It seems to be a pitfall of the thinking “it can’t happen here.”
Lol, many, many people knew that fascism would come from within and warned as such. Coincidentally, Sinclair Lewis wrote a book titled “It Can’t Happen Here” in 1935 about how a fascist would come to power in America. It’s been a while since I read it, but I recall it having some eerily similar parallels to Trump’s rise to power.
Came to say this. I recall especially the books private, paramilitary “marching clubs” being turned into law enforcement, which feels a lot like how the Proud Boys and 3% have fallen out of the media at the same time as ICE has co-opted their tactics.
“We’ll have fascism in [America], but we’ll call it anti-fascism” - Huey Long
The whole of US political commentary 1935-1939 feels very relevant today.
“We’ll have fascism in [America], but we’ll call it anti-fascism” - Huey Long
The fascists declared antifa enemies, so I guess we won’t?
Yeah, precisely, a lot of successfully propigandized people believed American Exceptionalism grants a 100% nullification to internal Fascist corruption…
But, uh, more clever or curious or historically interested people have long known that… thats not true at all, lol.
Which, of course, is why the Republicans have been, for at least 40 years, had as a consistent plank of their policy and rhetoric be… public education should be defunded and destroyed.
Turns out, being uneducated actually grants a +100% bonus critical weakness to all kinds of propoganda.
I haven’t read it but I will, eventually. But I must ask, I wonder though if George Lucas read the book and drew inspiration from it? Even some of the themes on how the republic fell and rise of the empire has kinda happened in real life. The toxic masculinity and alienation has real life parallel contributing to the decline of democracy, aside from the more obvious such as institutional corruption, wealth inequality and complacency. I also think Lucas was inspired from Hannah Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, where she concluded that loneliness is precursor to totalitarianism. Anakin’s downfall is because he is lonely and alienated, and essentially told to “suck it up”. There is parallel to his experience and those in real life who have turned to the far right/dark side.
Lucas actually has directly stated that the original Star Wars trilogy was to some extent based off of the Vietnamese resistance to Western Imperialism.
“We’re fighting the largest empire in the world, and we’re just a bunch of hay seeds in coonskin hats that don’t know nothing,” he says, referencing the American Revolution against the British Empire, and how he based the heroes of Star Wars on real-life rebellions against powerful empires.
Lucas and Cameron discuss how during the Vietnam War, America became “the Empire.”
“The irony is that, in both of those, the little guys won. The highly technical empire – the English Empire, the American Empire – lost. That was the whole point,” Lucas says.
Another part of this same discussion with James Cameron, from another article:
https://www.cbr.com/george-lucas-vietnam-war-star-wars-inspiration/
Cameron pointed out how the Rebels are a small group using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized Empire. Today, Cameron added, the Rebels would be called terrorists. “When I did it,” Lucas replied, “they were Viet Cong.” In other words, Lucas viewed the Vietnamese as the rebels and America as the invading villains.
He further explained that Star Wars was a “vessel” in which to place his worldview that the United States had become an empire during the Vietnam War, doomed to fail like every empire before it.
Its uh, honestly rather obvious, but uh, right wingers consistently fail at basic media literacy, so … ?
I’m talking about the Star Wars prequels. George Lucas touched upon alienation and loneliness, which is what Anakin was feeling and then exploited by Palpatine. It is starkly prescient and parallel to real life.
Nah this was predicted decades ago. First quote i remember talking about it was “when facism comes to america it will be drapped in an american flag carrying a bible”. And thats pretty much exactly how it happened.
I was in college in 2004 when my philosophy 101 professor said with confidence that fascism was on the horizon for the US and that it would happen in our lifetimes.
Fucking Plato predicted this. And I argued with him like a jackass.
To quote Judd Hersh as Julius Livingston: We knew! We knew then! And we did nothing!
As a German, on the contrary, it was blindingly obvious. Starting with your massive(ly overblown) patriotism. No insult intended.
Anyone thinking “it can’t happen here,” wasn’t paying attention in history class. It has always been a part of us from the very start.
In fact America was founded on the genocide of natives. The founding fathers were such hypocrites, preaching about freedom while owning slaves
I think plenty of media actually depicted that. Watchmen the tv show is a clear example. I also think Captain American Winter Soldier have that topic.
Those are some recent popular ones, surely there are more.
Star Wars the prequels sort of dealt with the subject, although it framed the fascist leader as an exceptionally skilled statesman puppeteering behind the scenes and not the reactionary populist personality cults they usually are.
No offense, but Americans were (or still are) literally the only ones oblivious to this. Fascism in the USA did not start with Trump’s second term. It did not start with his first term either. This has been progressing practically ever since the declaration of independence.
Most at least slightly educated people saw this clearly decades ago. Most weren’t saying anything, because we had bigger problems.
The main issues here consist of:
- lack of an at least semi-functional education system
- ubiquitous propaganda
Nothing about the current state of the USA is surprising whatsoever to most people who weren’t born there. Americans have been exploited and manipulated for generations, and this is the effect. As pointed out by other commenters, there are countless books, essays and works of fiction discussing this phenomenon.
Right-wing politicians are also on the rise everywhere else. So while Murica is cranking fascism up to 11 like they do with everything else, it’s not isolated to here.
From my perspective, right-leaning politicians aren’t necessarily a problem by themselves. It’s good to have a mix of various opinions and backgrounds. The problem is that ‘right-wing’ in the year 2025 is almost always just fascism. It’s like every single person associating with the right is extreme right and never anywhere in the middle.
It always comes from within. Those who thought it is an external thread kinda had their head in the sand.
I did have an argument in my head that it always comes from within, although that’s not exactly the case with countries invaded by fascists before and their governments installed with puppet fascist counterparts.
The general understanding of experts on fascism after figuring out what the hell went wrong in Germany was that America was particularly vulnerable to it and it would use the flag and the cross to gain influence.
Hell Hitler and his crew got a lot of his ideas from America at that time. Plenty of our rich elite supported it to. Including Ford.
The Handmaid’s Tale depicts fascism rising from within America
A lot of people very famously not only knew, but told you and told you and told you and told you.
A lot of media depict the United States as being invaded by fascists from the outside.
Apart of “Man in the high castle”, nothing comes to mind. I’d say media-wise, the US gets invasion from zombies, aliens, or monsters. But aside of MITHC I’m drawing a blank.
Red Dawn.
“North Korean paratroupers”? If they pose a recognizable problem for the USA, so many things must have gone wrong…
Plenty of people expected that, we just don’t like to think about it because it makes us feel bad to think about our own flaws
That’s the plot to XIII isn’t it?
Nah we did, we’re just not filmmakers.
