Why Fascism Always Fails (Even if it Wins on Tuesday)
The Values that Defeated Authoritarianism for the Entire 20th Century Are on the Ballot
What Are We Really Voting For?
This Tuesday, Americans face a choice that goes beyond party lines or policy preferences. This election isn’t about tax reform or debates over immigration; it’s a choice about the purpose of government itself.
Are we voting for a system that—despite its flaws—retains the potential to evolve, adapt, and address the needs of an increasingly complex and interconnected global society, a society whose decisions hold profound influence over the future of our species and our planet?
Or are we choosing a system that consolidates power in a single office, transforming government from a flawed but service-oriented institution into an instrument of authoritarian control that serves only its inner sanctum and brutalizes its enemies?
The truth is, we are voting for whether to keep the Rule of Law and Accountability as the core values of our political system, or to throw ourselves at the mercy of Authoritarianism — the failed ideology of the 20th century that was defeated by those two core values of democracy.
On one side, there’s Project 2025—a meticulously laid-out blueprint for dismantling representative democracy in favor of a centralized, authoritarian state. This isn’t a conservative policy shift; it’s a plan to remove checks and balances, fill government with loyalists, and insulate leadership from accountability to the public. It’s a vision of government redefined, converted from a system that aspires to serve people into one that exists solely to secure power.
The top of the Republican ticket is full on pitching what the leading expert on the subject has, after much handwringing and deliberation, classified as textbook “fascism.”
On the other side, the Democratic ticket represents conventional representative democracy, with endorsements across traditional party lines.
Time: The Republicans Crossing Party Lines and Voting for Harris Over Trump
But let’s not sugarcoat it: I am under no illusion that the Democratic ticket—and the bipartisan neo-liberal political system it represents—is currently designed to deliver the policies we genuinely need to address our mounting crises.
Our current political system is horrifically dysfunctional, suffused with class and racial prejudice, clogged with corporate influence, and more interested in stability than reform.
If you DON’T want our political system to change radically, I don’t really want to hang out with you. But what our current system has is two things that enable it to “spiral up” and become better, more inclusive, and more effective.
It has the rule of law and accountability. These core values that liberal democracy strives for (though it often fails to live up to) give us something that authoritarianism does not—a chance. A possibility. A way forward.
These two values, the building blocks of any society we’d want to live in, do not exist in authoritarianism. And the Republican ticket is, explicitly, unabashedly, like for real, trying to erase these values.
Global Project Against Hate and Extremism:
Project 2025 is a threat to our democracy, and we must treat it as such.
That “robust governing agenda” bears the hallmarks of authoritarianism. It threatens Americans’ civil and human rights and our very democracy… It would dismantle much of the federal government and replace our apolitical civil service with far-right partisans it is already training in anticipation of a power shift.
But perhaps you take the candidate at this word that he has never read Project 2025 (which is, you know, believable) and you can set aside “The Many Links Between Project 2025 and Trump’s World”. He, with no support from the Heritage Foundation, is comfortable with dismantling the core of what makes Democracy tick, the rule of law and accountability.
Trump’s Vows to Prosecute Rivals Put Rule of Law on the Ballot
There is little quibbling that, as his former chief of staff said last month, Trump would “rule like a dictator.”
The Authoritarian vibes are vibing.
And what’s so wrong with that, we might ask? Maybe we need a tough guy to clean up these messes? Isn’t that a natural impulse? Who made “fascism” the new “f word”? Fifty-five dictators across the 20th Century can’t all be wrong, right?
Ok. I’ll bite.
But as we’ll explore, turning over a society to the hands of a single person or an inner sanctum of deciders has led consistently, exclusively, horrendously, to disaster. Every. Time.
Authoritarianism killed somewhere between 82 and 170 million people last century. Among the dead were nearly always its leaders.
Our representative democracy may be flawed, but it preserves the structures that can evolve to serve us better. The very fact that authoritarianism is a viable threat on the ballot is proof of the need for evolution in our democratic system—but the lesson is that our system needs to live up to its ideals, not that we should abandon those ideals.
So why, in times of crisis, are people drawn to authoritarianism? Why do societies turn to “strongman” leaders who promise quick, decisive action? To understand this impulse, and why it inevitably leads to failure, let’s turn to Spiral Dynamics (SD)—a model that explains how societies evolve (or devolve) through different stages of values and governance.
