How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

by Jason F. Stanley

The far-right American radio host Rush Limbaugh has, on his popular radio show, denounced “the four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That’s how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.”10 Limbaugh, here, provides a perfect example of how fascist politics targets expertise, mocking and devaluing it. In liberal democracy, political leaders are supposed to consult with those they represent, as well as with experts and scientists who can most accurately explain the demands of reality on policy. Fascist leaders are instead “men of action” with no use for consultation or deliberation. In his 1941 essay “The Rebirth of European Man,” the French fascist Pierre Drieu la Rochelle writes, “It is a type of man who rejects culture….It is a man who does not believe in ideas, and hence rejects doctrines. It is a man who only believes in acts and carries out these acts in line with a nebulous myth.”11 Once universities and experts have been delegitimized, fascist politicians are free to create their own realities, shaped by their own individual will. Limbaugh has been attacking science for many years, proclaiming that “science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists.” In the current moment in U.S. politics, when climate science is mocked and derided by Trump and his administration, we see the triumph of the disparagement of scientific expertise.