How does fascism happen?
A list of tactical patterns used by fascist regimes highlights the incremental steps taken to erode democratic institutions and consolidate absolute power.
What you need to know
🔹 Fascist movements often emerge through incremental and seemingly minor shifts in behaviour.
🔹 Key tactics include neutering parliaments and emasculating independent court systems.
🔹 Freedom of the press is slowly limited alongside attacks on journalists.
🔹 Leaders often manipulate truth and investigate political enemies to maintain control.
W hen you look back at fascists, you see patterns of behaviour that, while they are happening, don’t seem so nefarious individually. But when you add them up, a different story appears. For example:
Neutering the parliament/Congress
Emasculating the courts
Limiting press freedom slowly
Raiding journalists’ homes
Appointing only true loyalists
Banishing from their government anyone who doesn’t toe the line
Employing spokesmen who ignore questions and attack the questioner for a lack of patriotism
Employing spokesman who tell the public that it didn’t see what it saw
Investigating and charging perceived political enemies
Pardoning people convicted and/or confessing to crimes for no seeming reason
Threatening to cancel elections
Claiming a lost election is a rigged election
Redrawing political maps out to maintain control
Manipulating information to match their version of the truth
Lying
Bullying
Intimidating
Going around traditional institutions and creating their own
Unilaterally defunding programs they don’t agree with
Unilaterally changing laws without going through the traditional process
Taking down monuments of those they don’t agree with
Building monuments to yourself
Employing a masked police force
The list, unfortunately, goes on until someone stops it.
GOING FURTHER
Fascism: Definition, Characteristics, & History | BRITANNICA
What is fascism and where does the word come from? | BBC NEWS
The long shadow of fascism in modern Europe | THE GUARDIAN
Understanding the mechanics of authoritarianism | COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
What exactly is fascism? | THE ECONOMIST
On Tyranny: Lessons from the Twentieth Century | YALE UNIVERSITY
Ur-Fascism: Umberto Eco’s 14 properties | NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 30 January 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)
