More people voted in 2024 than ever before in human
history. Approximately two billion people globally were
eligible to vote, and vote they did. However, around the
world, the trend of democratic backsliding
continued, with many liberal incumbent
candidates losing votes. As a society, we are
regressing, and we can never improve our
situation unless we take on progressive
policy.

This growing trend is fundamentally
related to fascism, but the two are
still distinct issues. To paraphrase
Robert Paxton’s thesis in his book
“The Anatomy of Fascism,” fascism
is the politics of emotion, making
it fundamentally different from
other ideologies such as liberalism
or conservatism, which are based on
logical principles and ideals. Fascism
makes reasonable people unreasonable,
logical people illogical, and tolerant people
hateful. Fascism arises during times of
political instability and historically has
been pushed forward by conservative elites
in an attempt to save themselves. There is
an inherent othering of minorities under
fascism, which is not unique to fascism but
certainly an important part of all authoritarian
regimes. 

> "Fascism makes
reasonable people
unreasonable,
logical people
illogical, and
tolerant people
hateful."


But although fascism excludes some groups
of people, it also puts others in the limelight.
“You matter,” fascism says. “You are important,
and you must be a patriotic part of our perfect
community. But some people want to take our
beautiful community away from us.” Now, the
final blow: “All of these people hate your way of life and want to destroy it. Therefore, we must destroy them
first.” People want to feel like they matter. People want to
be a part of the group, a part of the righteous force fighting
against evil. Fascism promises that, and more.

There are many characteristics of
fascism in President-elect Donald Trump’s
campaign. Trump is a conservative elite,
and his campaign is supported by many
others who share the same background.
The mainstream Republican
party has become a cult
of personality centered
around Trump; to them,
what he says is law.
Criticism is forbidden,
and only the most fanatic
advocates will be supported.
How did this happen? Trump
is supported by like-minded
upper-class conservatives who
wish to protect their place in the world.
And he certainly helped the upper class
in return — through tax cuts, pardons,
rolling back environmental and worker
protections — all letting them increase their
bottom line by that much more.

The groups targeted by Trump are
too many to name, but for an extremely
pertinent example, just look to his rhetoric on
immigration, and his classification of a specific
group of people as an “other,” then pushing
policies for their deportation and detention.
Somehow even more blatantly than this, one
can simply look at his treatment of women.
Rape, sexual assault, and prostitution charges
follow him, and recordings of his lascivious and obscene tendencies abound. Given all of this, we then have
to ask why we allowed this to happen. How could we, as
the people who should hold freedom and equality above
all else, who live in a nation founded on those ideals to
escape the rule of a tyrannical king, elect a candidate who
doesn’t even pretend to follow our ideals?

To understand this phenomenon, we must examine
why someone would support policies which hurt them,
candidates who hate them, and parties which oppress them.
The answer? When they think that the policies
will actually support them, that the candidates
care for them, and that the party loves them.
Through the narrative of othering, conspiracy
theorists claim that immigrants are taking
your jobs, that Jews control the weather with
space lasers, or that deep-state elites are eating
babies. It is easier for most people to believe
the right when it gives people the supposed
cause of their problems, before telling them
that only they can fix them. But the supposed
causes are never the real causes, and the right doesn’t try
to fix the problems anyways.

So where does this leave us? What can we do to fight
the rising tide of injustice? We, as students, cannot do all
that much. However, this doesn’t mean that we cannot do
anything. We can be informed: know what is happening
in the world and know what policies actually mean and
what their effects will be. The second thing that we can do
is call out injustice, to notice the hatred and bigotry in the
world and speak out against it. It is not enough to simply
be against fascism. Many people were against the Nazi
party in Germany, yet it still came to power. We, as the
next generation, must take it upon ourselves to preserve
the mantle of democracy and equality and must endeavor
to push those ideals forward. If we simply stand by and do
nothing in the face of tyrants, we are surely lost. 

Alexi Meyers's Work