The Second Phase of the Fascist Invasion Has Begun

It's time to change how we think of the way fascists are winning. And, as a result, how we can fight back.

We are in the second stage of America’s fascist invasion. But most of us are acting like we’re still in the first.

Part 1

“The cult of tradition and the cult of action for action's sake are related because both are obsessed with a faith in a mystical connection between the leader and the historical destiny of the group.”

Umberto Eco

The first stage began in 2016, with the rise of Trump, Trumpism, and the far right. This stage was about exploiting the increasing division among America’s populace caused by the election of America’s first Black president, the legalization of gay marriage, rising inequality, and never ending wars. 

This stage was marked by an invasion of the Republican Party. The fascists marketed themselves as the movement for the people and by the people. They didn’t attack the Democrats first, as many people think. They attacked the entire Republican establishment. They did this by exploiting its vulnerabilities: the way they had entrenched their power. The way they had used the working class. The way they were trying to become popular with liberals by reaching out to Hispanic voters. The way they had sent the sons and daughters of conservative off to fight wars that accomplished nothing.

Unlike many narratives told about this time, the fascists didn’t just inspire anger: they inspired hope. Republican voters were seeing what they had found familiar about America slip away. The fascists exploited that fear, turned it into anger, and inspired them to act through giving them hope that time could be reversed. All they needed to do was sign on the dotted line: put their fates in the hand of a madman. It was a devil’s bargain: even those who understood his danger were by then willing to see him as the cannon that would knock down the system they hated and the future they feared.

While for liberals and progressives, this moment in time was defined by fear and chaos, for conservatives who bought into fascism it was a historical moment of excitement. They felt themselves part of a popular movement, one that could do no wrong, one that was, to some, a messianic experience where all would be made right in the world.

It was this excitement that led them to victory. The energy of the moment, especially in relation to the less exciting establishment candidate who also had the misfortune of being a woman, allowed them to pull off what everyone else saw as a surprise victory.

This victory inflamed the messianic fervor of the masses, which turned them into the perfectly exploitable group. All they needed was to be reminded that while they controlled the levers of power, they were still the victims of an unseen evil, and so they were still on their holy crusade. Like an invading army, they laughed at the fear of those they had once feared, mocking them for feeling “triggered” or being “snowflakes.”  This gave them a feeling of invincibility. Which made them easily exploitable.

The entire time, while the fascists pillaged the government, vastly contributed to inequality, and let their own followers die in a pandemic, their followers cheered for them.  Meanwhile, the fringe fascists kept marketing themselves, convincing the exploitable masses that they were actually victims to an even bigger enemy than they could have imagined. That every failure of their president was actually explained through a cabal of ultra-rich and demonically evil (((Jewish))) puppet masters who were using Black people, immigrants, women, queer people, and Muslims to take over and destroy their country. Some of the fringe fascists started semi-mystical movements like QAnon that exploited the increasing loneliness that was spreading like wildfire, giving a sense of community and purpose to the conservatives who had let the anger and victimhood invade them to the point of inner degradation. 

This made them even lonelier, as children stepped away from parents, spouses stepped away from spouses, entire communities split apart or turned on themselves. This, combined with the constant investigations into Trump’s behavior created a perpetual motion machine of anger, victimhood, and loneliness. This made them more extreme, more susceptible to joining hate groups, violent white nationalist marches, and communities online that inspired them to commit mass murder.

It was this cycle that allowed for Trump to maintain his voters’ and his party’s loyalty. He literally killed them through COVID and let them take the fall for January 6th. Nothing changed: he was the perpetual victim, and by extension so were they.

By the time Trump was defeated in the election and out of office, the first stage of the fascist takeover was complete. Because while the ultimate goal was to fully invade the government, our businesses, our institutions, our lives, the first phase was not what many thought it was. It wasn’t about defeating the liberal and progressive world, the Democrats, and anyone at all who believed in democracy. It was about invading the Republican Party and the minds of Republican voters. Losing the election did nothing to quell this dynamic. Just the opposite: it solidified Trump’s status as victim and their loyalty to him and the far right ideology most had now adopted.

Part 1.5

“The problem today is not just the ocean of information but its flow: it comes at us today in torrents, waves after waves…” 

Zeynep Tufekci

Although we have entered the second phase of the fascist invasion, the seeds were planted in the first.

In 2016, there was a wave of resistance to Trump’s rise. The Woman’s March. The airport protests. The March for Science. 

The outrage was everywhere. A country that was used to believing even its worst presidents at least respected the democratic system was shocked into realizing that this was all in peril. 

It seemed like every day there was a fresh horror to respond to. The Muslim ban. Family separations. Charlottesville. James Comey getting fired. The transgender military ban. The repeal of DACA. Calling to lock up his opponents. And when we thought things couldn’t get worse, COVID hit and Trump lied about it, downplayed it, and failed in his response. And when we thought that was the worst of it, he attempted a coup.

Even the things that were seemingly small relative to these endless traumas such as his “Shithole countries” comments and nonstop torrent of horrifying tweets kept the fire of outrage going.

A cycle of anger, anger, anger. Anger that was important on a certain level because it reminded us that all of this should not be acceptable.

