Here's a thing I think most white Americans don't understand: Fascism usually wins.

We take as our model Hitler's Germany, as evidence that Fascism was defeated. But like. Hitler's Germany is a really bad example because honestly, if it weren't for Hitler's expansionism his government probably would have survived

Mussolini was in power for decades and it was only his alliance with Hitler and the incompetence of the Italian military in the face of global war that allowed for his permanent removal.

But if we're gonna look at non-expansionist Fascists, Fascists who were able to work within the confines of global norms, we see leaders like Franco, Salazar, Juan Perón, Pinochet, etc. lasting a long, long time

Fascism requires the normalization of emergency which is depressingly easy to do. People lived lives we'd recognize as "normal" under Franco. Hitler's Germany launched itself into war but before that, people lived "normal" lives.

We seem to think that Fascism is all jackboots and war but really, mostly, it's not.

Honestly, it's pretty similar to how we've been living in the US

Some of us can ignore it
Some of us live on the margins between ignoring it and addressing it
Some of us are just now being targeted
Some of us have been targeted forever

For every Hitler there's a Mussolini--a buffoonish caricature who is so easy to laugh at, so easy to mock, that it's simple to ignore the fact he's been in power for almost two decades now and fascism has been deeply entrenched in the national psyche

For every Hitler there's a Franco--who survives by playing the line between what is acceptable state terror and what is unacceptable; by giving the vaguest reassurances that he has loosened his hold and then laughing at everyone who believed him