What Color is Your Vibe? The Grand Spiral Of Human Development
Spiral Dynamics (SD) is a framework for understanding how human values and societies evolve over time. It suggests that people and groups move through different stages, each with its own way of seeing the world and solving problems, depending on their needs and the challenges they face. Each stage, represented by a color, reflects a unique mindset—starting with basic survival (Beige), moving through power-focused authority (Red), then into structured systems like traditional rules and laws (Blue), followed by entrepreneurial individualism (Orange), and eventually reaching inclusive, community-oriented thinking (Green) and more flexible, integrative approaches (Yellow).
Rather than a strict ladder, SD views these stages as adaptable; people or societies can shift between them as circumstances demand. For instance, during a crisis, some may gravitate to simpler, more controlling values (Red), while stable periods might foster more inclusive or innovative thinking (Green or Orange). By recognizing these stages, SD helps us understand why different types of leadership and governance appeal in different situations and highlights the potential for society to "spiral up" toward more adaptive and collaborative approaches as it grows more complex.
What’s The Deal with Democracy Today?
The current political establishment, represented on Tuesday’s ballot by the Democrat candidate, operates mostly within Blue (rules and laws) and Orange (entrepreneurial individualism) levels in Spiral Dynamics. I don't mean this is what Harris and Walz themselves are bringing per se, it's what the whole social ecosystem around them, the bipartisan conventional political system, is bringing.
Orange values focus on individual achievement, economic growth, and pragmatic solutions, while Blue values emphasize law, order, and stable institutions. This blend creates a system that often prioritizes corporate interests and incremental, stability-focused policies over transformative change.
However, in an age of escalating crises—climate change, inequality, global instability—these values aren’t sufficient to address the complex challenges we face. For democracy to meet this moment, the system needs to “spiral up” to Green and Yellow values, prioritizing inclusivity, community well-being, and adaptive problem-solving.
The Republican ticket, and the more stripped down hardcore MAGA folks that would be shepherded into power along with the candidates, with far fewer mainline Republican counterbalances, are categorically Red.
Importantly, meeting our crises with exclusively Red authoritarianism isn’t just inefficient—it’s impossible. Red values are inherently rigid, built on dominance and exclusion, rejecting the diversity and collaboration necessary for tackling global, interconnected problems. Red’s narrow, control-oriented perspective simply cannot handle the complexity of today’s world, where solutions require flexibility, inclusivity, and innovation — not because those are “nice” or “woke” or whatever, but because they work.
Pushing the political establishment to adopt more inclusive, responsive approaches is difficult, but achievable, and really our only option to solve our problems.
That’s not to say we need to vote for the Democrats perpetually — in fact we will likely need to support non-traditional candidates to really get the change we need. But it does mean that, in elections like this, we need to vote for democracy. For the system that explicitly promotes the values rule of law and accountability.
Unlike authoritarianism, which stifles change, the current system—though flawed—offers the potential to evolve in ways that are fundamentally out of reach for Red authoritarianism.
What We Lose When We Spiral Down to Authoritarianism
The rule of law is a cornerstone of representative (small “d” democratic) governance, establishing that all individuals, including those in positions of power, are subject to the same legal standards. Francis Fukuyama emphasizes that the rule of law "limits the power of government by establishing accepted rules of justice, which are higher than any individual who currently holds political power."
This principle ensures that authority is bound by impartial laws rather than the whims of rulers, preventing power from becoming concentrated or self-serving. But history has shown that when societies devolve into authoritarianism, or "Red," the rule of law erodes; leaders become unchecked, and laws are selectively enforced to serve those in power rather than the public. Once dismantled, the rule of law is extremely hard to restore, often requiring generations—if not centuries—to rebuild stable, trustworthy legal institutions that can truly protect citizens.
Accountability, meanwhile, is what ensures that government remains answerable to the people. Fukuyama points to the importance of formal accountability, noting that it made a significant advance in 17th-century England, when Parliament forced the monarchy to respond to its demands—a key step toward modern democracy. Accountability keeps power in check by creating mechanisms for leaders to answer to those they govern.
In authoritarian systems, accountability quickly vanishes as opposition is suppressed, and decision-making shifts from public interest to self-preservation. Without accountability, leaders act without constraint, and democratic institutions lose their effectiveness.
Rebuilding accountability and Rule of Law, once lost, is a long, arduous process, requiring years of cultural and institutional reform. This loss of both the rule of law and accountability under authoritarian rule would leave the democratic project hollow, a structure without the means to protect or empower its citizens.
The Allure of the Strongman: From Ancient Rome to Modern America
Authoritarianism is a political system where power is concentrated in a single leader or elite, with limited checks and balances and restricted political freedoms. It often involves curtailing dissent, controlling the judiciary, and emphasizing loyalty to the ruling authority over democratic norms and accountability.
