Internationally, the debates around historical parallels to Trumpism have been monopolized by one key issue: whether or not he or his administration can be accurately labeled as fascist. However, history has failed to settle on a single consensus definition of fascism, and so the lessons it offers for contemporary politics must be provisional. Moreover, fascism’s long shadow potentially impoverishes our hunt for historical analogy: it provides a simplified answer, yes or no, where a more diverse set of examples might give us more complex and nuanced tools to think about the present moment.
Japan in the 1930s, represents one possible historical parallel. The so-called ‘dark valley’ of Showa Japan led to Pearl Harbour and the Pacific War, but it remains contested whether we can accurately call it fascist or not. Nevertheless, studying Japan can tell us, if not how to think about the insurrection of January 6th, at least some questions to ask. Throughout the interwar period, political violence impeded and eroded the functioning of government and democracy in Japan: the nature of this violence and how the nation responded to it, proposes some lessons for understanding the right-wing violence that overshadows American political life today.
Fireflies 