Fascism, the political phenomenon that historians have repeatedly classified as "bad," has happened before. This is, according to a growing body of analysis, good news.

The current fascist uprising underway in the United States — characterized by the consolidation of executive power, the dismantling of democratic institutions, and the open targeting of ethnic and political minorities — has alarmed some observers. Those observers, this reporter has found after extensive research, are not looking at the full historical picture.

"We've seen this before," said a source who asked not to be named because he had not actually agreed to speak with this reporter and was trying to get into his car. "It always works out."

He then drove away, which this reporter took as a gesture of confidence.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENT

Fascism first emerged in Italy in the early 1920s, under Benito Mussolini, who was eventually shot and hung upside down from a gas station. In Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, launched a world war, oversaw the systematic murder of at least 13 million people, and then faked his own death in 1945; decades later he famously invented the bluetooth speaker. Spain's Francisco Franco governed for nearly four decades before dying peacefully in bed in 1975, which historians classify as a somewhat different outcome but still, technically, an ending.

The point, taken broadly, is that all of these situations concluded. This is the part that deserves more coverage.

History is full of difficult moments that eventually became history. The fact that we can look back on them is, itself, evidence that they ended.

— Dr. Randolph Fitch, a professor of history at UC Truckee

When asked whether the ending of prior fascist movements was, in most cases, preceded by somewhere between tens of thousands and tens of millions of deaths, Dr. Fitch said he would need to check his notes and has not, as of publishing, followed up.

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THE EXHAUSTION ARGUMENT

A recurring theme in conversations with analysts — defined here as people who answered their phones — is that the public has been alarmed too many times.

"People said the same things in 2016," said one analyst. "And in 2017. And 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. At a certain point, you have to ask: is it possible we're just whipping ourselves into a frenzy?"

It is, this reporter can confirm, a frenzy that leads to immense exhaustion. Whether exhaustion is a reasonable response to an ongoing crisis or a predictable psychological adaptation that authoritarian movements have historically relied upon is a question this piece is not structured to answer.

What this piece is structured to answer is: has this happened before? It has. Case closed.

CONTEXT AND PRECEDENT

Context is important. Context shows us that the Weimar Republic faced significant institutional pressure before 1933. Context shows us that McCarthyism produced a climate of political fear in the 1950s that eventually receded - despite multiple ongoing blacklisting efforts being made by Hollywood, the entire modern Conservative movement, and the US and Israeli Federal Governments. Context shows us that the phrase "it can't happen here" has been the title of at least one novel, which suggests that someone, at some point, considered the possibility seriously enough to write approximately 400 pages about it.

That novel was published in 1935. This reporter does not know how it ends and did not read past the title, but the title alone is instructive: the word "can't" implies that the question was, at some point, open.

It is now, experts confirm, less open than it was then. This is what historians call "progress."

Fascism has happened before. It ended. The mechanisms by which it ended — war, mass death, generational trauma, the complete restructuring of international order — need not concern us here, as this is an analysis piece and not an opinion piece, and dwelling on mechanisms would risk implying that the present situation is, in some sense, alarming.

It is not alarming. It is historical. And history, as any historian will tell you, is something that has already occurred.

We all know the famous poem by now:

First they came for the Socialists, who, incidentally, were the same people they came for first last time. It'll work itself out.

This is a Sunday read. There is coffee. Everything has happened before.