There’s an often-repeated historical anecdote about Benjamin Franklin: As the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was wrapping up, crowds gathered on the steps of Independence Hall. A woman asked Franklin what sort of government the founders had crafted. His response has lasted centuries, to be repeated by politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Niel Gorscuh: “a republic, if you can keep it.”

American democracy has been an evolving institution since its inception. It has survived many challenges to its continued existence, from early party politics to the Civil War. But the 21st century presents a challenge that I feel we are not prepared to weather — the rise of modern fascism. Over the last decade, as a country we have witnessed a far-right movement spring forth and take the reins of the Republican Party. I’ll admit, I have never been much of a fan of the Republican Party, but over the last few years it has evolved from a party of good-faith conservative opposition to a genuine danger to democracy.

Elected officials like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), Rep. Lauren Boebert (CO-3) and Sen. Josh Hawley (MO) have shifted the overtone window of the Republican party so far to the right that politicians like Rep. Liz Cheney (WY) are considered too moderate to even be in the party. 

Many Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would like to believe that the Republican Party is still the party of those like Cheney, and that such opposition is necessary for robust debate. But the reality of the situation is much grimmer, and liberals like Pelosi are being willfully ignorant to brush it aside. The Republican Party is not the party of Lincoln, nor the party of those like Cheney. It is the party of Trump and the party of the far-right. 

This idea that Republican politicians are bona fide statesmen who just have a differing view of how best to govern is outdated and ignores reality. The Republican Party didn’t even publish a party platform in 2020 — a thing functional parties have traditionally done — instead choosing to support “whatever Trump wants.”

Republican candidates across the country have refused to accept the legitimate results of the 2020 election, and have made “The Big Lie” a core tenet of their political campaigns. Shippensburg’s very own State Senator and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano played a key part in the propagation of these lies and the events on January 6. 

The denial of election results has trickled down to state and local races. Many Republican candidates have said outright that they will refuse to accept the results if they lose in November, including Mastriano. This refusal to concede and allow the peaceful transfer of power — one of the most important parts of our democracy — erodes our political system and greatly increases the risk of politically-motivated violence. 

We are less than two years out from the deadly insurrection that occurred on January 6, 2021. On that day, millions watched in horror as a crowd of Trump supporters — egged on by the former president — stormed the United States Capitol Building in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. 

Future historians will view this moment in a similar light to the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, a failed coup d’état by the nascent Nazi Party. 10 years later, the Nazis gained power through Germany’s political processes and went on to ban all other political parties. While the Nazi’s first attempt to gain power failed, their second succeeded, and with that success came the end of democracy in Germany. 

Americans have always liked to believe that they’re immune to fascism. Novelist Sinclair Lewis responded to this belief in his aptly titled 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here.” The novel describes an alternate universe where a populist wins the 1936 presidential election on a platform of restoring the country to greatness, traditional American values, and by presenting himself as a champion of the forgotten man. 

If any of that sounds familiar to you, it should; it’s effectively Trump’s campaign playbook. Since 2016, Republican politicians have latched on to this ideology that some have come to call “Trumpism.” It is a dangerous combination of populist messaging and far-right policy, and if it’s allowed to gain power, it will result in horrors not seen since the 1940s. 

The similarities between the rise of Trump’s brand of fascism and other fascist movements — Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain — are striking. Those ringing the alarm bells are often besmirched as alarmists, but they are right to do so. There’s a fire inside the house, and if we don’t address it, we will all burn. 

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