“Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion and preferred creative myths to history or journalism,” wrote historian Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
“They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a largely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share.
“Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
“Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason,” Snyder wrote. “(Victor) Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring true today.
“One of his former students implored him to ‘abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present.’
“Twelve years later, after all the atrocities, and at the end of a war that Germany had clearly lost, an amputated soldier told Klemperer that Hitler ‘has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler.’”
Donald Trump’s supporters share just that kind of feverish “faith."
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