Fascism: A Warning

I am drawn again to my conclusion that a Fascist is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.

This is a book that was written explicitly in response to Trump. Former secretary of State Madeleine Albright is concerned about some of the challenges facing democracies across the world as well as within the United States and wants to tell you about it. The book itself is aimed at a popular audience and required no particular background knowledge, it is a fairly breezy read.

In terms of content this book has some autobiographical framing and then is really a book of 3 parts

1. Historical Context setting giving a overview of the rise and fall of the classical fascist regime's in Nazi germany and Mussolini's Italy.


2. A whirlwind tour of failed democracies/places with rising authoritarianism in the 20th Century.
This covers

* Hugo Chávez & Maduro in Venezuala,
* Ergodan in Turkey
* Putin in Russia
* North Korea
* Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland and Orbán in Hungary

The fact that this book was written by a former United States Secretary of State does add something to what would otherwise be standard fare. She has been in the room where it happens and has personally met some of the actors, so you get little tidbits like her opinions of Putin from the very first time they met, similarly we get a bit of a play by play of some of the diplomacy that went down with North Korea during the Clinton administration.


3. The back half of the book on Trump and why she is so worried by him:

Trump is the first anti-democratic president in U.S. history. On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself.

“I fear a return to the international climate that prevailed in the 1920s and '30s, when the United States withdrew from the global stage and countries everywhere pursued what they perceived to be their own interests without regard to larger and more enduring goals.”

Years from now, we may look back on Trump as a onetime oddity who taught us a lesson we will not forget about the quirks of democracy. We may also look back on him as the agent of a political fracturing from which it will take decades to recover, during which every president will fail because the only candidates elected are those who make promises impossible to keep.