But there was an important difference between those of us outraged from 2016 to 2020 and Trump’s followers’ anger.  Despite what many “both sides” pundits said at the time, the two forms of anger were vastly different.

The Republican voters and followers who had bought into Trump’s and the far right’s rhetoric had been fully invaded in the first stage. Their anger was messianic, holy, obsessive. These were people who would be on their deathbeds during the rise of COVID and still refusing to believe a vaccine might have saved them. Inches away from a death their president had sent them to, most held onto their unwavering belief in their holy war. It was, even then, another example of his and their victimhood.

The anti-Trump marches and voices from 2016 to 2020 were not all activists. The majority were people who had been woken up from a slumber, realizing suddenly that politics was not something they could take for granted.  Their holy war was holy in its content: fighting for innocent people, fighting for democracy, fighting for sanity.  It was not the holy war with a messianic figure.  Although many were victims, the obsessive victimhood of the fascist rise was not the narrative they had bought into.

Many also did not have the communal roots that were being built by the fascists. There were far fewer online communities, for example. 

And because they were not in the same cultish communities, most also didn’t live lives that were fully defined by their anger in the same way that was occurring to the first victims of fascism (its followers). Although they were angry, at least part of the anger was rooted in their desire to hold onto what they valued in their lives, be it comfort or simply not feeling angry anymore. 

In other words, their anger was unsustainable. It could not exist forever. It had an end date.

Part 2

“The moment mass hysteria and the resulting cynicism become the mode of the day, all healthy political instincts and the power to resist disappear. What is left is the loneliness of the politically impotent, the same who make possible the totalitarian mobilization.” 

Hannah Arendt

It is now 9 or so years since our outrage began. We have had 4 years of many people, especially young people, people of color, and the working class not feeling as if their lives have been much improved in light of growing inequality, horrific and only-beginning climate changes, mindless support for a horrific war, croneyism, and on and on. 

This is not just about an ideological disconnection: they aren’t just intellectually anti-Biden. It is psychological. The human mind, unless motivated by things like messianic fervor, is not able to handle so much negativity. So much dystopia. Especially if that mind is engaged in endless work, no breaks, worrying constantly about bills, the awareness of no safety net if they go broke, and more.

So the age of anger has passed. We have now entered the age of exhaustion and, as a result, cynicism. While some have been able to sustain their anger, the vast majority are beginning to tune out. 

In 2015, 67% of Americans were very interested in the news. Today, the number is at 49%, down almost 20%.

In 2020, 41% of Americans were hopeful about where the country was going. Today the number is at 22%. The numbers are even more striking among young people.

We are tired. We are losing hope. And all of that is making us cynical: believing that nothing can change, not only that things are bad, but that they can’t get better.

This is exactly what the fascists want. It’s not just about our overall system, although it is part of the equation: they are the only ones providing hope while the rest provide a slightly better status quo that in the big picture is really just a slower slide into things getting worse.

But the fascists are constantly amping up feelings of hopelessness too. They’re taking control of our social media platforms, they’re more present in our media, they’re now fully in control of the Republican Party and the Supreme Court, and are already realizing their fascist dreams in red states. The billionaires are going their way even more overtly than they had in the past. Infrastructure built to prevent and call out extremism is quickly getting shut down. 

While in 2016, many were hoping that they could prevent the fascist presence itself, it has become increasingly clear that it isn’t going anywhere.

All of this creates an aura of inevitably, despite the fact that the presidential election is still too close to call. Fascism is coming. Fascism is inevitable. We failed, they won.

This has been the goal for years now. Fascism isn’t inevitable, but the fascists have succeeded in taking the groundwork of cynicism and turning it into an edifice of inaction and learned helplessness.

This, as so many fascist experts, researchers, and historians have taught us, is how fascists win. The first phase is whipping up hope for their people. The second phase is breaking down hope in the rest.

The fascist invasion isn’t just political, militaristic, or infrastructural. It is psychological. They are attacking our minds. They are attacking our souls. It is this that allows them to achieve true victory and control.

The Other Part 1

“Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me."

Emily Dickinson

The irony of this kind of article is that it can inspire the same feelings it warns of. If everyone is cynical, then we lose. So the cynicism seems logical.

But the whole point is that the fascists want you to think things are hopeless precisely because things can get better. This is why they need us to feel hopeless. Because there is hope. Because things can improve. Because, at every moment, we are close to transforming all this if we can open our eyes and hearts. And, most importantly, our imaginations.

If the Democratic, semi-liberal approach has failed us, then we need to stop fishing for hope in that lake. We can and must vote to prevent the fascist invasion, but that’s like keeping the walls from crumbling as the horde starves us as it lays seige.

That isn’t hope. Hope is seeing that, understanding why it has failed, and imagining what can replace it. Not the messianic fervor of the right, but also not the calm deliberation of the establishment.

Having imagination is phase one of that transformation. The second phase is belief. Believing we can do it. Believing we have the power to do it, whoever wins the election, whatever happens next. Third is finding the people to help make it happen.

Imagination. Belief. Connection. These are what give us power. This is what they want to kill in us. This is what will get us to making hope something real.

There are fascist invasion phases. It’s now time for us to start the transformative phase.