fascism 
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SOURCE: Public Seminar
4/8/2021
Why Weimar is an Imperfect Mirror
by Helmut Smith
Peter Gay's "Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider" became a key text for understanding the Weimar era as an allegory for understanding political conflict when it was published in 1968. But his psychoanalytical approach can be an impediment to understanding the historical specificity of the era.
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SOURCE: The Nation
4/6/2021
Methods of Power: How do Authoritarians Rule? (Review)
by David A. Bell
Is Trumpism a fascist movement or a response to a power vacuum created by decades of neoliberal policies? Historian David A. Bell reviews Ruth Ben-Ghiat's "Strongmen" and argues that the book misses the specific context of Trumpism by making him an archetype of the authoritarian ruler.
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3/21/2021
Rally 'Round the Rune: Fascist Echoes of the CPAC Stage
by Mark Auslander and Jay Ball
The incorporation of a Norse rune associated with the SS into the stage of the recent CPAC conference probably isn't an accident; the choice reflects the cultural cachet of Norse myth on the far right, the conservative movement's desire to maintain deniability about its ties to the far right, and the recognition that the design would be crystal clear to viewers of internet memes.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
3/16/2021
Fascism and Analogies — British and American, Past and Present
by Priya Satia
"Historical and local specificities mean all analogies are ultimately inaccurate in ways that historians must always make clear. The point of such comparisons, however, is to uncover darker historical truths obscured by prevailing, more flattering comparisons."
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SOURCE: BBC
2/24/2021
Franco: Melilla Enclave Removes Last Statue of Fascist Dictator on Spanish Soil
The statue was the last standing after a 2007 law recognized the suffering caused by Francoism and began a process of removing memorials to the dictator.
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SOURCE: Boston Review
2/17/2021
The Americans Who Embraced Mussolini
Katy Hull's book looks to four American fascist sympathizers to conclude that the appeal of fascism reflected anxieties about how the United States could function as a world power and connect communitarian values with national progress.
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SOURCE: Just Security
2/4/2021
Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda
by Jason Stanley
Not enough attention has been paid to the video shown to spectators at Donald Trump's January 6th "Save America" rally. A close look shows it to be a work of propaganda firmly in the tradition of fascism.
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SOURCE: CNN
1/24/2021
Trump is Not a Fascist. But that Didn't Make Him any Less Dangerous to Our Democracy
by Thomas Weber
Hitler and Trump, along with fascism and Trumpism, are all destructive to liberal democracy but in fundamentally different ways.
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1/24/2021
Cheese to Chalk: Can Democracies be Compared to Dictatorships?
by Leonid Luks
A German historian argues that American scholars and commentators have for years been too quick to equate antidemocratic measures taken by Republicans with Hitler's seizure of dictatorial power, dismissing ample research on the nature of totalitarian regimes. The last three months have shown that America's core institutions are not weak enough to be crushed.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/15/2021
That Time Private US Media Companies Stepped in to Silence the Falsehoods and Incitements of a Major Public Figure … In 1938
by William Kovarik
"There’s not much that separates, on the one hand, the mad fanaticism that held Jews supposedly responsible for their own persecution in 1938 and, on the other, the fevered delusion of 2020."
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1/14/2021
Donald Trump’s Situational Fascism
by Gavriel Rosenfeld
Rather than engage in an unproductive debate about whether Donald Trump is or is not a bona fide fascist, scholars should consider the events of January 6 (and Trump's role in inciting them) as emergent, contingent results of the interplay of factors latent in American liberal democracy.
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SOURCE: New Statesman
1/13/2021
Why Trump Isn't a Fascist
by Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans argues that "fascism" arose in the specific context of states defeated in World War I and thus embraced military expansionism and a concurrent militarization of domestic life in addition to racial domination. While Trump is dangerous, labeling him a fascist doesn't explain his political movement.
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1/10/2020
Will the Republicans Take the Fascist Option?
by Kevin Matthews
Before this past week, too many in the GOP seemed too willing to choose the fascist option. Now they have seen what it looks like and where it leads. The question Republicans must answer is simple: Will they choose fascism anyway?
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SOURCE: Daily Beast
1/6/2021
Trump’s Neo-Fascism Takes America’s Racism to the Next Level
by Jason Stanley
The Republican Party has long embraced herrenvolk democracy, where participation is limited (as much as possible) to favored ethnic groups. But Trumpism is harnessing this system of racial rule to an authoritarian cult of personality.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
12/18/2020
Proud Boys Leader Says He Burned Black Lives Matter Banner Stolen From Church During Demonstrations In D.C.
Enrique Tarrio claims that his destruction of the banner was not motivated by racial bigotry but by the supposed terrorization of the nation by the Black Lives Matter movement.
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SOURCE: JStor Daily
12/12/2020
How the Fascists Rewrote Spanish National History
The revision of myths of Spanish heritage under Franco was rapid and broad, showing how critical those myths were to the goals of fascist rule.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/14/2020
Just How Dangerous Was Donald Trump?
Times columnist Michelle Goldberg checks on competing evaluations from scholars including Corey Robin, Roger Griffin and Robert O. Paxton – did Trump's lack of command of the machinery of government make him a play-acting authoritarian, or was his rhetoric of national regeneration through his personal leadership exemplary of fascist movements?
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SOURCE: Salon
12/2/2020
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Trump's Coup Is Not Over; His Enablers Aren't Done
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat speaks with Salon's Dean Obeidallah and argues that the danger of a collapse of democracy is not over.
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SOURCE: Associated Press
11/30/2020
US Embassy in Hungary slams article likening Soros to Hitler
A Hungarian culture minister suggested that the Hungarian-American Jewish financier's advocacy of stronger democratic standards in the EU--which reflect criticism of right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary--are similar to the crimes committed against the two nations by Nazi Germany, among other attacks.
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SOURCE: WBUR
11/12/2020
What The 'Strongmen' Of History Reveal About Modern Politics
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat studies authoritarian regimes, like Italy under Mussolini. Can a democracy pry itself out of a strongman's grip?
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