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America Is Not Immune to Fascism [1]
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Date: 2025-04-23
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First he came for the Department of Agriculture, pausing grant payments and loans to small farmers and canceling Forest Service contracts for prescribed burns. Then he took his hatchet to the National Park Service, firing park rangers who’d moved to new communities and ending seasonal jobs before they had a chance to start. Then he went for the kids, arguing the Department of Education is nothing more than a Big Government conspiracy to indoctrinate liberal ideologies into families. This list goes on and on.
Trump says these actions are in the name of eliminating government inefficiency and bureaucracy, but what he’s actually doing is stripping any safe holds we had as Americans to put food on our tables, access healthcare, or retire before we’re dead. Most abhorrent is what he’s doing to everyday people like Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was illegally deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador where the only way out, El Salvadorian officials say, is in a coffin. The Trump administration admitted the deportation was due to an “administrative error,” yet Trump’s Justice Department has resisted court orders to explain its plan to bring Abrego Garcia home.
These actions are not those of a normal U.S. presidency. These actions are, in fact, the exact opposite of how the Founding Fathers envisioned a U.S. presidency 250 years ago when they declared there would be no king. Yet here we are, with a president who dreams to be king.
Nothing I’m saying here hasn’t been said a thousand times elsewhere, yet it bears repeating: these are not normal times. These are the times historians warn us about, when society is buckling under the stress of a pandemic, economic crisis, changing technologies – it’s these times when dictators rise to power. That’s what happened in Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 1930s, and now – perhaps – the United States in the 2020s.
Many Americans who’ve been around for a while have been able to keep the realities of a government’s descent into fascism at an arm’s length. We know, in theory, what it is like to have a dictator rise to power – all those World War II movies show us, but they only last two hours and change. We are a sheltered people, and it shows.
Right now could be the moment that directly precedes outright fascism. Right now is the time for institutions and corporations to resist Trump’s demands, while there are still courts offering an arena in which to fight against him. Harvard University is suing the Trump administration for threatening to cut their federal spending. Every single other large, powerful, rich institution and corporation should be doing exactly the same thing. As Timothy Snyder says in his book On Tyranny, do not obey in advance. Giving up power before you have to is a surefire way to be weakened when an authoritarian regime comes, making it that much harder to fight.
These are not normal times. Do not let anyone tell you that you are crazy for being worried about what is happening. Do not obey in advance. Remember to speak out while you still can. This has happened before, it can happen again, and America is not immune to fascism or authoritarianism.
First They Came
By Pastor Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
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