“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest — forces that look like sheer insanity” - Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (Preface-1950)
What are the signs that your country is heading towards a dictatorship or fascism? As it turns out, many political experts and historians have explored this question in great depth for us since the end of the second world war.
From Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, here is the recipe, in increasing order of heinousness:
Promise to make the nation great and prosperous by appealing to the nostalgia of a mythical time that never existed. For example: “Make My Country Great Again”. (Please ask yourself: When was my country ever good for its indigenous people? Was my country ever good for people of colour? Was my country ever good for the poor and disadvantaged?)
Promise jobs for everyone
Promise freedom from want
Create a scapegoat to blame. The scapegoat could be so-called illegal Latino immigrants. In Nazi Germany as we all know, it was the Jews, the disabled, gays, and Roma.
Convince all other minorities that they have a higher status than the scapegoat. This is temporary, because once you’ve gotten rid of one scapegoat, the leader needs a new scapegoat to blame for all the things he still cannot fix. So, there is a hierarchy of scapegoating
Create a party of your friends, (or surround yourself with loyalists), who are only your friends because you have promised them power in exchange for loyalty.
Set up shop immediately, even if it means you have to create shadow ministries headed by your loyalists that seem to mimic the current ones so that no one notices how you are disabling legitimate government
Muzzle the press
Restrict discussion and freedom of speech
Extinguish individual identity in favour of conformance and compliance
Deport the scapegoat (or murder them)
Jail and/or kill your opponents, personal enemies, and critics
What will we do if such a reality unfolds? Is it unfolding now?
John Stuart Mill said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men…look on and do nothing.”1 It is better known as the quote, falsely attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Some might argue that many good people have recently done what they thought was enough. Democracy must be defended every day, not just when we head to the polling booth. It is my duty to ensure I remember this and that my government representatives, at all levels, do too.
For more about the politics of fascism and the importance of freedom, check out the historian Timothy Snyder’s Substack and futurist Jesse Hirsh’s Substack. Another voice I greatly respect is Michael Shermer’s.
There is an annotated copy of The Origins of Totalitarianism at archive.org.
John Stuart Mill, who delivered an 1867 inaugural address at the University of St. Andrews, U.K. stated: “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” Source: https://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html .