[View here as a Twitter thread]
For example, fascists seek to undermine the legitimacy of mainstream media and universities by demanding equal time for absurd ideas. (Info from @jasonintrator ’s book unless otherwise noted.)
All ideas from Jason Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works, unless otherwise noted.
[By liberal democracy I mean representative government in which leaders are constrained by rule of law and citizens have maximum liberty.] [By fascist, I mean one who seeks to destroy liberal democracy and replace it with a cult of leadership—i.e. what the leader says is true.
1/Here’s how it works: First the fascist states a conspiracy theory or fact he KNOWS isn’t true. Profs Hahl, Kim & Sivan explain why lies are treated as truth, even by people who know they’re lies. osf.io/preprints/soca… The article begins by defining a “crisis of legitimacy.”
2/ This occurs when a group doesn’t think the government governs on their behalf—which generally happens when a group believes the government favors new social groups over them (the “real” people). Put another way“Ethnic majorities rarely give up their status without a fight.” (From How Democracies Die)
3/ When a demagogue (fascist) lies in an attempt to shatter the political establishment (which his followers don’t think is legitimate) they think he’s “authentic” and telling a certain kind of truth—even they know he’s literally lying.
4/ This is what Sarah Huckabee meant when she said, “The lie is pointing out an important truth.” twitter.com/ddale8/status/… Example: “Obama was born in Africa” isn’t literally true, but it gets to what Trump’s followers see as true: Obama is black, so he isn’t a “real” American.
5/ Fascists put forward absurd ideas (for example, “scientific racism”) and demand equal time. If liberals refuse to give their ideas a platform, they denounce the liberals as hypocrits: “Liberals SAY they are open-minded, but they shut out any ideas they don’t like.”
6/ If mainstream media or universities DO give airtime, the fascists also win because they force everyone to treat a fiction like fact, which undermines factuality and delegitimizes liberal universities and mainstream media. Russian State TV (RT) illustrates how this works.
7/ The RT motto is “Question More” and they put forward a range of ideas, from neo-Nazi to the far left. The result is that “objective truth is drowned out in the multitude of voices.” For democracy to work, people must have a shared reality and agree on what is factual.
8/ RT “destabalizes the kind of shared reality” necessary for democracy. Thus the ploy of putting forward absurd conspiracy theories is a win-win. Fascist win if the liberals refuse to give it airtime because they can then denounce the liberals as biased and hypocritical.
9/ They also win if fiction is given equal time with facts. The endgame is to undermine factuality by delegitimizing universities and mainstream media. When factuality is undermined—when nobody can figure out the truth—people resort to tribalism.
10/ As Yale professor Timothy Snyder put it, people end up thinking: “We can never know the truth. All politicians lie. We prefer our lies to the enemy lies. Trump is a liar, but he’s OUR liar. HRC (or whoever) is the enemy liar.” It’s the ultimate in skepticism and relativism.
11/ People, perplexed by Trump’s blatant lies, ask, “how can he . . .?!!” twitter.com/BetseyStevenso… Remember: His followers don’t care if the claim is literally true because it points to what they see as an underlying truth: Trump is rescuing the country from diversity.
12/ Yes, diversity (think Obama) is the enemy Trump the savior. twitter.com/JackSmithIV/st… The confusion (“But how can he blatantly lie?!”) comes from evaluating Trump as a democratic president. His behavior makes sense when you see him as a natural fascist (Putin picked well).
13/ The solution: universities, reporters, and anyone interested in maintaining democracy must filter out absurd factually incorrect ideas and not give them airtime. “The marketplace of ideas” and liberal open-mindedness assumes people aren’t deliberately subverting factuality.
