fascism

• 
• SOURCE: Dissent
  5/23/2023
  

  Maddow's Documentary Follows American Nazis in the 1940s—Does it Miss a Bigger Danger?

  by Nelson Lichtenstein

  The legal and law enforcement response to the rise of pro-Nazi groups in pre-WWII America was part of a growing national security state that would be used against dissent from the left and which the far right today seeks to use as a weapon. 

• 
• SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
  5/25/2023
  

  Jeff Sharlet on the Intersectional Erotics of Fascism

  by Annika Brockschmidt

  In an interview with historian Annika Brockschmidt, journalist Jeff Sharlet discusses his new book on the "slow civil war" in America and the need to understand how the far right is sustained by the pleasure of ceasing to resist the tide of anger and instead being carried by it. 

• 
• SOURCE: Open Democracy
  5/16/2023
  

  What I Saw when I Snuck In to the British National Conservatism Conference

  by Seth Thévoz

  If a group of fervent young British conservatives were packed into a wood-paneled room in Westminster with the freedom to say what the pleased, what would a party-crashing historian and journalist hear? 

• 
• SOURCE: Scientific American
  4/7/2023
  

  Attacks on Education Echo Fascism

  by Eden McLean

  "Florida’s legislation represents only the latest in a long history of attempts to deplore knowledge, deride academic inquiry for its own sake, and discourage intellectual curiosity in our children and the American public."

• 
• SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
  3/7/2023
  

  Face It: CPAC Was a Mussolini Moment

  by Will Bunch

  After Trump's CPAC speech promised that he'd be an instrument of retribution against his followers' enemies, it's time to stop tiptoeing around the historic parallels, writes columnist Will Bunch. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  2/14/2023
  

  Drop "Culture War" Description: Banning Books and Restricting Ideas is Fascism

  by Jason Stanley

  Conflicting cultural values are a normal part of democracy. What leaders like Ron DeSantis want is to make sure only one set of values has a place in the public square. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/10/2023
  

  Why is Italy's Far Right Embracing Dante?

  Italy's original Fascists embraced Dante as a marker of national chauvinism, and a prophet of authoritarianism; today's far right has renewed their enthusiasm for the poet. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/23/2023
  

  The Real Story of "Casablanca" Was the Refugees

  At its 80th anniversary, it's appropriate to honor the classic film by focusing on the waves of Europeans fleeing Nazi persecution and working to fight back. 

• 
• 1/22/2023
  

  The Pope at War: Pius XII and the Vatican's Secret Archives

  by James Thornton Harris

  David Kertzer's book argues that defenders of Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust mistake his defense of the prerogatives of the Catholic Church for a defense of the victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. 

• 
• 12/18/2022
  

  Mussolini in Myth and Memory

  by Paul Corner

  Italians' recollection of Mussolini and the Fascist regime embody the replacement of historical memory with national mythology—a mythology that dismisses both the violence of the dictatorship and Italians' collective responsibility for it and enables the resurgence of the far right today.

• 
• SOURCE: Lucid (Substack)
  12/7/2022
  

  What, Exactly, Is Fascism?

  by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

  Are you confused about the meaning of Fascism? If so, you're not alone. Benito Mussolini, the creator of Fascism, famously did not define it until 1932.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  11/21/2022
  

  Robin Kelley: Fascism Doesn't End Because People "Come to Their Senses"

  The historian discusses the ongoing threat of the antidemocratic far right, despite the failure of the "red wave" in the midterms, abetted by the willingness of many Democrats to cave to panics about crime. 

• 
• SOURCE: WBUR
  11/17/2022
  

  Boston's Role in the Antisemitic Right of the 1930s and 1940s

  Professor Charles Gallagher discusses the Christian Front, a local branch of followers of Father Charles Coughlin, that pushed a variety of antisemitic and nativist political positions in Boston between the World Wars. 

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  11/4/2022
  

  The Fascism Debate is Over; Fascism Won

  by Jonathan M. Katz

  Academic hair-splitting about the applicability of the F-word to the MAGA phenomenon has not served the cause of democracy well. 

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  11/7/2022
  

  Beschloss, Ben-Ghiat on the Stakes of the Midterms

  NBC Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss and NYU History Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat discuss the concept of fascism and the danger facing the U.S with American Voices host Alicia Menendez. 

• 
• 10/30/2022
  

  The US Response to the Holocaust Was Part of a Longer Pattern of Appeasing Fascism

  by Roger Peace

  The Roosevelt administration's refusal to accept large numbers of Jewish refugees was of a piece with a pattern of diplomatic and economic solicitousness toward Nazi Germany. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/25/2022
  

  A Pro-Nazi Camp Run by the German American Bund Subject of New Play

  The Long Island town of Yaphank was eager to erase the memory of Camp Siegfried, which closed after the American entry into World War II. Playwright Bess Wohl wants to use it as a warning about the seductive potential of ideology. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  10/27/2022
  

  Spain's New Citizenship Law for Exiles from Franco Portends Massive Return from Latin America

  Between the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and the end of the dicatorship in 1978, an estimated 2 million Spaniards fled political persecution by leaving the country. 

• 
• SOURCE: Saturday Evening Post
  10/10/2022
  

  Journalist Dorothy Thompson's Warnings About Fascism – Abroad and at Home

  by Ben Railton

  After being expelled as a journalist from Germany for criticizing Hitler, Dorothy Thompson worked to make clear to Americans what fascist movements stood for and how they could take root in the soil of racism and nativism here. 

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  10/5/2022
  

  Fascists' PR Plan? Distance from Associations with Jewish Genocide

  by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

  Despite the efforts of denialists, the Holocaust remains a significant obstable to public acceptance of fascism. Contemporary far-right politicians have adopted the position that genocide was a step too far beyond an otherwise good ideology.