American liberators of Nazi camps got ‘a lifelong vaccine against extremism’ − their wartime experiences are a warning for today

  When American soldiers liberated the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Austria 80 years ago this May, Spanish prisoners welcomed them with a message of antifascist solidarity.

  The Spaniards hung a banner made from stolen bed sheets over one of Mauthausen’s gates. In English, Spanish, and Russian, it read: “The Spanish Antifascists Greet the Liberating Forces.”

  Both American servicemen and Spanish survivors remember the camp’s liberation as a win in their shared fight against extremism, my research on the Spanish prisoners in Mauthausen finds. They all understood the authoritarian governments of Nazi Germany, Italy, and Spain as fascist regimes that used extremist views rooted in intolerance and nationalism to persecute millions of people and imperil democracy across Europe.

Trump’s violent rhetoric echoes the fascist commitment to a destructive and bloody rebirth of society

  Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders.

  As a political philosopher who studies extremism, I believe people should be more worried about this.

Jacob G. Hornberger: The coming economic fascism

  The recent efforts by President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence against Carrier Corp. provide us with a signpost of the economic fascism that lies ahead after both men take office. Whatever might be said about economic fascism, one thing is for sure: it is contrary to the principles of economic liberty, private property, the free market, and the rule of law.

  Targeting Carrier for daring to move some of its operations to Mexico, Pence, as governor of Indiana, offered the company a package of tax incentives to induce the company to keep some of its operations in Indiana. At the same time, Trump announced that as president he will punish any American company that moved abroad with the imposition of a high tariff on any goods it wished to ship into the United States.