Does anybody else sometimes feel like they're Living in Germany in the early 30s?

[wnylib]

96. The effect of economic instability is often political instability.

But that financially driven political instability does not necessarily lead to fascism. Consider the economic instability of Russia during WWI. It led to a communist revolution, not fascism.

For fascism to take over a nation, there has to be a leader who attracts authoritarian supporters in his/her inner circle and among the populace. There needs to be something in the nation's cultural identity that the leader can tap into to promote the traits that are characteristic of fsscism, like toxic mascinity. That often means appealing to a past supposed glory - the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, etc. In the US, there are popular myths and identies that can be used, like the heroic Puritans building a city on a hill for all to look up to (a distortion of the actual speech), or the heroic "taming" of the Wild West. There is also the Old South for southerners to look back upon through the eyeholes of a KKK hood. Or, across the entire nation, the past greatness of times like the 1950s, when women and POC knew their place and LGBTQ did not have a place to know.

So we have the cultural roots that can be manipulated into fascism. We have the cultural fear of socialism and communism from the Cold War era and backlash in the 1950s against the FDR programs of the 30s and 40s. It's pretty easy for Trump to tap into those fears and cultural themes. He's accomplishing that without economic disaster.

In fact, when the economy was tanking due to covid, Americans chose Biden. When the economy was tanking from the housing market crash, the American people chose Obama. When the economy tanked after the 1929 crash, Americans chose FDR, 4 times.

I hope that pattern holds because it looks like MAGAs want to crash the economy by holding the nation hostage to their debt ceiling demands, then blame it on Biden and Democrats in the hope of political gain.