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The debate about what fascism is—and whether America is standing on its precipice—is not merely an academic argument. It guides how many people vote, and even how they think about their neighbors. This debate has been active since 2015 in many political corners of the country, including the left, where liberals, socialists, and everything in between have squabbled over these questions.
For readers not of the left, this debate may come as a surprise, given the narrative dominance enjoyed by corporate liberal outlets, which all seem to agree that fascism is indeed happening here. Seeking to convey the broad strokes of this discussion is a new anthology, Did It Happen Here?, edited by the Wesleyan historian Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins. The collected volume’s title, a play on Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here, brings together several academic voices to debate whether fascism has, can, or will come to America’s shores.
For the contributors who believe that fascism is indeed here or on its way, the modern populist right and similar movements overseas are fascistic because their political vision hinges on racial hierarchy, nativism, national renewal, authoritarianism, and a disdain for majority rule, all to be enforced by violence and intimidation. Several of these writers argue that America’s history of nativism and racial violence was itself a form of proto-fascism, a history they claim is being resurrected by a new anti-democratic right.