Oldie but Goodie

 This Scalzi post from March 2021 is well worth reading:

Definition nerds will quibble about whether America’s long-standing authoritarian, anti-democratic impulses qualify as true fascism, but two things here. One: If it quacks like a duck, etc. Two, let us recall that when actual no-shit fascists were looking at ways to codify their power and to demonize their enemies, including and specifically the Jews, where did they look for useful examples? 

A very thoughtful piece, as is usual with Scalzi.

 

ETA: This comment, early in the comment stream, is also good:

The first female president of the American Political Science Association said something similar in 1991, arguing “the American experiment” was actually two experiments simultaneously running on parallel tracks, one in democracy, the other in tyranny. Eventually democracy prevailed and banished tyranny, which has always proven the more brittle system due to its manifold injustices. But ideas don’t die, and circumstances change, bringing bad old ideas back to the surface refurbished in new packaging…