We can get lost in debates and cul-de-sacs about what’s technically “fascism”, versus what’s Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, Illiberal Democracies, Dictatorship, etc. There’s differences between all of them, but let’s not get lost in the political science weeds — they all emerge from the same impulse.
The impulse is to hand authority over to a single, fully empowered individual or small insular group to make prompt decisions in times of crisis. The word “strong man” is used often for this figure, a real mean daddy that is going to take care of everything.
There’s equal parts practicalness and complete fantasy about a figure like this. Maybe there are times when a version of this is legitimately needed, and there’s something deeply Freudian, psychosexually gratifying about turning things over a real… Tommy Lee Jones type guy (and it is, almost always, a guy).
When everything has gone haywire, when a bus carrying dangerous inmates crashes in rural Illinois, only to be hit by an oncoming train, and there’s no trace of the violent criminals (including the titular fugitive Richard Kimble), one man must come and take control of the crime scene and investigation.
I would do anything US Marshall Samuel Gerard told me to do. I get it.
The “strongman” leader is a figure as old as civilization itself. In Ancient Rome, the Senate created the role of dictator to confront emergencies, granting absolute power to one leader who could make swift decisions. But the Romans, aware of the dangers, imposed two strict limits: (1) no dictator could make permanent changes to Roman law, and (2) the dictator had to step down after six months. They understood that concentrated power was a stopgap, not a sustainable form of governance.
Yet even with these safeguards, things unraveled. Julius Caesar ignored the limits, declaring himself dictator for life—and paid with his life when the Senate assassinated him. His death illustrated a hard truth: unchecked power doesn’t bring stability; it breeds resistance, opposition, and collapse. History is littered with similar figures who, after refusing to step down or failing to deliver on their promises, met violent ends. Dictators like Caligula, Rafael Trujillo, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Muammar Gaddafi all promised security and prosperity, but ultimately delivered repression, corruption, and stagnation. They all paid for their failure with their lives.
In Spiral Dynamics, the craving for a “strong” leader to bypass the complexities of democracy corresponds to the Red stage of societal values. Red governance is based on control, hierarchy, and dominance. It offers the illusion of security through simplicity, but that simplicity fails as soon as real solutions are needed.
The Tunnel Vision of Red: Why Authoritarianism Fails in a Complex World
Red authoritarianism isn’t just about power—it’s about tunnel vision. This worldview sees diversity as a threat, reducing society into a simplistic “us” versus “them” dichotomy. Diversity, dissent, and collaboration aren’t seen as assets to be nurtured; they’re obstacles to be eliminated. Authoritarian regimes, in their insistence on rigid control, can’t handle the complexities of modern society. Challenges like economic inequality, climate change, and global security require collaborative, nuanced solutions that authoritarian systems simply can’t deliver — partly because their leaders, with their over-simplified view of the world, genuinely don’t understand the problems.
Instead of adapting, authoritarian systems respond with short-sighted, rigid measures that only reinforce power. For those within the in-group, these “solutions” may feel like stability, but history shows they’re fundamentally hollow. Authoritarianism’s tunnel vision makes it inefficient, incapable of innovation, and ultimately doomed to fail when competing against democratic systems that foster fair competition, rule of law, accountability, and open collaboration.
Functional economies and governments thrive on adaptability and accountability—the values that true conservatives at their best promote. These qualities create resilience and progress, qualities authoritarian regimes, focused only on consolidating power, are incapable of fostering.
Authoritarianism also goes hand in hand with ethnic and racial purity concepts. The “other” must become the source of all dysfunction because the ruler cannot be held accountable and “appear weak.” The genocides and mass murder of opposition by Authoritarian rule is a feature, not a bug of this political system.
And there is no reason to assume American authoritarianism wouldn’t operate the same way, finding political, theological, or any grounds useful to lead to the mass elimination of perceived “enemies.” American Authoritarianism would honestly be unusual, historically speaking, if it didn’t execute its “enemies”.
The Hill: Trump team argues assassination of rivals is covered by presidential immunity
Fascism and Authoritarianism have deep roots with crises over masculinity. The emergence of European fascism arose from resentment of the losses of WWI. Amongst the devastated underclass spread myths that Germany had been “stabbed in the back” by Jews that caused them to lose the war. Hitler and his fascist cadre did not invent the wave of Red Authoritarianism that vilified others as the source of their emasculation, they rode this resentment to power. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat details:
[World War One] created this entire class of men who were damaged, many were killed, and it created this huge crisis of masculinity. So fascist rulers came up during this crisis period of unrest and instability in their individual countries and Italy was first. They had this ‘right versus left’ civil strife, and Mussolini appears. And he’s milking this strife, but he’s also saying ‘I can fix it. I can bring order’. And that’s why he got invited into power.”
