Churchill wasn’t a socialist.⁶ The Catholic monks who defied Franco weren’t liberals. The German officers who tried to kill Hitler weren’t Democrats. Liz Cheney isn’t anyone’s progressive icon, and she warned her party that populist authoritarianism had crossed a line.⁷ You can believe in markets and still see the danger.
Fascism’s enemies aren’t left or right. They’re anyone who values liberty more than loyalty.
Brad looked up again. “So what do you think happens next?”
I didn’t answer right away. The coffee had gone cold. Outside, the puddles in the driveway were getting deeper.
Finally, I said: “History doesn’t wait for us to get the word right.”
He stood, zipped up again, nodded once. No handshake, no goodbye. He walked to the door.
Bibliography
1. Robert O. Paxton, “I’d called Trumpism an ‘incipient fascism.’ Now I believe it represents something more dangerous,” Newsweek, January 11, 2021. Paxton, a leading historian of fascism, shifted from resisting the term to endorsing its use after the January 6 attack.
2. Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1991). Griffin’s influential theory defines fascism as rooted in myths of national rebirth, or “palingenesis.”
3. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (New York: Random House, 2018). Stanley argues that modern authoritarian movements rely on institutions and propaganda rather than overt violence.
4. “Trump repeats claim immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Associated Press, December 16, 2023. Reporting on Trump’s rally remarks in New Hampshire where he used language echoing white nationalist tropes.
5. Sarah Mearhoff, “New Hampshire teachers navigate book bans, fear of backlash,” Concord Monitor, October 22, 2023. Local reporting on teachers hesitating to read aloud books flagged by parents and school boards.
6. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948). Churchill consistently defined his wartime fight against fascism from a conservative position, underscoring that anti-fascism was not limited to the left.
7. Liz Cheney, remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA, June 29, 2022. Cheney warned her party about Trump’s authoritarian turn, positioning herself as a conservative defender of democratic norms.