Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy

by Adam Tooze

In the wave of collective indignation that followed, talk of coups and fascism reached its height.2 That was always a stretch, at least if one regards fascism not as an attitude, but as an articulation of social forces. The U.S. military refused to have anything to do with the Trumpists and there was no real socioeconomic antagonism motivating his movement. To see the force of that point, imagine the level of tension in the United States on January 6, 2021, if it had been Bernie Sanders whose victory the GOP was contesting. That would have been a true test of constitutional fidelity for the powers that be. Between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it wasn’t even a choice. For all the furor over the transition, in the weeks prior to January 6, America’s political class had already reached a basic compromise to stave off the actual threat of the moment—the looming collapse of the country’s fragile welfare system.