How Fascism Begins

Finding the Secret Hitler
How Fascism Begins
Is fascism making a comeback? Or has it already returned in the form of Trump, Orbán and Putin? It isn't always easy to identify evil in real time. But it is worth a try.

By Lothar Gorris und Tobias Rapp
22.08.2024, 17.39 Uhr


(Der Spiegel) An acquaintance, whose name is unimportant for this story, once talked about this board game. He is a German who works for an Israeli company, and his colleagues invited him one day to a game evening. They game they proposed was "Secret Hitler,” the point of which is to identify Adolf Hitler and kill him before he can become chancellor of Germany. It is, the colleagues assured him, much funnier than it sounds. But the acquaintance declined. He, as a German, playing "Secret Hitler”? It seemed like a bad idea.

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"Secret Hitler” hit the market in 2016, shortly before Donald Trump was elected president in the United States. The game’s authors, a couple of guys from the progressive camp, collected $1.5 million from the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter for the project. Their goal was to introduce a bit of skepticism about the political process, apparently channeling the zeitgeist of the time: Euro crisis, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, Brexit, the refugee crisis. The public debate at the time focused on the crisis of democracy, the threat from the right and authoritarian tendencies. But fascism? Adolf Hitler?

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The reversion to fascism is a deep-seated fear of modern democratic societies. Yet while it long seemed rather unlikely and unimaginable, it has now begun to look like a serious threat. Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions in Russia. Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism in India. The election victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy. Marine Le Pen’s strategy of normalizing right-wing extremism in France. Javier Milei’s victory in Argentina. Viktor Orbán’s autocratic domination of Hungary. The comebacks of the far-right FPÖ party in Austria and of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. Germany’s AfD. Nayib Bukele’s autocratic regime in El Salvador, which is largely under the radar despite being astoundingly single-minded, even using the threat of armed violence to push laws through parliament. Then there is the possibility of a second Trump administration, with fears that he could go even farther in a second term than he did during his first. And the attacks on migrant hostels in Britain. The neo-Nazi demonstration in Bautzen. The pandemic. The war in Ukraine. The inflation.

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The article has aged well. Its characterization of Trump as a "strongman.” It’s description of his deft use of fear, hatred and anger. "This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes,” Kagan wrote, "but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into’ popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party – out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear – falling into line behind him.” ...............(more)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/finding-the-secret-hitler-how-fascism-begins-a-32c1f376-0086-45b3-bab9-357347795551