Stairway To Fascism

The devils greatest trick was convincing the world that he does not exist. Fascism's greatest trick is convincing people that it will never happen again. Or, at the very least, not here. Not in my home country. Not in my home state. Not in my home town etc. etc. 

We’d all certainly like to think that our neighbors could never be Nazis. But, the fact of the matter is that given the right circumstances and a pretty enough speech, history tells us some of them certainly would be. Unless you somehow believe that the German people were so very different than us before Hitler's arrival that Americans would have been immune to his charms. 

No, Germany was just like America and Iran and every country in between. Full of incredible and horrible people. The toolbox of a fascist is not designed to create more horrible people. Its designed to convince the good people that morals must be set aside just for the moment to assess some greater problem.

The first step to fascism is the oversimplification of problems. The economy is not struggling because of a complicated series of socio-economic decisions made across decades, or an imbalance in the budget and overspending on luxuries. No, the economy is struggling because we spend too much money on our poor and broken. Not to mention all these outsiders coming to leech of our wealth that you were just told we don’t have. 

The oversimplification of problems allows for the oversimplification of solutions. If you look at it in terms of a math equation, all Hitler did was take a scrawling mess of complicated calculus and simplify it for his public. The messy stuff in the middle didn’t matter. All the people needed to know was: Problem=Jews and vagrants, solution=me. If you can do that. If you can convince the people that they are in danger and you are the way out….Let's just say it has a funny way of bypassing otherwise reasonable peoples better judgment. 

The first step of fascism is all about telling people what to believe. The second step is, fittingly enough, all about telling them what not to believe. Namely, anything bad about you. This should be fairly easy. After all, you’ve already convinced them you are a god chosen cure for their plight. Any god will work, really. Just pick the religion with the biggest numbers in your country and play to their tastes. 

The press must be eliminated. In certain cultures, this can be done outright. If the people have enough faith in their leader, he can just have his government goons roll in and burn down printing presses and the people will cheer in the streets. However, in cultures such as Germany and America, this must be done in a more round about way.

You see, people in democratic societies believe that the press is important and stands between the people and government corruption. So, all a fascist needs to do is convince them that it's the media who's been corrupted. While you're doing this, you must make it very clear that you don’t hate all media. Simply the ones who spread lies about you.

After all, you are the face of your nation. So, any enemy of yours is by proxy and enemy of your nation's greatness. Assure the nation that you do not want the press destroyed, you simply want them honest. You can then draw the line of logic that since you are good, anyone who says you are bad is dishonest and if your base is loyal enough bippity boppity boop, you have yourself a delegitimized press, my friend! 

Now the nations really in the palm of your hand. All that's left to do is isolate yourself from the outside world. The less your people know about the rest of planet earth, the easier it is for them to believe that they live in a lone utopia, surrounded by third world sh*t holes and fascist psychos. This allows them to be even more grateful to live in the great nation you have given them. 

Whatever your ambition is now, the people are willing pawns to it. Lock yourself away in your own little nation of toys like Kim Jong Un, or start a conquest like Hitler. They’ll kill if you ask them. Die if you ask them. Believe what you want them to believe, and hate who you want them to hate. Any voice who opposes you will find themselves alone.

Some will follow you because they believe in you. Others because they fear you. And others still because they want to attach themselves to your influence to achieve status. But who cares why? The point is that you’ve done it, You're a fascist. And it all happened so gradually.