How Fascism Works

The Politics of Us and Them

By: Jason Stanley

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “No single book is as relevant to the present moment.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

“With unsettling insight and disturbing clarity, How Fascism Works is an essential guidebook to our current national dilemma of democracy vs. authoritarianism.”—Jelani Cobb, New Yorker staff writer

A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history.

As a scholar of philosophy and propaganda and the child of refugees of WWII Europe, Jason Stanley has long understood that democratic societies, including the United States, can be vulnerable to fascism. In How Fascism Works, he identifies ten pillars of fascist politics—an appeal to the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, favoring “the heartland,” and a dismantling of public goods and unions—that amount to an urgent diagnosis of the tactics right-wing politicians use to break down democracies and a critical lens on the current moment.

Stanley knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations, making clear the immense dangers of language and beliefs that separate people into an “us” and a “them.” By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics—rhetoric and myth—can become policy and reality all too quickly. Only by recognizing them, he argues, can we begin to resist their most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.

A critically important check on normalizing Trump.

Every page is a wake up call. Systematic, historical, and crystal clear. Fascinating and disturbing.

Great book; lousy reader who says "DIM-o-crat"

Fascinating look at the multiple ways fascism starts and spreads in a country, and the playbook sure does follow US politics since Trump. I only wish the author had read this himself, as he's a fine speaker. Instead, the narrator misprounced several words, the most annoying of which is the weird "DIM-o-crat" and "DIM-o-cratic" instead of the proper "DEM..." (which he somehow DOES get right with "DEM-o-cracy"). Next time I'll read the paperback.

A necessary antidote against upcoming fascism

This book gives an important perspective on the forces that make a dangerous demagogue become a powerful people that end up destroying what people hope for... tricking their base to make the wrong choices using fascist strategies.

Should be required reading

This book is amazing. It should be required reading before voting. Or at least to graduate.

One of those "Everyone should read this" books

The theory us spot on and very insightful, the narrator is excellent and the subject is supremely relevant.