An excellent analysis based on a serious understanding of how modern liberal-democratic corporate-public administration states actually work.
By Tyler Cowen
The Atlantic
And the reason has nothing to do with Donald Trump.
Could it ever happen here? Fascism, that is. That question is a standard refrain from American history, dating back at least to the 1930s and also related to the classic Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here. It was asked with increasing frequency after the ascent and election of Donald Trump, both on the left and by “Never Trump” commentators on the right, and has continued to be raised as Trump has governed.
But I would like to hazard a prediction that no, it cannot happen here. I won’t claim it could never happen over the centuries, rather that it can’t happen in anything recognizably like the America of today.
My argument is pretty simple: American fascism cannot happen anymore because the American government is so large and unwieldy. It is simply too hard for the fascists, or for that matter other radical groups, to seize control of. No matter who is elected, the fascists cannot control the bureaucracy, they cannot control all the branches of American government, they cannot control the judiciary, they cannot control semi-independent institutions such as the Federal Reserve, and they cannot control what is sometimes called “the deep state.” The net result is they simply can’t control enough of the modern state to steer it in a fascist direction.
