Nautica Western’s Reviews > How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them > Status Update

“Rectifying unjust inequalities will always bring pain to those who benefited from such injustices. This pain will inevitably be experienced by some as oppression.”

“Even those who demonstrably do not benefit from hierarchies can be made to believe they do; hence the use of racism to ensnare poor white citizens in the United Staes into supporting tax cuts for extravagantly wealthy whites who happen to share their skin color.”

“Once a public accepts the comfort of conspiracy thinking as an explanation for irrational fears and resentments, its members will cease to be guided by reason in political deliberation.”

“What convinces masses are not facts, and but even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”

“These conspiracy theories are effective nevertheless because they provide simple explanations for otherwise irrational emotions, such as resentment or xenophobic fear in the face of perceived threats.”

“By representing this nation’s past as one with a patriarchal family structure, fascist politics connects nostalgia to a central organizing hierarchical authoritarian structure, one that finds its purest representation in these norms.”