Know Your Enemy17 Tammi 2021

Did It Happen Here?

Matt and Sam take up the question that's dominating The Discourse: Is Donald Trump—and the movement he leads—fascist? To provide an answer, they turn to the rich historiography of fascism and some key essays on the subject published since Trump's election. Along the way, they break down different approaches and sets of criteria for evaluating fascism, consider the similarities—and differences—between the 1920s and '30s and today, and ponder whether or not the "fascist question" is the right one to be asking. Listen to the end to find out where Matt and Sam finally land!

Further Reading:

Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2004)

Friedrich Reck, Diary of a Man in Despair (New York Review of Books, 2013; originally published in 1947)

Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History (University of California Press, 2017)

Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America Harvard University Press, 2019

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Penguin, 2018)

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950)

George Jackson, Soledad Brother, (1970)

Robert O. Paxton, "I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now," Newsweek, Jan 11, 2021

Richard Evans, "Why Trump Isn't Fascist," New Statesman, Jan 13, 2021

Dorothy Fortenberry, "Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore" Commonweal, Nov 5, 2020

Dylan Riley, "What is Trump?" New Left Review, Dec 1, 2018

Gabriel Winant, "We Live in a Society," n + 1, Dec 12, 2020

Alberto Toscano, "The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism," Boston Review, Oct 28, 2020

Angela Davis, "Political Prisoners, Prisons and Black Liberation," Verso, Feb 21, 2018

Jairus Banaji, "The Political Culture of Fascism," Historical Materialism, Feb 19, 2017.

Richard Seymour, "Inchoate Fascism," Patreon, Nov 13, 2020.

Samuel Moyn & David Priestland, "Trump Isn’t a Threat to Our Democracy. Hysteria Is," New York Times, Aug 11, 2017

Corey Robin and David Klion, "Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism," Jewish Currents, Dec 4, 2020.

Peter Steinfels "The Semi-Fascist Candidate," Commonweal, May 16, 2016.

...and don't forget to subscribe at Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(266)

An Officer and a Spy (w/ John Ganz) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Roman Polanski's 2019 film about the Dreyfus affair, An Officer and a Spy, only recently made it's U.S. "premier,...

5 Syys 20253min

Frank Meyer, Inventor of Conservatism (w/ Daniel J. Flynn)

Devoted Know Your Enemy listeners will recall that, in November 2021, we released a fairly dense, theory-driven episode on Frank Meyer, the Communist from New Jersey whose exploits on behalf of the Pa...

28 Elo 20251h 45min

The Christian Right's "Wild Faith" (w/ Talia Lavin) [Unlocked]

This episode was first published in October 2024, and has been un-paywalled following the death this week, on August 21, of Focus on the Family founder and influential figure on the religious right, J...

23 Elo 20251h

The Minority Voters Moving Right (w/ Daniel Martinez HoSang)

A major topic following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election has been his gains with racial and ethnic minorities, a trend that's scrambled many people's assumptions about American...

18 Elo 20251h 27min

From Armageddon to Zionism — More Listener Questions [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Our mailbag runneth over! Unsurprisingly, we received so many excellent questions from subscribers for our most r...

11 Elo 20254min

Has Trump 2.0 Been a Success So Far? — And Other Questions

It's been nearly a year since we asked our subscribers to send us questions for a mailbag episode—which they did, with remarkable thoughtfulness and intelligence, for our 100th episode back in Septemb...

4 Elo 20251h 10min

Trump's Epstein Problem [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Over July 4th weekend, the Department of Justice and FBI put out a memo essentially declaring "case closed" on th...

28 Heinä 20254min

How Republics End (w/ Mike Duncan) [Unlocked]

This episode from January 2025 has been un-paywalled for your summer enjoyment...A stock rhetorical trope on the right is to invoke ancient Rome when talking about American decline—often making direct...

18 Heinä 20251h 15min