Openly fascist attitudes are undoubtedly more visible in the media and on the street over the past year or so. I have been reading the headlines, but hadn’t seen a whole lot of photos or footage until recently. What I see now that I am looking, for example in this video and article from The Intercept, is pretty shocking. It definitely has echos of semi-official street gangs that did the bidding of Hitler and Mussolini early on, with the government not yet openly involved in the violence but choosing to look the other way. The next step after this is traditional elites outside the government, like business, organized labor and organized religion, choosing to align themselves with what they perceive as the winning side, because they think that will lead to the largest personal gain. Eventually, all these groups unite based on a narrative of internal and/or external enemies, agree that the threat is great enough to abandon traditional political institutions, and our republic is no more.

Or not. We seem to have taken some steps down this slippery slope of an openly fascist movement with significant popular support, and some government, business, and political elites looking the other way. We can hope that the right wing movement isn’t actually growing in membership but is simply more visible and emboldened by events over the past few years. One thing on the side of the republic is simple demographics – outside of an absolute fascist state taking power by sheer force, the angry white men do not have the numbers to dominate the rest of our society. I think that may be the case, but it is not safe to count on it. The vast majority of reasonable people need to resist, not through violence because that only fans the flames, but by taking full advantage of our still semi-functional political system to get this thing under control. That means actively recruiting and supporting rational politicians, fighting for a system where one person gets one vote and money gets no votes, and nonviolent protest actions if and when it becomes clear that is the only thing that can get the attention of our politicians and elites.