The global slide into fascism

One of the questions that bugged students for years when they first learned about Nazi Germany and Hitler's rise to power was: How? How did Germany, a nation world-renowned for its scientists, philosophers, musicians, and artists, slide into Nazism? How did the populace of Germany stand idly by or tacitly support the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party? And could such a thing happen again?

The second half of the second decade of the twenty-first century has been an object lesson for us all. Now we are much closer to understanding what happened eighty years ago - because we're watching it happen again, all over the world.

This is another thing that future historians are going to try to puzzle out. They will be viewing these years from a privileged position, but will also be getting their information in fragments, seeing only those bits that survived, or those that can be extracted from the great data midden. Their position will also be prejudiced, informed and distorted by whatever happens between now and then. Good luck with that.

All over the world, democracies are voluntarily transforming themselves into authoritarian regimes. The United States of America went from being a nation that overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama - twice - to a nation that allowed Donald Trump access to the White House through an Electoral College victory and popular vote loss. The United Kingdom elected to leave the European Union through the "Brexit" vote - the consequences of which many voters did not even try to understand until after the results were announced. All across Europe and elsewhere, strongmen are rising to power through demagoguery. The trend seems to be gaining momentum.

(In the United States, the Republican Party - which once proudly called itself the "Party of Lincoln," but has now devolved into the Party of Trump - has settled on a new boogieman: ANTIFA, or AntiFa, a contraction of "anti-fascism" or "anti-fascists" - which, depending on who you ask, is either a violent and dangerous mob dedicated to destroying all that is good and true, or a catch-all term for any group or individual that stands against neo-Nazis, white nationalists, "Proud Boys," the tiki torch brigade, and other fascist groups that have allied themselves with the Party of Trump, and Donald Trump in particular.)

Is it zeitgeist (the German term for "spirit of the time," literally "time ghost," which I find so much cooler) - a sort of global unspoken mutual agreement that the time of democracy is over, and a new era of strongmen and authoritarian regimes is upon us, and something to be embraced? Is some master manipulator (*cough*Vladimir Putin*cough*) pulling strings and swaying public opinion through a relentless and sophisticated campaign run through social media, but ready to be backed up with military action? Or is something else going on, something no one even suspects yet?

I don't know. I don't know if anyone does. So for the time being, some of us will continue to stand for democracy and against fascism, and others will continue to do their best to suppress voter participation and embrace strongmen and authoritarianism.

Which side will win?

That remains to be seen.