The Anatomy of Fascism
By 
We’re reading Robert Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism in a class focused on the current crisis of judicial and political legitimacy in the USA. Almost every page of that book, which was published in 2004 and naturally had a historical perspective on its subject, has something that resonates with our present situation.
An example chosen practically at random:
We are not required to believe that fascist movements can only come to power in an exact replay of the scenario of Mussolini and Hitler. All that is required to fit our model is polarization, deadlock, mass mobilization against internal and external enemies, and complicity by existing elites. (My emphasis)
Random CNN story from this weekend.
Paxton emphasizes that no fascist movement has ever been able to come to power without the direct and sustained support of a nation’s existing conservative political leaders and institutions, who always rationalize this decision with the claim that the nation faces an existential crisis from the left. (In this case “the left” is Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi).