between worlds

America’s flirtation with Fascism In 1934 the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky said that in times of social crisis “Fascism unites and arms the scattered masses. Out of human dust it organises combat detachments”.  There was plenty of evidence of human dust at the Capitol on Wednesday.   America is more broken and divided now than it has been for a long time.  But it has always been fairly broken and divided.  Trump was propelled to power by years of economic turbulence, increasing inequality and by racist voters who couldn’t stomach a person of colour in the Whitehouse.  Trump used the racist cesspit of right-wing US politics as his ticket to power.  Perhaps not all Trump supporters are racists.  Many are, and at the core of his support, at the heart of his base are actual card-carrying fascists.  Some of them marched through Charlottesville early in his presidency chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’.  Some of them followed orders to ‘...