Editor’s note: Bookish Bits is a regular literary writing column on Can’t You Read. Featuring both traditional book reviews, and expanded essays, this book blog encompasses all of my writing about the volumes in my extensive library.
Birdwatching With Liberal Antifascism: A Review of “How Fascism Works: the Politics of Us and Them” by Jason Stanley.
If you've been reading my anti-fascist analysis long enough, you'll know that I'm often quite critical of the imagined efforts of "liberal antifascists" in the Pig Empire. This is in part because foundationally, it's awfully hard to be an effective antifascist without also being an anticapitalist. It has also been my experience however that affluent liberals in positions of actual power are often far less interested in fighting fascists, than protecting their own wealth; if forced to choose between the two, they will quickly abandon all pretenses at opposing the fascist creep and side with hierarchal capitalist power to the bitter end. There is after all a reason I refer to this as our collective "Weimar America" period.
How then are we to approach an intelligent, well-read, genuinely sincere liberal antifascist? Even more perplexing, what does a reasonable observer do when this sincere liberal antifascist has produced what amounts to a fantastic birdwatching guide that allows even small children to recognize fascist politics in action, but offers up only vaguely reformist solutions that flatly will not stop the fascist creep? In short, how do we address a book like Jason Stanley's 2018 work "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them?" In the end, I've decided that the only honest way forward is to critique what Stanley's book is, rather than focus on what it is not.
So what is it? Expressed simply, How Fascism Works is a collection and analysis of ten objectively fascist political tactics being used to seize control by contemporary far right, ultranationalist movements across the Pig Empire. A study of both rhetoric and process, the author's work isn't about fascist governments, so much as the political movements that put them in power. Although Stanley does spend some time discussing twentieth-century fascist regimes like the Nazis in Germany, or Mussolini's fascist Italy, his focus is very much in the here and now, along with the type of reactionary, eliminationist politics that empowered leaders such as Narendra Modi in India, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and of course Donald Trump in America.
Just what are these fascist political techniques? Stanley identifies them as a call to a "mythic past," inverted reactionary "propaganda," fervent "anti-intellectualism," the enforcement of "unreality," insistence on the existence of a natural "hierarchy," imagined "victimhood," rigid enforcement of authoritarian "law and order," manipulation of "sexual anxiety," casting internal lifestyle differences in the mold of "Sodom and Gomorrah," and otherized presumptions about work ethic and productive value to society. Although each of these pillars are individually present in all types of reactionary politics across the Pig Empire; taken together, they represent clear evidence of a fascist movement in progress - which is the best time to identify fascism; since once it's no longer a fascist movement, but rather a fascist regime, it's far too late to stop it.
Within the narrow, but still relevant confines of studying fascist political practices on the path to power in a faux liberal democracy, I'd have to say How Fascism Works is a smashing success. Drawing heavily from thinkers like Eco, Adorno, and Arendt, Stanley's analysis highlights not only the practices of fascist politicians, but also why they're so effective in convincing the classic "authoritarian personality" type to surrender all autonomy, and indeed rational thought, to fascist charlatans and strongmen. In this regard, Stanley's book might more accurately be called "How Fascism Works (on bootlickers, to dismantle capitalist faux democracies)" instead. Still, for folks primarily concerned with the practical realities of identifying modern fascist movements, and unwinding their poisonous political arguments, How Fascism Works will definitely deliver the goods.
Which unfortunately brings us to the pushback against Stanley's work, and why How Fascism Works is simultaneously a valuable resource, and a dangerous diversion from effective antifascist practices. While many reactionary observers have criticized Stanley for failing to define what fascism is; I don't think that critique is accurate or in good faith. Stanley does define fascism in a purely political context; wingers simply don't like that his definition accurately describes their current political practices. The author clearly states he's not talking about the policies of established regimes, or even the ideology of fascist movements, but rather their methods of acquiring power; you can't crush a guy for failing to write the book you would have preferred to read, and I don't give two wet horse apples whether or not American fascists dislike a Yale professor calling them, well, fascists.
Perhaps more surprisingly however, How Fascism Works has also drawn criticism from some antifascists; particularly those like myself, who largely agree with Trotsky's analysis about what fascism really is, and why it is unleashed by the ruling classes in a liberal democratic society that appears more free than it is. There is literally no anticapitalist component to either Stanley's analysis, or his wholly inadequate proposed solutions; which more or less boil down to "liberal politicians need to be better true liberals and we all need to vote harder to protect our democratic institutions." The end result is in effect a wonderful book about types of nazi birds, and the modern habits of those birds, without much discussion of why the birds are there and what to do if they're trying to kill you for capitalists and hierarchal power.
Does that ultimately matter? Well, that depends on what you want a book like How Fascism Works to accomplish. In light of its widespread popularity, I would say it has been an effective part of the mainstream discourse that has finally at this late a date, allowed liberals to accurately describe the American right's current evolution as fascist; albeit, tepidly so. By that same measure, Stanley's insistence that the liberal democratic order that birthed this fascist movement is the only answer to the problem, probably hasn't helped many of those people become effective antifascists; as evidenced by the fact that Joe Biden has been president for almost two years, and American fascism is still growing politically stronger by the day.
In the final analysis, all of this makes Stanley's How Fascism Works a wonderfully written, extremely informative "birdwatching" book for liberals who'd like to be antifascists, but don't know how to spot and resist the fascist propaganda all around them. If you're looking for an accessible way to get your Dem-voting Auntie who really misses the quiet dignity of bygone liberal politicians like Bobby Kennedy, or John Lewis, onside in the war against contemporary fascism, this is probably the book you want to buy for her. If on the other hand you're looking for a deep theory discussion about why capitalist societies are always capable of turning fascist at any moment, and how we can stamp out the serpent of violent reaction forever; this book doesn't have a whole lot to offer you.
On the basis that you can't punish a book for failing to be something it never promised you in the first place, I'm going to give How Fascism Works three and a half stars. Although I acknowledge that Stanley's work here is excellent, his ideological concessions to capitalist realism make it impossible to call this great antifascist scholarship. Plus I felt obligated to dock him a half star for excessive West Wing-esque rhapsodizing about liberal democratic institutions that can't stop fascism; because they were designed by, and are controlled by, reactionary capitalists who prefer fascism to sharing.
nina illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
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