’Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America’ edited by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

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Did It Happen Here? by David Steinmetz-Jenkins

“At the moment, fascism has to be the most sloppily used term in the American political vocabulary,” writes Victoria DeGrazia. Her essay on that subject appears in the collection Did It Happen Here? a book whose multiple perspectives explicate several arguments over the definition of fascism. As DeGrazia admits in a brief recollection of her ‘60s student radical student years, the f-word has often been hurled randomly at anyone with whom someone disagrees.

Edited by Wesleyan University history professor Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, the urgency behind Did It Happen Here? is provided by the rise of Donald Trump. But Steinmetz-Jenkins opens the book with a set of “Classic Texts.” Here, Reinhold Niebuhr keeps company with Leon Trotsky, Hannah Arendt and the always engaging Umberto Eco. He grew up in fascist Italy and warns of fascism’s “appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups … The followers must feel besieged.”

The bulk of Did It Happen Here? concerns what happened in recent years in the U.S. and elsewhere, especially Hungary, where the “illiberal democracy” of Prime Minister Viktor Orban became a template for other authoritarians. Steinmetz-Jenkins warns in his introduction that being “over fixated on the traumas of history can make it difficult to grasp what is new.” At least some of the contemporary writers he gathered agree. But not all—and the book gives rise to many arguments about the significances of recent events.

British historian of Nazism Richard J. Evans states his case in an essay entitled “Why Trump Isn’t a Fascist.” Unlike Hitler who came to conquer, Trump advocates withdrawal from world affairs. True enough but Evans’ essay, written only days after January 6, claims that the assault on the Capitol “was not a preplanned attempt to seize the reins of government” and the insurrection “shocked many Republicans into abandoning Trump.” How many? Has Evans reconsidered his opinions?

Peter E. Gordon is more perceptive in his essay, “Why Historical Analogy Matters.” Fascism, after all, is not only a historical term but “describes a modern style of authoritarian rule that seeks to mobilize the masses by appealing to nationalism, xenophobia and populist resentment” using democratic procedure to undermine democracy and attacking the free press. Sound familiar?

Get Did It Happen Here? at Amazon here.

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