In parts of Europe — and in Italy, in particular — fascism isn’t theory or a debate on social media.
It’s history. Memory. Scars etched deep into the landscape and the culture. That’s why warnings about America’s authoritarian slide sound louder here.
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[N]early every conversation [at this year's International Journalism Festival] circles back to a singular, sobering theme: the creeping authoritarianism of a second Trump term.
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Here in Perugia, fellow journalists who’ve watched democracies fall and know how hard it is to claw freedom back once it slips are watching and urging us — pleading with us — to step up before it’s too late.
At a session titled “Journalists Under Fire,” Kathy Im, director of media, culture, and special initiatives at the MacArthur Foundation, opened with statistics that set the tone for the rest of the conference. Citing research from the V-Dem Institute, she quoted from an article by Joel Simon in Vanity Fair:
“For the first time in more than 20 years, the world now has more autocracies than democracies,” she said. “Twenty-seven countries — let that sink in — have transitioned from democracies to autocracies since 2005.”
Scarier still — especially for us in the U.S. — is this:
“If autocratization starts in a democracy, the probability of [it] surviving is very low.”
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Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist from the Philippines, broke it down even more clearly in another session titled “The Weaponization of Nostalgia.” Here in the States, we know it as “Make America Great Again.”
There’s a playbook, she said — a well-worn one used by authoritarians everywhere:
1. “Media capture,” by elevating a propaganda arm like Newsmax while punishing the Associated Press for not taking orders from the president.
2. “Academic capture,” by slashing billions in critical research funds if schools won’t do his bidding.
3. “NGO capture,” by infiltrating and defunding nonprofit nongovernmental organizations that help millions of the world’s most vulnerable.
4. “State capture,” by ignoring checks and balances and demonizing anyone — including members of their own political party — who oppose the autocrat’s power grab.
Underpinning it all? The breakdown of the rule of law.
When we lose our rights, Ressa warned, “the executive begins to rule by executive order, the legislature is either corrupt, coerced, or co-opted, and the judiciary takes too long.”
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Fear works as a strong deterrent. Look at the obedience. The cowardice. The capitulation that seemingly happens every hour in the U.S.
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No one knows that better than Christopher Wylie — the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who exposed how Facebook data was twisted and weaponized to help elect Trump in 2016 and to pass Brexit. He also revealed the company’s ties to Russia.
At a session titled “Captured: How Silicon Valley’s AI Emperors Are Reshaping Reality,” Wylie didn’t mince words:
“This is not tech,” he plainly told the audience. “This is abuse of power.”
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“You guys are talking about this as if it’s some app, a widget, or whatever,” Wylie chastised the reporters in the room. “No — it’s a fascist movement.”
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[T]here, in a city that’s seen empires rise and fall — among reporters who’ve risked their lives to protect fundamental freedoms, and in the shadow of those who lost theirs in the same pursuit — the message couldn’t have been clearer:
The danger is real.
The warnings are loud.
Wake up, America.
Philadelphia Inquirer
