The U.S. can learn from other countries’ encounters with fascism
American voters still have time to heed the warnings from abroad.
The mainstream media — spurred by the disturbing outpouring of racism at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden — has finally zeroed in on the stakes of this election: the preservation of our democracy against a fascist threat. (As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat pointed out: “He knows that everyone watching and attending knows that he is reenacting a Nazi show.”)
As retired general and former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly confirmed for the New York Times, Trump certainly meets the definition of a fascist: “It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.” The public has begun to catch on. (ABC News reports that half the country views Trump as a fascist.)
Fortunately, voters have time to heed the warnings, but only if they do not avert their eyes, minimize the danger or feign indifference to an existential threat to democracy. With fascism knocking at the door, Americans would do well to look at examples from around the world where democracies fell under the spell of similar movements. “They will slowly but surely undermine the very institutions meant to limit their power. And without a concerted effort, many in business and media will bend the knee,” former Russian dissident and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who now helps lead the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), tells me. “We saw this happen fairly quickly in Russia.”
Moreover, the anticipatory response among U.S. business leaders to a possible Trump election worries Kasparov. “What’s truly shocking is that we are seeing it happen in America preemptively,” he says. Elites imagine “they can bargain with the dictator. But the dictator’s personal interest always wins out.” He adds: “They think they can buy the dictator. But there’s always a higher bidder. They think they can learn to live with the dictator. But there are no patterns of behavior to study. Just arbitrary abuse.”
A constant theme running through international examples, as historian Timothy Snyder put it in his book “On Tyranny,” is a fatal error: giving up without a fight, in particular self-censoring. “Do not obey in advance,” he began his first chapter. “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.”
Félix Maradiaga, an RDI senior fellow from Nicaragua and a member of its Frontlines of Freedom dissident program, tells me, “I’ve seen firsthand how democracy can collapse, and it is never unthinkable. One troubling sign I recognize is when institutions, like the press, fail to challenge autocratic advances.” He stresses, “Such tolerance is dangerous — it’s often the first step in the erosion of freedoms that we all value.”
Evan Mawarire, a Zimbabwean pastor and member of the Frontlines of Freedom network, has a similar warning. “Fascists see guardrails as something to co-opt for their own use,” he tells me. “They don’t deny them, they co-opt them and use them as a cover to legitimate power. This is how many people are hoodwinked into thinking a fascist is a defender of democracy.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum echoes this warning. She tells me: “In Hungary, newspapers were not destroyed by censorship, but rather by government pressure and threats to owners and advertisers. It’s now very easy to see how that could happen here.” Self-censorship is especially dangerous, because the regime can maintain deniability. The regime is all too happy to declare: “Not us! We didn’t demand obedience.” Thus, the regime attains control without the blowback to infringement of speech.
Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime in Venezuela, Freedom House reports, has become expert in promoting “preemptive censorship among reporters” when it is the media executives “who exert pressure on their reporters’ coverage for fear of closure or reprisals.” Soon, ordinary citizens do the same. (“Amid the growing number of arbitrary arrests for messages on social networks and messaging platforms like TikTok and WhatsApp, journalists and ordinary citizens increasingly engaged in self-censorship.”)
We have seen the same phenomenon in India. The Post reported in 2023 on censorship concerns faced by streaming services including Netflix and Prime Video. (Post owner Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon, which owns Prime Video.) “One director who has worked with Netflix and Prime Video said streaming companies didn’t just fear antagonizing the Modi government. They were even more concerned about its right-wing supporters, who might launch mass campaigns calling for boycotts and arrests,” The Post wrote, quoting the director: “What the government has done very smartly is they effectively say, ‘You self-censor stuff.’ There is a gun to your head because at any point of time, it’s so easy to mobilize a bunch of people.”
In sum, Trump has demonstrated increasing candor in displaying his fascist viewpoints. That should prompt Americans, especially media outlets, to be even more cognizant of international cases in which even the possibility of disfavor or financial loss prompts critics to silence themselves. Those with the resources to withstand pressure or financial loss have a special obligation to set the example.
The formula for preserving democracy is simple: Resist, expose and denounce authoritarian moves. Do not allow financial interests to make you complicit in repression. Moreover, resist when these trends first appear to stop aspiring autocrats before they take power. Once in power, they are difficult to dislodge.
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's "Green Room."
