Derek Johnson

“Fascism” isn’t a slur for politics we don’t like. It’s a precise word with precise meaning. And in the face of what’s happening right now in America, it’s the most honest one we have.

I’ll lay it out as plainly as I can. 🧵

As a former Portlander myself, love that its motto is Keep Portland Weird. An essential part of fascism's project is to tell all of us how to look, whom to love, what to say, how to dress. Fuck that. Portland is too fabulous for fascism.

Hello, is this The Hague? I’d like to report a crime against humanity.

Fantastic, sober, realistic thread.

The James Baldwin quote deep in the thread is on point.

Important thread. Words do matter. We can’t whitewash what’s happening here #fascism

“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

—Charlie Kirk, April 2023

Jimmy Kimmel Will Return to the Air Following Backlash, Boycott “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy,” said the Walt Disney Company.

The Democrats? Useless.

But everyday people? Angry and organized and taking collective action?

That’s where the real power lies. That’s how we win. 👊🏽✊🏽🙌🏽

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

Exciting campaign that is already working, with Disney's stock plummeting. Let's keep up the momentum!

Everyday the regime crosses yet another line. Time to say
No financing for fascism.
No dollars for dictators.
No payouts for pedophile protectors.

James Baldwin put it best:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

It begins with the courage to call fascism by its name.

This isn’t hysteria or alarmism, and it’s certainly not an incitement to violence. It’s clarity in the face of real and escalating danger.

We already see the crackdowns on journalists, comedians, teachers. It’s an accelerating event the regime knows exactly how to exploit.

Believe me when I tell you that more accelerating events are coming.

We cannot allow Charlie Kirk’s horrific shooting to be twisted into a reason for self-censorship.

Fascist movements seize on moments like this not to prevent violence, but to weaponize it — to twist it into political advantage, expand repression, punish dissent, and tighten control.

Orwell was right: sanitize the language and you sanitize the mind. Euphemism is how societies sleepwalk into tyranny.

That’s why scholars and historians tell us to be careful, and also to be clear. Avoiding the uncomfortable truth doesn’t make it less real. It just makes it harder to confront.

I get why people recoil from the word. It’s ugly, it sounds extreme.

But you know what’s uglier? Pretending this isn’t happening until it’s too late to stop it.

What matters is the combination. Any society can show flashes of nationalism or polarization. Authoritarian states exist on the right and the left.

But fascism is a distinct phenomenon of the right: nationalism fused with hierarchy, patriarchy fused with state violence, democracy hollowed out.

✅ Collapse of shared reality. So much depends on splintering the information environment and our common sense of what’s happening. Public life is flooded with lies and conspiracies until people can’t agree on basic facts. Conversation with folks trapped in these alternate realities feels impossible.

✅ Militarization of civic life. Civic space infused with force: paramilitary cosplay as patriotism, secret police with sweeping powers, armed troops deployed into neighborhoods as a show of dominance against our own people.

✅ Persecution of dissent. Opposition becomes treason. The state’s machinery — sham hearings, investigations, regulatory threats — is weaponized to intimidate and silence.

✅ Rigid gender roles and family hierarchies. Women’s autonomy is curtailed. LGBTQ people are punished. Patriarchal structures become enforced by law.

✅ Erosion of democracy from within. Elections continue, but the field tilts. Courts are stacked. Voting rights restricted. Maps redrawn. Rules rewritten until losing is no longer a risk.

✅ Assault on the free press. Reporters are branded enemies. Propaganda floods the zone.

Sometimes the state censors directly. More often it uses its leverage to pressure the private sector into silencing dissenting voices.

✅ The cult of strength. Fascism worships power for its own sake. The leader promises order not through community or institutions, but through force. Vigilantes are valorized, violence recast as virtue.

✅ The cult of personality. Loyalty to the leader eclipses loyalty to nation or constitution. Civil servants are purged. Government becomes a tool of personal fealty.

Careers rise and fall on proximity to a single figure.

✅ Hypernationalism and scapegoating. There is always an enemy within: immigrants, minorities, intellectuals, journalists, activists.

The circle of blame expands until dissent itself is suspect.

✅ The myth of a golden past. The nation imagined as once pure and powerful until outsiders weakened it. Redemption comes not through looking forward, but by turning backward.

Fascism is a right-wing authoritarian ideology with key defining features academics widely agree on.

You’ll see the signs are depressingly familiar:

For the past 18 months, I’ve been working alongside experts who’ve studied fascism across continents and generations — and with movement leaders who’ve fought it in their own countries.

Italy and Germany in the 1930s, yes. But also El Salvador, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil. The pattern is striking.

So I understand why people flinch when the word “fascism” enters our discourse. It feels impolite. Overheated. Maybe even a little unhinged.

But that instinct to recoil, to sound measured and reasonable, is exactly the problem. It keeps us from seeing clearly what’s happening right in front of us.