How aware are people of fascism when it's just getting started?

This is not meant as a thread about specific current events in the US, so I request that anything referencing Donald Trump or US politics directly be kept for another thread.
How apparent was the rise of fascism to the cultures that experienced it? Was it really obvious? Were half of the people (or a significant minority) saying “WTF, this is obviously wrong! This is the start (or continuation) of something horrific!” while the other half is saying “What’s the big deal?” or “Don’t be hysterical” or “Don’t exaggerate!”

Or is it less out in the open than that?

I ask because I feel like I often see people compare a specific current event to bigger historical changes and say something like “This is how fascism starts” or “This is what led to Nazi Germany” or similar reactions. In reaction to that, others often push back and declare that hyperbole and silliness.

Would we know? Did they know? Did any cultures slide into fascism without being aware it was happening until it had happened? If that happened in the past, could it happen again given that we know it happened in the past? Is there any sort of inoculation that history can offer?

Replace fascism with authoritarianism and there are more examples. Of course there are different ways authoritarians come to power. Some just engage in a military coup like they did in Cambodia under Pol Pot. Some are elected, and then when in power try to expand their power by destroying checks and balances.

I’d assume nations like Turkey or Poland are examples of modern authoritarian movements coming to power via democratic elections. When an authoritarian party comes to power, it attempts to suppress anything that is a threat to its hold on power. Congress, media, judiciary, labor unions, student groups, grassroots protests, autonomous police and military, wealthy individuals, NGOs, community organizations, etc. They pass laws to take power away from these groups and give more power to themselves.

Hitler and the nazis came to power in 1933, but by 1934 they had cemented their hold on power by passing various laws destroying checks and balances, taking away civil rights and taking power away from groups other than the executive branch.

No description is ever going to be perfect because there are always going to be subtle difference; however, the main ideologies of fascism are:

#1 Opposition to liberal democracy or that liberal democracy doesn’t work
#2 Ordered society
#3 National mobilization
#4 Support for protectionist economic policies
#5 Support for a mixed private/public ownership (but still capitalist)

Almost all, if not all fascist states, seek to have:

#1 A high degree of, ideally unlimited, control over information.
#2 Strong police powers

So I would say if you start seeing these then you’re seeing the possible formation of a fascist state.

Is that happening in the USA?

On ideology:

#1 Opposition to liberal democracy or that liberal democracy doesn’t work
— Definitely. EIU just downgraded USA to a “flawed democracy” exactly for this reason. A decaying trust in democratic institutions for the past 10 years or so.

#2 Ordered society
— Not at this time, at least in my view.

#3 National mobilization
— Not really in my view.

#4 Support for protectionist economic policies
— Oh yeah. No question.

#5 Support for a mixed private/public ownership
— Not really in my view

On policy:

#1 A high degree of, ideally unlimited, control over information
— Oh yeah, bigly.

#2 Stronger police powers
— Not yet.
Watch out for:

  • Big national projects (the wall?) or a war for which everybody must sacrifice for the good of the nation
  • Broadening of police powers for the good of the nation
  • Nationalization of industry for the good of the nation
  • Stratifying of citizens
  • Further control over public information

That is just a continuation of the last administrations policies

For example

The trains run on time …

Things were really bad in Germany when the Nazis took power, so having bread on the table was a sure sign fascism had taken hold … all the horrors that come about was tolerated by a people fed …

Well, if the question is, do lots of people who are eventually swallowed up under a dictatorship, realize that that is their fate early on, I’d suggest that the answer is mostly no. I suspect, based on many readings in History and biography, that most people hope that “things will work out, if I just keep my head down,” while others genuinely think that extremely GOOD things are happening, right up to the moment that they are hauled off to jail or worse.

Lots of people fled Germany as fascism got going there, but most of them were the people who could AFFORD to flee.

By the way, something else to include in this, is which definition of fascism you mean. These days especially, lots of people call it fascism simply because they are angry about it.

