The fascism playbook hasn't changedβ€”only the speed we're flipping through its chapters.

@georgetakei The full quote: "The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

This technique is as old as the hills; it was practiced in almost every Greek city, and the moderns have only enlarged its scale."

-- Bertrand Russell, 1940

@ApostateEnglishman @georgetakei Dividing the population into fools and intelligent should disqualify you from being an authority on the rise of fascism. In fact many who we consider fools turned out to offer way more resistance. And after the war suddenly everybody successfully pretend to be a fool. So much for that.
@SholemAlejchem @ApostateEnglishman @georgetakei huh? It takes my heart away how easily people supposedly "resisting" turn on each other on a fine and yet disguise it through "intellectual debate."