There’s an often-repeated historical anecdote about Benjamin Franklin: As the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was wrapping up, crowds gathered on the steps of Independence Hall. A woman asked Franklin what sort of government the founders had crafted. His response has lasted centuries, “a republic, if you can keep it.”
We have now reached the stage where it isn’t just that Republicans fail to rebuke Trump and are frightened into silence by fear of the base; it’s that a critical mass of the Republican Party has adopted Trump’s disordered personality for its own. The Republican Party is, in this iteration, a danger to American democracy.
American democracy has been an evolving institution since its inception. It has survived many challenges to its continued existence, from early party politics to the Civil War. But the 21st century presents a challenge that we may not be prepared to weather — the rise of modern fascism. Over the last decade, as a country we have witnessed a far-right movement spring forth and take the reins of the Republican Party. Over the last few years, it has evolved from a party of good-faith conservative opposition to a genuine danger to democracy.
Americans have always liked to believe that they’re immune to fascism. Novelist Sinclair Lewis responded to this belief in his aptly titled 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here.” The novel describes an alternate universe where a populist wins the 1936 presidential election on a platform of restoring the country to greatness, traditional American values, and by presenting himself as a champion of the forgotten man.
If any of that sounds familiar to you, it should; it’s effectively Trump’s campaign playbook.
The similarities between the rise of Trump’s brand of fascism and other fascist movements — Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain — are striking. Those ringing the alarm bells are often besmirched as alarmists, but they are right to do so. There’s a fire inside the house, and if we don’t address it, we will all burn.
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