Good post and definitely some points to consider. What particularly concerns me about Trump is your point #1, which is the declining confidence that the average American has in institutions that have been fairly well regarded over the past 8 or 9 decades.

I keep comparing Trump to Nixon, who also had a very adversarial relationship with the press and with his political opponents, be they political rivals or activists. Nixon was just as bad as Trump appears to be, and arguably worse. Keep in mind he also won re-election in one of the most lopsided presidential victories of all time, so there’s at least some hope that the public can have an awakening and reverse itself. The problem, though, is not just Trump himself; it’s Trump and the extreme right wing of the republican party, which so far is putting up a united front. And thus far, while I see a lot of concern among Americans, I’m not sure there’s widespread outrage except that coming from those who were already against the GOP to begin with.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison studied philosophy and political theory and created a form of government for our country ground in those theories about what is right and wrong, sound and unsound. But most people are not political philosophers, and are not worried about whether what the government is doing is philosophically sound. This is true in the USA now, and in all countries at all times.

People have basic needs: jobs and money, a home, safety from violence. If these basics are met, some spend their time and political concerns about the right way to govern. Most go to other things: art, football, whatever. If people feel that their basic needs are threatened, that there are no jobs or that crime in rising or something like that, there can be a massive demand for a political solution. But generally not a great deal of interest in a philosophically sound solution in that situation. The people demand immediate action, politicians who respond become winners.

Milton Friedman said that big political changes almost always take place during crises. Absent a crisis, it’s hard to gather up enough popular support for a massive program of change. The Great Depression was a crisis. In the USA, FDR used the crisis to push for the new deal. In Germany and Spain, the fascists used the crisis to seize power. Friedman’s key insight is that the intellectual and philosophical thinkers need to keep their ideas ready and in good shape, so that when a crisis occurs the right ideas will prevail, and not the wrong ones.

Today the Trump Administration amped up their program of inciting Muslim outrage (by stopping the entry into the USA of Muslim people who had valid visas).

My guess would be that they confidently expect that a Crisis will, sooner rather than later, arise. And they are ready to greet that Crisis with the imposition of a State of Emergency—which will, “regrettably”, require a suspension of the Constitution.

(OP jsgoddess: with due respect for the reasonable hopes you expressed for a purely general historical discussion with no resort to specifics of the current situation–it’s difficult to refrain from noting the current situation.)

Getting back to said general historical discussion: the most pertinent analogy may be the infamous metaphor of the frog which sits in a pot of room-temperature water–then fails to be aware that the water is gradually increasing in temperature, thus dying by being boiled to death.*

The phenomenon mentioned in the opening post–some people scolding those warning of impending trouble as being hysterical or foolish–certainly does seem to apply to the 2016/2017 situation (not only in the USA but throughout Western nations plagued by “nationalism.”) “It can’t happen here” may be the relevant parallel to “this water is fine; I don’t notice any problems with it.”
*Reading about this metaphor on Wikipedia, I was appalled to learn how many times people have, apparently, tested it on actual frogs. !

Here’s a related question I’ve pondered a time or two: what’s the largest, most populated country that’s fallen into fascism or dictatorship? Does it depend on how you view China? Because while it’s obviously not impossible for it to happen in the United States, it’s always struck me as, at the least, somewhat more difficult, due in part to some of the very differences in regions and people that have led to some of these speculations to begin with.

Yes it’s quite apt wrt to your “guess”-- it has a certain emotional appeal, but is not based in fact. And despite the lack of factual bases, we’ll be hearing about such “guesses” over and over again (just like people keep repeating the bogus story of he frog).

The thing about Trump is he is so small compared to our system of government. He’s not a popular politician, has no natural, national backing, and he’d be spit out raw like a rotten seed if he tried to “suspend the constitution”.

The officially designated “fascist” states of the 20th century were lead by autocrats. But if you actually look at the economic and social goals they were advancing, they were trying to create states that were anti-foreign/pro-national, turned businesses into the servants of the state, and are highly concerned with keeping everything orderly and non-controversial. They’re very much “the nail which stands the tallest will get the hammer” sorts.

