What stopped Fascism in 20th century?

Fascism wrecked itself and some lessons from the past

I came to think about John Kenneth Galbraith’s essays on FDR and Albert Speer. JKG wrote this short book - ‘Name dropping’. It’s collection of essays on selected politicians, discussing their traits and life. Essay on Albert Speer, who JKG specifically regard as a competent foe, also has remarks about the bungling Nazis and how they destroyed themselves. Let’s connect this thought to situation of today. I’ve articulated several possible scenarios on how Trump regime will end (read here 1, 2). Paul Krugman has similar line of thinking. The bottom line of it is that Donald Trump is evil but he’s also an erratic imbecile of the highest order.

While Trump has authoritarian plans to takeover America, he’s also doing chaotic things at such a breakneck speed that it will completely paralyze America in very short time. And this is a good thing. A high hope is that Trump’s shock therapy in America will act like a powerful punch in the belly of American society that will wake it up to dangers of Trumpian madness. I would say that Trump is more foolish than Hitler. Hitler came into power with goal of consolidating his dictatorship capitalizing on the crisis of great depression. Hitler’s wrecking madness started with World War 2, more precisely in 1940-41. But Trump’s madness started on day one of his Presidency as he started destroying economy which otherwise was functioning well and needlessly started humiliating Canada, Mexico and other long-standing allies for no reason.

Despite a massive slide down of America politics, America still has a functional electoral system. At least so far. And my instinct tells me that Trump will face significant electoral defeat starting in November 2026 elections. I also hope bungling Democrats will become more aggressive in dealing with Trump. Dems will retake at least one house of Congress and fightback starts from there. To be honest, i can be wrong. I wrongly predicted that Trump will lose against Harris but i am still confident about a new prediction (call me overly optimistic in these dark times).

Back to Fascism of 20th century. What destroyed Nazis? Was it the relentless Russians who destroyed massive German armies at the eastern front? Was it the power of British Kingdom - the largest empire at the time? Or was it the massive industrial power of the United States that was backstopping the Allies war machine in second world war? Actually it was all three. But real situation was that the Hitler managed to unite all three powers against Germany by declaring war against them in very foolish and incompetent way. Fascists got into a self destruction mode.

Some competent Nazi Generals advised against the most reckless adventures of Hitler - notably the blunders on eastern front (recall that Hitler himself actively participated in war planning). So Hitler removed them and replaced them with fanatic puppets (recall that Rommel and others also tried to assassinate Hitler but failed). In fact, third Reich largely became a regime of minions & Henchmen of Hitler which followed his whims blindly (now think of Trump’s cabinet - Navarro, Lutnick, Hegseth etc). We know the rest of the history.

Obviously, ‘FDR - Churchill - Stalin’ also did their part in creating strategy to defeat Germany. It shouldn’t be left unsaid that Stalin was also an evil person and so was Churchill although to a lesser degree. But compared to Hitler, they appeared sane and relatively better alternative at that point in history. FDR stood among three as a leader with impeccable reputation and honor. Today, America’s campaign in World War 2 is regarded as most honorable & righteous. Anyway, why am i mentioning ‘FDR - Churchill - Stalin’? This bring me to another crucial point.

I do believe that Trump is a reckless maniac who will eventually destroy himself. But the danger is that he’s also doing immense damage to the world in the meanwhile. The insanity of unilateral trade war against the world and also possible sell out of Ukraine are two international emergencies created by Trump. There may be more creations by Donald Trump in near future. World is fragile. The global economic system, its institutions and international relations among countries are fragile - easier to break but it takes long time to build. My point is that for the time being we need international players that can stabilize the world in this era of Trumpian madness. This madness and uncertainty will pass - call me overly faithful in my optimism. For time being - next 4 years - we need a group of world leaders that can act as shock absorbers and ‘competent managers’ of global world order.

Donald Trump helped liberal party in Canada to victory.

There are some positive developments like in Canada. Hopefully, Macron in Europe can co-ordinate with Canada & Mexico to create response strategy on trade wars. And if possible, why not rope in the Chinese? So the trio of ‘Carney - Macron - Xi’ can be a sort of imitation for ‘FDR - Churchill - Stalin’. This is just an outline. I don’t mind if some different names can create such kind of alliance to get the world through Trumpian madness of next 4 years. What we don’t want is for the world to become a battle royale of countries in trade war & conflicts where every nation fights every other.

Japanese delegation at White House for trade negotiations.

What will be the purpose of such an alliance? To give a small example. Nations should co-ordinate so as to NOT sign a ‘deal’ with Trump that undermine relations with another nation. Like Trump is pressurizing Japanese to make deal that will harm their foreign relations with China. China has already got the hint and declared that any nation that makes ‘deals’ with Donald Trump which hurt China will be retaliated against. While it’s fine to engage with Trump regime in negotiations, nations should draw red lines - they should refuse to make deals that fundamentally undermines current global arrangement. Current global economic arrangements are flawed undoubtedly but they should not be destroyed only to serve diktats and whims of Trump.

Bottom line to this analysis is that Donald Trump is on path to his destruction. We need responsible and competent global leaders to coordinate and ride out this brief period of Trumpian uncertainty and madness.

Musical Coda

Violin by Karolina Protsenko (also check out her channel for regular street performances)