Byline Times: ‘Strongmen’: How a Crisis in Masculinity Paved the Way for Fascism
The economic devastation wrought on the shrinking middle class of America, with roots in Reagan and Clinton deregulation, NAFTA, and the 2008 financial collapse, along with social change that has thrown gender roles into more nuance than ever before in America, have contributed to our current day’s obsession over masculinity within the “culture wars”.
Report from International Center for Counter Terrorism
Swiping Right: The Allure of Hyper Masculinity and Cryptofascism for Men Who Join the Proud Boys
Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden convention was a case study in this ethos, of spotting insecurity and using it to target an enemy to give the tyrant power — power not to solve actual social problems, but power to eliminate that enemy. Which is perhaps the only thing they could accomplish with competency.
For when fascists come, when those narcissistic tyrannical daddy figures arrive looking bigger than life, they instinctively know how to manipulate that insecurity. They usually do it by creating a class of people or a group of people who are less, who are othered, making the majority feel special, superior and safe. It’s the oldest, but most effective trick in the fascist handbook. Externalize the abstract self-hatred and insecurity, turn it into a real enemy and blame everything on them.
The Guardian: Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden: the ultimate daddy projection screen
The Real Choice: Evolving or Devolving
The Democratic ticket, with all its flaws, represents conventional democracy. I’m not under the illusion that this system, is currently sufficient for addressing our most pressing issues. It’s bogged down by corporate interests, often slow to act, and deeply flawed. Yet it preserves a rule of law and a set of norms that allow for reform, for growth, for the possibility of evolution. The current system may be lacking, but it still provides a framework that can be built upon, adapted, and improved.
The tools that it has are:
The Rule of Law
Accountability
We can certainly say our current political system does not always enact these values with fidelity or uniformity. That is obvious. I am all about citing perspectives like this to explain our moment:
The Failure to Punish White-Collar Crime After the 2008 Financial Crisis Helped Produce President Donald Trump
But here’s a truth: you can only hold a person or a system up to their own stated values.
We weren’t harsh enough on Obama for his failure to enforce the rule of law. We didn’t hold him and the political establishment accountable for their failure to look out for us. We mocked the Occupy kids and turned a blind eye to the millions of Americans who lost their homes, and didn’t want to hold billionaires accountable because that would hurt us when we finally got our billions.
But it is not Democracy that failed — it was us. We did not show up in droves to demand the change we needed. Democracy is not voted for once every four years. It is tended to on a daily basis. “Democracy is not a static thing,” said FDR, “It is an everlasting march.”
But we built resentment on both sides of the aisle. Some of that resentment was steeped in racial animus. Some of it was steeped in class betrayal. Some of it is the deeply American individualism that almost genetically resists the public good. But now that resentment is flowing through the soil like a viscus acid, dissolving our belief in the values of democracy, and fascism is flowing up from the deep, bitter springs of American exceptionalism.
“It’s bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that’s very much like the original fascisms,” Robert Paxton, the aforementioned scholar of global fascism told a reporter recently, “It’s the real thing. It really is.”
We need to build on what we have. Showing up between elections, exerting power in numbers, in ways large and small, is how we can change our country and shape our future. But that will only work if we have Rule of Law and Accountability as values in our political system.
And that is what’s on the ballot.
The paleoconservative movement’s push to elevate Trump to a near-mythic “God Emperor” status is steeped in irony. For all their talk of hierarchy and superiority, they are championing a worldview that is fundamentally inferior to the values liberal democracy stands for. Time and again, democracy has proven itself as the more adaptable, inclusive, and effective system. The proof is in its track record: liberal democracy, with all its flaws, has consistently outperformed authoritarianism both morally and economically.
What's wrong with fascism? It's a moronic, cynical and laughably simple reduction of the world that is latched onto by people who can’t shake the feeling that they are losers.
Ironically, it's the adoption of this world view that is what actually dooms them to be, like all fascists before them, the ultimate losers of history.
This election is not just about individual candidates or policies; it’s about the future of American governance — and frankly, the fate of the natural world. Our role in climate change mitigation is the single most important responsibility that has fallen on a society in all of time.
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth… The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.
Abraham Lincoln, 1862
oof. yeah but we be devolving like a mofo.