“Today’s fascists don’t look at all like those from the past. What is similar is how they act. You’ll recognize the fascist by what they do.” — Rosan Smits
Fascism is a reality in both America and Europe. At least according to Rosan Smits, the Dutch political scientist whose This Is Fascism: A Wake-Up Call to Resist is already a bestseller in Europe. Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here in 1935 as a warning about the possibility of fascism in Great Depression America. Not only does Smits argue that it can happen, but she suggests that it is happening right now.
Rather than unearthing swastikas and jackboots, she suggests that we identify what she calls the fascist methods which connect the Thirties with today. From Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to MAGA in America, that’s where history is repeating itself. What she sees is grievance manipulated into atavistic populist cults by insecure elites. If the original fascist movements were coping strategies for modernity, today’s fascism is a coping mechanism for postmodernity. Thus both its Christian nostalgia for the idea of truth and its attack on the scientific method. Thus today’s simultaneous embrace of digital tech and its attack on the promise of technological progress. So fascism is a kind of riddle. Which is why it appears both ubiquitous and invisible. It’s happening here, then, is a paradoxical reality. Which may be why some (like myself) are so skeptical.
Five Takeaways
• Not the 1930s. Every era gets its own varieties. Fascism shape-shifts, so recognize it by method, not aesthetics — a cult of grievances turned into mass politics by elites whose privileges are slipping.
• The Dutch Warning. The far-right bloc is polling around 40% and Wilders is now the moderate. The party to his right wants the Netherlands for white people only — and is energizing schoolchildren.
• A Coalition, Not a Party. Christian nationalists, the tech world and the white supremacists — aligned for now, certain to compete later. Plus Meloni, who picks her fights rather than moderating.
• Andrew’s Challenge. Never been to America, an echo chamber of her own, Orwell on the f-word, and tech fascism without names. Her return: “How would you then qualify Elon Musk?”
• What Resistance Looks Like. Don’t obey in advance. Stop scrubbing your timeline at the border, stop ditching policies you believe in — and form a wall around your neighbours, as Minneapolis did.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy This Is Fascism: theexperimentpublishing.com
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: a fascist week on Keen On
00:02:05 Not the 1930s — our own varieties
00:02:30 Does the f-word still do any work?
00:04:14 A disease, or a coping strategy for elites?
00:06:11 Not the deplorables — the educated fall in line too
00:06:56 A cult of grievances turned into mass politics
00:08:16 Is there a fascism of the left?
00:09:27 The New Apostolic Reformation and the end times
00:13:06 How much time did she spend in America?
00:14:53 Is fear of fascism its own echo chamber?
00:17:29 It Can’t Happen Here — and what would count as proof
00:18:09 The Dutch picture: Wilders as the moderate
00:20:31 Forty percent, and the party with Nazi sympathies
00:22:06 Demographics: why this far right is young
00:23:58 Anger on the left, anger on the right
00:25:45 Or is it the failure of the centre?
00:27:24 Bannon and Sanders agree — and tech fascism
00:28:47 Orwell on the abuse of the word
00:30:06 The Meloni case: does power moderate?
00:33:38 What the great replacement actually means
00:37:13 Is Trump just an out-of-touch old man?
00:39:23 Tech fascists: names, please
00:41:19 Are you doing what you accuse the right of doing?
00:42:46 Snyder, Stanley and leaving America
00:44:12 What resistance means for ordinary people
00:47:34 Scrubbed timelines and abandoned DEI
00:48:38 Canada, the EU and a new power bloc