Deep VIEW
The Fascist Destruction of Legality .
Then and Now .
Federico Finchelstein Professor of History New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College
It would seem as if authoritarians and post-fascists have a long memory of previous destructions of democracy but they also want to differentiate themselves from the fascist past . And yet , they are actions present troublesome continuities .
They perform a new sort of revisionism . This reflection presents a historical perspective on the attempts of the current aspirants to fascism to subvert the legality in the name of the law . And they do so by denying the history of legality that eventually defeated and judged their predecessors . Why do populist leaders want to forgive or displace the actual history of Nazism ? Because as these leaders draw from the well of fascist ideology , rhetoric and tactics , they have to neuter the history of fascism to normalize their politics . Revising the history of fascism then renders it mythical rather than historical , presenting the fascism of the past as not that bad — or not even fascism at all . 1
Donald Trump ’ s past and ongoing attempts to use the law to subvert the law should not be taken lightly . The same goes for his escape from any legal repercussions for his actions during a failed coup in January 6th of 2021 and the dubious claims that he should be shielded from legal investigation as recently claimed by Jeffrey Toobin and before him by James Comey and many others . This failed leader escapisms from the law are harbingers of democracy ’ s demise if they go unchallenged . These attempts to escape the law threaten to stand as harbingers of democracy ’ s demise and must not go unchallenged . And they are already having global repercussions .
Across the globe , wannabe fascist leaders understand that democracy fails if the law does not apply to them . This applies to electoral results as well as the treatment of enemies .
1 See Federico Finchelstein , A Brief History of Fascist Lies ( Oakland : University of California Press , , 2020 ).
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Observing Memories Issue 5