What did the people who’d studied fascism, not just feared it, have to say?
“Fascism doesn’t march. It reorganizes the org chart.”
Robert Paxton resisted the word for decades—until January 6, when he called it “necessary.”¹ Roger Griffin warned that it begins with the myth of national rebirth.² Jason Stanley noted it spreads by bureaucracy, not boots.³ Three scholars, three angles, circling the same alarm.
What struck me wasn’t their conclusion—it was their reluctance. These weren’t partisans. They had avoided the word precisely because it was radioactive. And yet, they were using it now—not to score points, but to warn.
They agreed on one thing: it isn’t a switch. It’s a drift. You see it in the small, qunremarkable edits of civic life. A parent who stops asking questions at a school board meeting. A clerk who suddenly needs three forms of ID for the same ballot.
And once the machinery adjusts—agencies renamed, missions reassigned—the sound isn’t thunder. It’s quieter: the shuffle of papers set aside, the microphone left unused, the moment a voice dies before it reaches the air.
“The danger arrives quietly—felt first in the pause before someone speaks.”
I saw it firsthand at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. Trump had just finished declaring that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”⁴ The crowd roared. Later, in the parking lot, a man leaned against his truck and told a local reporter, “He’s just saying what we all know. Nobody else is brave enough.” The line was ordinary, unshaken. That was the point. Suspicion had already become common sense.
A week later, a teacher in Concord told me about her fourth graders. She had a book in her hands—something ordinary, Charlotte’s Web. She caught herself before reading aloud, because it was on a list someone had flagged as “age-inappropriate.” She wasn’t sure if anyone in the room would complain. She wasn’t sure if anyone outside would. So she set the book down and picked another. That moment—hesitation, then silence—was the curriculum.⁵
That’s what I wanted to tell Brad when he came back. But he spoke first.
“Trump’s a narcissist, sure. A grifter. But fascism? That’s organized. Disciplined. The guy couldn’t run a sewing circle.”
“So you don’t think he’s a fascist?” I asked, sliding another cartridge into the Keurig.
“I think the steps matter more than the label. You walk enough of them, you don’t need to shout Heil.” He paused, then jabbed the air. “And don’t tell me it’s only him. The left—your side—they’ve got their tricks too. Slap Hitler on a guy, boom, you never have to listen.”
“You mean like calling journalists enemies of the people? Or telling crowds that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation?”
“See?” His voice rose, then flattened. “You’ve got your list, I’ve got mine. Same damn playbook.”
“The silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was historical.”
Two people raised in the same civic vocabulary were now speaking different dialects. What I’ve come to believe is this: Anti-fascism isn’t a leftist monopoly.