How Fascism Takes Hold – and Why the Lower Classes Pay the Highest Price
Fascism does not usually arrive with jackboots and banners on day one. It creeps in quietly, presenting itself as order amid chaos, strength amid uncertainty, and national “rebirth” amid economic and social decline. History shows that fascism flourishes not because populations suddenly abandon democracy, but because democratic systems are hollowed out under pressure — and because the grievances of the lower classes are cynically exploited rather than genuinely addressed.
muslim loving scum. better off without them lisa, they're flooding this country with n******rs
— Darren Sensible 🇬🇧 (@Fan13Gat96104) March 26, 2025
A Fascist Having A Meltdown:
I cannot stand Biden and Starmer and their corporate dregs either, but everything Marjorie Taylor Greene says here is happening under Trump and Farage. They are using immigrants to distract the American people from the redistribution of wealth upwards to a small number of multibillionaires.
Meanwhile in a dystopian Trump America
— Jerry Hicks (@JerryHicksUnite) March 27, 2025
This is a 'press conference'
Full of hate & vile bile Marjorie Taylor Greene had a total meltdown when a British reporter asked her a question.pic.twitter.com/PwuLFgskx9 #Trump #America #USA
Crisis as the breeding ground
Every major fascist movement has emerged from crisis. In Italy after the First World War, returning soldiers faced unemployment, inflation was rampant, and liberal governments appeared paralysed. Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s was scarred by defeat, hyperinflation, mass unemployment and the humiliations of the Treaty of Versailles. Spain in the 1930s was wracked by inequality, land hunger, and political instability.
In such moments, democracy can feel slow, compromised and ineffective. Fascists exploit this impatience. They frame democratic debate as weakness and pluralism as decay, insisting that only a strong leader and a unified nation can restore dignity and prosperity.
Crucially, fascists do not oppose the system that caused economic suffering; they redirect anger away from entrenched elites and towards scapegoats.
Scapegoating instead of solutions
A defining feature of fascism is the deliberate misdirection of working-class rage. Rather than challenging industrialists, landlords, or financial power, fascist movements blame minorities, migrants, socialists, trade unionists, journalists, or “internal enemies”.
Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews and leftists as responsible for Germany’s economic collapse, even as big business quietly funded Hitler’s rise. Mussolini’s Blackshirts attacked striking workers and socialist organisers while claiming to defend “ordinary Italians”. Franco’s forces framed land reformers and trade unionists as enemies of Spain, despite representing peasants and labourers.
This pattern repeats throughout history: fascism promises protection to the “common man” while crushing the very organisations — unions, cooperatives, workers’ parties — that give working people real power.
The hollowing out of democracy
Fascism rarely abolishes democracy overnight. Instead, it strangles it gradually.
In Germany, Hitler was appointed Chancellor through constitutional means. Emergency powers were normalised. Civil liberties were suspended “temporarily”. Opposition media was attacked as unpatriotic or treasonous. Independent courts were undermined. By the time democracy was formally dismantled, it had already been rendered meaningless.
Italy followed a similar path. Mussolini initially governed within a parliamentary framework, using violence, intimidation and legal manipulation to marginalise opponents. Spain’s descent into dictatorship followed years of elite sabotage of democratic reform, paving the way for Franco’s coup.
History is clear: fascism thrives when institutions bend rather than break. Each compromise made in the name of “stability” strengthens authoritarian forces.
The betrayal of the lower classes
Despite its populist rhetoric, fascism has always served the interests of the powerful. Once in control, fascist regimes move swiftly to discipline labour.
Independent trade unions are banned. Strikes are criminalised. Wages are suppressed in the name of national unity. Social welfare is conditional on loyalty and conformity. Dissenting workers are branded enemies of the state.
In Nazi Germany, workers lost the right to organise freely, while industrialists enjoyed state contracts and cheap, controlled labour. In Fascist Italy, corporatism subordinated workers to employers under state supervision. In Francoist Spain, poverty and repression defined working-class life for decades, while landowners and industrial elites prospered.
The promise of national renewal invariably translates into sacrifice — but only for those at the bottom.
Culture wars and emotional manipulation
Fascism also tightens its grip by waging war on culture and truth. Education, art and the press are reshaped to glorify the nation and erase inconvenient history. Intellectuals and journalists are attacked as elitist or traitorous. Emotional narratives replace evidence.
By turning politics into a battle of identity and resentment, fascism discourages solidarity across class lines. Workers are taught to see fellow workers as enemies if they are the “wrong” ethnicity, religion or ideology. This fragmentation is not accidental; it is essential to maintaining elite dominance.
Lessons history refuses to stop teaching
The historical record is unambiguous. Fascism does not protect democracy; it feeds on its weaknesses. It does not uplift the lower classes; it disciplines them. It does not challenge inequality; it entrenches it.
Democracy collapses not only when authoritarians seize power, but when economic injustice is ignored, when elites are shielded from accountability, and when fear is allowed to replace solidarity.
History’s warning is stark: when societies allow anger to be weaponised rather than resolved, fascism steps in, not as a cure, but as a stranglehold. And once it tightens, it is always the poorest, the least powerful, and the most marginalised who struggle most to breathe.
It is no longer history. It is the here and now. Waiting to fight back will be too late. We have to do it now.
