Bigotry, that’s how. People have problems, the economy is struggling. They need a scapegoat. So someone like Hitler or Trump convince them that all their problems are caused by jews or immigrants or LGBT people or some other minority group and that everything will be fixed by getting rid of that group

Dude just look outside.

Edit: i used to have big long lectures about the psychology of it, or how it exists as a system. But now you can just look outside.

Fascist propaganda is highly effective, and no one is immune to propaganda. Humans are emotional creatures, prone to being whipped up into a frenzy. You identify a(n imaginary) threat, and offer a very simple solution to it. The logic of whether or not the solution sounds morally correct doesn’t matter because 1.) The problem is made up anyways and 2.) The propagandist is appealing to the id, not the superego.

Remember that thinking is the greatest threat to fascism, exercise your brain as often as possible.

From They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933 - 1945, in which the author Milton Mayer got to know and interviewed 10 Nazis (the mentioned “friends”) about the rise of fascism:

Because the mass movement of Nazism was nonintellectual in the beginning, when it was only practice, it had to be anti- intellectual before it could be theoretical. What Mussolini’s official philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, said of Fascism could have been better said of Nazi theory: “We think with our blood.” Expertness in thinking, exemplified by the professor, by the high- school teacher, and even by the grammar- school teacher in the village, had to deny the Nazi views of history, economics, literature, art, philosophy, politics, biology, and education itself. Thus Nazism, as it proceeded from practice to theory, had to deny expertness in thinking and then (this second process was never completed), in order to fill the vacuum, had to establish expert thinking of its own— that is, to find men of inferior or irresponsible caliber whose views conformed dishonestly or, worse yet, honestly to the Party line. The nonpolitical pastor satisfied Nazi requirements by being nonpolitical. But the nonpolitical schoolmaster was, by the very virtue of being nonpolitical, a dangerous man from the first. He himself would not rebel, nor would he, if he could help it, teach rebellion; but he could not help being dangerous— not if he went on teaching what was true. In order to be a theory and not just a practice, National Socialism required the destruction of academic independence. In the years of its rise the movement little by little brought the community’s attitude toward the teacher around from respect and envy to resentment, from trust and fear to suspicion. The development seems to have been inherent; it needed no planning and had none. As the Nazi emphasis on nonintellectual virtues (patriotism, loyalty, duty, purity, labor, simplicity, “blood,” “folk- ishness”) seeped through Germany, elevating the self- esteem of the “little man,” the academic profession was pushed from the very center to the very periphery of society. Germany was preparing to cut its own head off. By 1933 at least five of my ten friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon “intellectuals” as unreliable and, among these unreliables, upon the academics as the most insidiously situated.

Anti-intellectualism isn’t the only ingredient, but it’s one of the most important. It’s a reactionary movement that injects hate into people’s hearts in order to consolidate power for the privileged. Those “little men” who support the regime feel that they were elevated above the people whom they hate, and were often the beneficiaries of the cruel treatment and dispossession of the victims.

If you are up for a big, dense piece of 1950s social philosophy, Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism” is a classic. It covers imperialism, racism, mob violence, antisemitism, propaganda, tolerance for lies, and the development of mythologies. It’s got a lot of ideas - many of which have been challenged. It’s also excessively wordy. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the components have been around for a long time – supremacist ideologies, conspiracy theories, propaganda systems.

Any political extremism is propagated by providing easy answers to complex problems.

Lack of education : History tells us what happened and how. But, people find it boring. It is true that what it is in the past must stay in the past but it still teaches so you do not make the same mistake again.

Make one main enemy/villain/ the cause of the problem (even if it is not): The most effective trick ever. (think like you are at work, you hate one colleague, you find out that another colleague hate the same colleague. You become friend.)

Make a second enemy/villain/ the cause of the problem (even if it is not): So you diffuse more problems (safe side - figure of speech.)

As one says: Divide and conquer (always works).

BUT ALWAYS a minority as it works better. You need to please the majority.

