How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

by Jason F. Stanley

On January 27, 2017, the Trump Administration issued one of its first executive orders, with the title Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. It halted indefinitely the admission of refugees from the war in Syria, and placed a ban on travel into the United States by citizens of seven Muslim majority countries. It was ultimately superseded by two replacement travel prohibitions, trying to overcome obvious legal objections because banning based on religious identity is manifestly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The third version of the legislation was adjusted to include two non-Muslim majority countries, North Korea and Venezuela, on its list of “Countries of Identified Concern,” whose nationals the order bans from entry to the United States. The Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that this adjustment made the executive order consistent with the Establishment Clause (despite obviously being crafted for just this purpose). In the ensuing years, this ban on many of the world’s Muslims from entry to the United States has become normalized. It is no longer a salient topic of discussion in the U.S. media. Trump’s fascist political tactics quickly were made material in policies of explicit exclusion.