How Fascism Works — Us vs Them and the Machinery of Power (Deep Dive)

Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world — one book at a time.

This episode explores How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley, a systems-level examination of how authoritarian movements erode democratic norms by reshaping language, identity, and institutional trust.

Stanley argues that fascism is not defined by a single ideology, but by a set of recurring tactics. These include the mythologizing of a lost past, the creation of internal enemies, and the strategic use of propaganda and conspiracy theories to fracture shared reality. Through these mechanisms, political movements redirect economic and social anxiety toward targeted groups rather than structural causes.

The book examines how appeals to “law and order,” attacks on intellectual freedom, and the enforcement of rigid social hierarchies function together as a reinforcing system. Historical examples from Nazi Germany are placed alongside modern cases in the United States and Europe to show how these patterns re-emerge under different cultural conditions.

This episode treats How Fascism Works as a systems narrative — examining how rhetoric, media ecosystems, and institutional incentives normalize exclusion and concentrate power while maintaining the appearance of legitimacy.

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