![]() ![]() Jonathan Zatlin: If you look at the interwar period, there’s no question that the civil service-especially in Germany, where democracy was linked to economic crises and the defeat of the War-was opposed to democracy. BU Today: Some observers argue that local Republican officials and Republican judges thwarted Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, so we aren’t headed for autocracy. If there is any kind of similarity with the interwar period, it’s that you have conservatives willing to collaborate for political reasons with people who are often violent and racist and antidemocratic. And the Republican Party is in danger of becoming the party of violence, antidemocracy, and racism. ![]() But there’s no question that they’re violent antidemocrats who are also violently racist. Almost all January 6 insurrectionists-I wouldn’t call fascists, because fascists are people who were involved in the interwar period. ![]() If you think about Rosa Parks defying bad law, there’s nothing violent about that. There’s a libertarian strand of American politics, going back to 1776, that is used to interpret January 6 as a moment of positive antiauthoritarianism. Simply because you think violence is good, and you think racism is good, doesn’t make you a fascist. It’s not clear to me that you can call them fascists, since fascism was a historical phenomenon. It is an attempt to resurrect those responses in the interwar period to democratic and liberal rule. What you see today, what Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are saying, is completely unoriginal. That, plus weak democratic traditions, led many Europeans to conclude that democracy brought crisis and poverty, and that only authoritarian regimes could ensure prosperity and stability.įascism was a response to long-term trends and what was going on after 1918. And we don’t have a four-year-long war that killed millions and traumatized a whole generation of young people who found it hard to be integrated back into society and work 9-to-5 jobs, then later experienced mass employment and a Depression lasting years. What we’ve been experiencing the last couple of years are just very different situations. If we’re experiencing crises, they’re crises that only superficially resemble what was going on in the interwar period: high inflation, the pandemic the Spanish flu. Jonathan Zatlin: From the historian’s perspective, fascism was a response to problems after 1918-the collapse of multiethnic empires, economic crises-that we don’t have today. Q &A With Jonathan Zatlin BU Today: Could the Republican Party be described as either fascist or fascist-leaning? Frum noted the insurrection itself, while Kilgore detected such parallels to interwar fascism as a “foundational” lie (Nazi claims about German sellouts after World War I, Trump supporters’ claims about election theft) and alliances with “reactionary religious interests and radical elements among the police and military veterans.” The concern predates the RNC’s endorsement of violence. Bush speechwriter David Frum and Democratic journalist Ed Kilgore among them-agree that the Trump-appeasing GOP is akin to the European fascists who rose to power between the two world wars. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank dropped the f-word after the Republican National Committee (RNC) on February 4 declared the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol “legitimate political discourse.” The RNC also censured US Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for serving on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack. ![]() More accurate words exist for such a person. “To call a person who endorses violence against the duly elected government a ‘Republican’ is itself Orwellian. ![]()
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