Michael: Most people think of fascism as goose-stepping soldiers and a dictator on a balcony. But what if the real danger is quieter? What if it starts with something as innocent as nostalgia, or a politician promising to 'drain the swamp'? That's the unsettling idea we're exploring today. Kevin: That’s a powerful thought. It’s less about the uniform and more about the playbook. It makes the whole thing feel much closer to home. Michael: That's the core question in Jason Stanley's book, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. It's a New York Times Bestseller and has been praised for its chilling relevance, but it's also stirred up some controversy for how broadly it applies the term 'fascism'. Kevin: And Stanley is the perfect person to write this, right? He's a respected philosopher of language, but his parents were also refugees who fled Europe during World War II. His family literally lived through the consequences of these ideas. Michael: Exactly. He's not just looking at this as an academic puzzle; for him, it's personal. And that urgency comes through on every page. He argues fascism isn't a fixed ideology, but a set of repeatable tactics. Let's start with the first one: building the 'us'.

Michael: Stanley’s first pillar of fascist politics is the creation of a "mythic past." This is the idea that there was once a glorious, pure, and unified national history that has been lost or destroyed by outsiders or liberal elites. Kevin: Hold on, but isn't it good to be proud of your country's history? Every nation has its founding stories and heroes. Where's the line between patriotism and this 'mythic past'? Michael: That’s the critical distinction. Patriotism can be about appreciating your country's real, complex history—warts and all. A mythic past is about inventing a perfect history that never existed. It's a tool. The Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini was shockingly honest about this. He said, "We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality." Kevin: Wow. He just said it out loud. So it's not about historical accuracy at all; it's about creating an emotional story that unites people behind a cause. Michael: Precisely. It’s a branding exercise. Think about the Confederate monuments in the American South. Stanley points out that most of them weren't built right after the Civil War to honor fallen soldiers. They were erected decades later, during the Jim Crow era. Kevin: So their purpose wasn't really memory? Michael: Their purpose was to rewrite memory. They were built to promote the "Lost Cause" myth—a story that painted the Confederacy as a noble, heroic society fighting for states' rights, while conveniently erasing the central cause of the war, which was the brutal institution of slavery. It creates a glorious past that justifies the present social order. Kevin: That makes so much sense. By building a statue, you're literally cementing a story in stone, making it feel permanent and true, even if it's a distortion. So, how does this mythic 'us' get defined? Is it just about a shared, fake history? Michael: It goes deeper. Stanley argues this mythic past is almost always patriarchal. The nation's traditions are framed around a traditional family structure where the man is the protector and provider, and the woman's primary role is motherhood. The leader of the nation becomes the ultimate father figure. Kevin: Oh, I see. The strongman leader. Michael: Exactly. And the language is explicit. A Nazi leader, Gregor Strasser, said that for a man, the most valuable form of participation is military service, but "for the woman it is motherhood!" Another Nazi official, Paula Siber, declared that a woman's highest calling is to "consciously and out of total devotion...raise children for her people." Kevin: That's chilling. It's about purity in every sense—racial purity, cultural purity, and even purity of gender roles within the family. Anything that deviates from that is a threat to the myth. Michael: And that's the engine of the 'us.' It creates a very clear, very rigid definition of who belongs. If you fit into that story—the right ethnicity, the right traditions, the right family structure—you're part of the glorious nation. If you don't, you're a problem.