And that’s actually a fairly common set of criteria across much of the planet. A lot of East Asia follows that standard, and I feel like it’s even more widespread than that. The Italian and German fascists were just unique in feeling a need to go out and proactively destroy anything they thought would be harmful to the state. The Japanese used a similar rational for their conquest of China before WWII.

And granted, it’s that sort of Italian/German fascism that people mean when they speak of fascism, so it’s talking about something else (e.g., Chinese Corporatism - PDF) if you remove the ‘autocracy’ element. But I would argue that this is just the modern world, corrected equivalent, just as one might say that social safety nets and anti-classist legislation are the modern world, corrected versions of Communist and Socialist states.

I lived in Japan. The country is racist, sexist, and squanders a lot of potential by failing to think internationally. The ruling party’s belief that it knows how to fix everything and can fix everything is certainly not correct, and its hostility to foreigners is more likely to get it blown up by North Korea or one of its other neighbors than if they just started opening up their economy to local trade. People who the police think committed a crime are summarily taken away, beaten into a confession, and thrown into the world’s most uncomfortable cell until they’re broken and released back into the general population.

But it’s also not Nazi Germany. They’re not rounding up Southeast Asians and having them gassed, there’s no dictator going around making insane demands, and they aren’t invading their neighbors. The crime rate is non-existent and most of the people consider themselves to be living in a 50s like peaceful, successful existence because everything is orderly and dependable.

I personally enjoy the sloppy mess of freedom and individuality. But that’s probably not true for most of the population. Our ancestors were, after all, pack animals. Most people want to quietly be happy members of the pack, feeling safe and having an enemy to blame for everything bad. This way of organizing the state is, I suspect, really about as good as it gets for the majority. If instead of a rural/urban divide we had a wealthy/not-wealthy political division in the country - or any division where one side was massively larger than the other - I’d say that we’d probably be screwed if a neo-fascist was able to gain control of the country, on the backs of that majority. We’re probably safe, with Trump, because the rural vote is not the majority.

But, for the titular question, the path to fascism for most countries looks like the path to a country with social welfare programs, or a country with an open market economy. It’s usually something that happens over time, on the back of small measures that add up over time, as things morph from one political ideal to another. Japanese ‘Statism’ mellowed itself out, but hasn’t strayed all that far. Chinese Maoism has briskly paced over towards the Japanese and Singaporean models over the course of the last ~50 years.

What the question really should be is, “What does the rise of a political strongman look like?”

Entirely apparent and overtly proud of being a revolutionary movement for revolutionary times in the aftermath of WW1, but presenting as based on national pride, dynamism and common disciplined endeavour by contrast with “Bolshevist savagery” and “tired, weak, ineffectual, corrupt” party politics.

There were also authoritarian governments that didn’t adopt overtly fascist language, symbols and ideology, but resorted to various degrees of oppressiveness in the face of the postwar economic and political turmoil, such as Austria, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, and after the defeat of 1940, Petainist France. Francoist Spain dabbled between the strongly Catholic nationalism of those countries and occasionally more overtly fascist ideas. But they all tended to glorify the “strong man” image.

Democracy as we understand it today was not necessarily seen as the be-all and end-all of good government, nor any departure from it as something to be feared or disapproved of.

All those countries that turn to fascism came when the country was very divided.

People can argue democracy and electoral college is failed system in US. The US never had unity and never had a majority. The east coast, west coast and big cities vote democratic party and the towns, country,farms and south vote republic party.

This is democracy that is failed. The US is very bitter, hostile and war like being very divided. Yell, scream and spit in your face over being so divided country.

Americans cannot see trees for the forest because they are divided among them self and been like that for very long time.

Well because the democracy and electoral college is failed system in US. Not like most first world countries. There is really big chance the US could be fascism one day.

Also lot more Americans have in common with fascism ideas than the left ideas like most first world countries that are more liberal and have more welfare and universal healthcare. In US universal healthcare is communism ideas and welfare is black people and non whites getting money from white people. This is what Americans think.