In general people are tired of ineffective politics: so they try something new and/or it resonates with them, meaning they see that it is maybe true that the problem is the example (s) given by the fascists/nazis/neonazis etc. But, they will not check if it is true as they think the politicians know what they do. Even if, if you think about it. Anyone can be a politician, you need to know how to speak, to present yourself well, to have a vision, to know how to gather people together, to lead. The rest you delegate to more competent people who know their fields.

Once the hook works, you work with the emotions, some facts (fake or not). You slightly change the narrative so it is matching your “vision”, “ideology”. This is where, usually, you can get them as you can double-check if it is true or not. This is where you see the true journalists at work. And through asking questions.

Example: LGBTQA+ community (quite a “”“”“trend”“”“” to bash at (sarcasm)). A lot of politicians say that it is destroying the society, family, we need to protect the kids (the ultimate red flag of all) etc. One just need to ask them (politicians), the right questions. In what sense it is destroying the society? Etc, etc etc. So, you can show that what they say, their ideology is just fake, anti-human. etc. But, people do not do it or few. You can apply for each point of their speech.

(Besides, the most homophobic person is a gay in the closet. Grindr never lies!!!)

Then, control, media, press etc. You slightly divide the majority so better control.

So basically, the same pattern that history teaches.

People get frustrated by circumstances they don’t necessarily understand. Fascists give them easy targets based on lies that feed the people’s prejudice to place their blame, and introduce more and more oppressive social restrictions based on those easy targets while riling up public fears and so on.

That is how lies about immigrant and minority crime have primed the US populace to be ok with the military occupying the nation’s capital based on blatant lies about crime rates.

Look up Time Ghost’s ‘The Rise of Hitler’ series on YouTube. They’ve also done a shorter one about Mussolini.

1. Mass of people stop learning/being taught how to deal with their emotions (and frustrations).
2. Instead of being in control of their emotions (it’s ok to disagree with anyone, to no like them or not be liked by them, that doesn’t mean we should want to kill them or fear them to kill us) they let their emotions control them.
3. They elect the one (who has been pushed forward by highly educated people, mind you) that is promising them all they wish for which, more often than not, revolves around giving them more money/power and a free pass to make hell out of the life of some other group(s) of persons they have long been hating on without any mean to meaningfully hurt them.

Education, or the absence of it, is key im_v_ho.

Which is why, this kind of news should worry and trigger urgent and radical answers from any country in which this happens. I’m not US, I’m French but we have the exact same tragedy that’s unfolding here too and, beisde an few individual/isolated attempts, we have an almost exact copy of a total absence of nation-wide reaction. Everything is fine…

(How many US citizens have read the Project 2025? It’s a book (not a cheap book, sure but the PDF is officially available for free)? I’m willing to bet not that many, as most people can’t be bothered to read at all (they believe scrolling some headlines and tweets, and to have feelings and emotions, is more enough to understand and be the expert they are on absolutely any subject—which is another huge weakness that the lack of of working educative system is helping spread in the general population, one that is over-exploited by highly educated people). And they will even less so be willing to read a 900+ pages brick… even if that book may help them better understand who/what they may be about to vote for.)

Education, self-education at the very least, should be a top priority in a working democracy.

Not the whole answer, but alcohol and other drugs played a large part in the nazi regime (1).

My guess is that authoritarianism, just like drug use, is a response to depression. When you don’t (want to) realise the hurt is coming from within, instead you think the world is out to hurt you, then you want more and more control.

There’s an essay titled “Ur-Fascism” by Eco Umberto. It’s available online for free, you can Google it. It might give you some good insight on the subject. It’s mandatory reading, imo.

People really like to blame outsiders for things, and are willing to believe they both deserve and have been denied everything and can have it on demand, even against all evidence. History and all the concerns that go into policy are actually uninteresting to most voters. Why fascism seems to bubble up in some periods more than others is more of a mystery.

It’s probably a manifestation of something that made evolutionary sense when we lived in small, sovereign bands. In a lot of ways humanity is way out of it’s depth, and we’re doing remarkably well considering.

Stalin is a different beast, FYI. Russia had always been an autocracy, he just happened to be well-placed to be in charge of it’s next incarnation after the revolution.

Try reading Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. Early on, it explains how fascism comes to power, who supports it and what can done to resist it.

Well you’re in luck because all you have to do is look around because facism is taking hold as we speak