Kevin: Okay, so if that's how they build this powerful, pure 'us,' it feels like the next logical step is to create a 'them.' How do they do that? Michael: This is where the second set of tactics comes in: propaganda, unreality, and the twisting of law and order. One of the most brilliant and insidious propaganda tools is the anti-corruption campaign. Kevin: How is fighting corruption a bad thing? That sounds like something everyone should support. Michael: And that's why it works so well. Stanley uses the example of the Nazis' rise to power. They relentlessly attacked the Weimar Republic as a corrupt, decadent "swamp." They promised to restore moral purity and order. Kevin: A classic "drain the swamp" message. Michael: The very same. But here's the twist. The historian Richard Grunberger notes that once in power, the Nazi regime became "beside which the scandals of the Weimar regime seemed small blemishes." They were fantastically corrupt. But it didn't matter, because they had redefined corruption. For them, corruption wasn't about breaking financial laws; it was about the moral and racial impurity of their opponents. Kevin: So they accuse others of the very thing they are doing, but they change the definition of the crime. That's a kind of political jujitsu. Michael: It's a key part of creating what Stanley calls "unreality." This is where facts and truth become secondary to the narrative. A primary tool for this is the conspiracy theory. Think of historical examples like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the fake text about a Jewish plot for world domination. Kevin: Or more modern things, like the Pizzagate conspiracy during the 2016 election. That was the bizarre story about a child trafficking ring run out of a D.C. pizzeria by Democrats. It was completely baseless. Michael: Right. And Stanley makes a fascinating point about these. The goal of a conspiracy theory isn't necessarily to make everyone believe it's literally true. The primary goal is often to sow chaos and distrust. You float a wild accusation, the mainstream media fact-checks it and says, "This is false." Then, the fascist politician turns to their base and says, "See? The media is covering it up! They are part of the conspiracy! They won't tell you the truth, but I will." Kevin: Wait, so the point of the conspiracy isn't to convince people it's true, but just to muddy the waters and make everything feel like a lie? So that people give up on truth and just trust the leader? Michael: You've got it. The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about this decades ago. She said modern masses often don't trust their own eyes and ears, but "only their imaginations." They don't need facts; they need a consistent story, no matter how fictional. Once you've established that your opponents are corrupt conspirators, the next step is easy. Kevin: And I guess this is where 'law and order' comes in? If 'they' are corrupt and unreal, they must also be criminals. Michael: Exactly. Fascist "law and order" rhetoric isn't about applying the law equally to everyone. It's about dividing the world into two groups: the 'us,' who are naturally law-abiding, and the 'them,' who are inherently criminal. The law is a weapon to be used against the 'them.' Kevin: Can you give an example of that? Michael: The Central Park Five case is a brutal one. In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were accused of a horrific crime. Before any trial, Donald Trump took out full-page ads in New York newspapers calling for the state to bring back the death penalty, saying these teens "should be forced to suffer." He labeled them "crazed misfits." Kevin: And they were later exonerated by DNA evidence. They were innocent. Michael: Completely innocent. But they were from the 'out-group,' so they were presumed guilty. The label 'criminal' was applied to them not based on evidence, but based on their identity. This tactic works by collapsing all nuance. A person who gets a parking ticket and a mass murderer can both be labeled 'criminals,' and that label is then used to justify treating them as less than human.

Kevin: So it's a two-part playbook. First, you invent this glorious, pure 'us' based on a fake past, complete with traditional gender roles and a strong father figure. Then, you create a monstrous, corrupt, and criminal 'them' to justify your power. The whole system runs on this division. Michael: Exactly. And Stanley's most terrifying point, drawing from Hannah Arendt, is that fascist propaganda doesn't just lie—it aims to transform its lies into reality. They create policies that impoverish a group, and then point to that group's poverty as proof they are lazy. They police a community so heavily that its members look hunted and evasive, and then use that evasiveness as proof of their criminality. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of hate. Kevin: The racist creates the inferiorized, as Frantz Fanon said. They build the cage and then blame the prisoner for not being free. Michael: That's the perfect way to put it. The ultimate target of fascist politics isn't just the 'them' it persecutes, but also the 'us' it claims to protect. It traps them in a world of fear and delusion, trading their freedom for a false sense of security and superiority. Kevin: It makes you wonder, how much of what we accept as 'normal' political talk today is actually just a page from this old, dangerous playbook? Michael: That's the question we should all be asking. The book is a call to vigilance, to pay attention to the language being used, the stories being told, and the divisions being created. Because as Stanley shows, these aren't just words. They are tools. Kevin: And tools can be used to build or to destroy. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What tactics from the book do you see in the world around you? Let us know on our social channels. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.