'How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us And Them' is your beginner's guide to spotting today's fascist patterns

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"How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" by Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University, Ph.D., is basically your introduction to fascism college course, or, in other words, Fascism 101. 

At 193 pages long, if you don't include acknowledgments, one can definitely complete this in one sitting.

Just because I personally describe it as fascism 101, one must certainly not underestimate the quality of the content as it is well worth the read indeed. 

The Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy defines what fascism is in, if not all, most of its forms. Broken into 10 chapters, each goes into depth of a key idea of fascism and provides examples.

He points out how one may think that fascism was a threat only long ago back in World War II, the days of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, but as he concludes, "It is tempting to think of normal as benign...there is no need for alarm. However both history and psychology show that our judgments about normality can't always be trusted," (pg. 188). 

He successfully explains how in present day politics, there are echoes from the past, not just in the United States, but globally.

For instance, Stanley's introduction starts with the roots behind the phrase, "America First." 

Charles Lindbergh, known as an American hero for being the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, was a member of the America First Committee, a political group who were against involvement and aid to the Allies in World War II. He also spread xenophobic rhetoric. 

Stanley writes what Lindbergh says in his 1939 essay, "Aviation, Geography, and Race," in "Reader's Digest," 'This alliance with foreign races means nothing, but death to us. it is our turn to guard our heritage from Mongol and Persian and Moor, before we become engulfed in a limitless foreign sea,' (xii). 

Stanley points out how one sign of fascism is when government officials push for the traditional patriarchal society.

This is apparent in Hungary's new constitution, "the Fundamental Law of Hungary," in which Article L insists on the marriage between man and woman and commitment to having children. 

Fascists, Stanley argues, embrace this mythic past of nation and ethnic greatness. 

What's strange is that dictators, like Mussolini, admit to their audiences that what they are saying, what they are embracing, is indeed a myth. 

It's only when the belief becomes repeated and normalized that the myth, to them, transforms into fact.

Part of that mythic past is a nation's failure to acknowledge one's dark history. 

Stanley provides the example of Poland in which the parliament passed a law in 2018 "making it illegal to suggest that Poland bore responsibility for any of the atrocities committed on its soil during the Nazi occupation of Poland..." (16). 

Fascists argue against scholarly research and truth.

Some may assume that liberals use the term "fascist" loosely to describe Conservative policies, but as Stanley points out throughout the book, their policies and rhetoric against academia and scientific truth shows that Democrats are indeed using the "f" word correctly.

I recommend this book for those who love politics or for those who want to be prepared in scoping out early signs of fascism disguised in laws and policies. 

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Here's the version I read: 
Stanley, John. How Fascism Works the Politics of Us and Them. Random House, 2018.