll be more successful in sustaining our Republic than European leaders were in defending theirs.”
Of the five stages of fascism Mr. Paxton outlined — disillusionment, polarization, acceptance by conservative leaders, obtaining power, and extreme radicalization — the United States government now hovers somewhere between the fourth and fifth stage. Note that I said government; with the White House, Supreme Court, and Congress in the Trumpists’ hands the federal monolith reaches into nearly every aspect of American lives.
A handful of frightening similarities between the rise of European fascism after World War I and today’s U.S. jumped out at me from Mr. Paxton’s writing. Among these was that in Germany and Italy, roving gangs of bullies beat up other civilians early on, but then became agents of the state once the fascists gained power — much like the Jan. 6 rioters, some of whom have joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
The Nazis portrayed themselves as the most vigorous and effective force against communism, and, at the same time, they denounced the liberal state as incapable of preserving public safety. Substitute communism for antifa or whatever the American right’s bogeyman of the week is, and the parallel is clear.
“Fascist violence was neither random nor indiscriminate. It carried a well-calculated set of coded messages: that communist violence was rising, that the democratic state was responding to it ineptly, and that only the fascists were tough enough to save the nation from antinational terrorists.” Again, the similarities to the spin surrounding the ICE raids and growing databases of ordinary people protesting White House policies are obvious.
Put another way, “[a]nother seductive fascist offer was a way to overcome the climate of disorder that the fascists themselves had helped cause,” and, “[t]he legitimation of violence against a demonized internal enemy brings us close to the heart of fascism,” he wrote.
“The fascists also offered another way of belonging — deeper commitment and discipline in an era when conservatives feared dissolution of the social bond.” National revival focused on the exclusion of disfavored groups was central to the fascist propaganda — as it is today in Donald Trump’s Washington.