Fascism on the Rise Archives - KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show · Burt Cohen

Young Men Are Drawn to Fascism. Why? What Can We Do?

·58 min·1 clip

Sexual predation has become part of the appeal to these people

Burt Cohen opens by asking why fascism keeps reaching for young men. He connects the question to Donald Trump’s campaigns and their repeated focus on young men. Craig A. Johnson joins to talk about his book, How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism. Cohen keeps the frame civic and political, not just abstractly ideological. Johnson argues that young men are often drawn in through insecurity and the performance of toughness. The show links that vulnerability to broader patterns of patriarchy on the right. Cohen points out that right-wing movements have long used violence, or the threat of it, to advance domestic political goals. Johnson says that helps explain why right-wing organizations have often been dominated by men. The conversation keeps circling back to the way fascism targets young men for messaging, recruitment, and mobilization. Johnson then shares a story from his youth about finding neo-Nazi material in his uncle’s mail. At first the mailing looked cheap and odd, until the swastika made its meaning obvious. His parents wanted to put it away and avoid the subject. That reaction becomes part of the episode’s warning about what happens when hateful ideas show up in ordinary families and get ignored. Johnson says it showed him that the Nazis were not dead history. He adds that the discovery helped spark a lifelong fascination with these movements. The discussion shifts to masculinity and the heroes boys are taught to admire. Superman comes up as a model of power, strength, and idealized male identity. Cohen and Johnson note the overlap between that fantasy and the Nazi term ubermensch, the overman. The conversation closes on the need to face the problem directly, keep faith in democracy, and ask what people can still do.

As heard by us

A sober look at why young men are drawn to fascism, and what democracy can do about it.

Burt Cohen frames the conversation around a hard civic question: why young men are drawn to fascism, and what can be done about it. Craig A. Johnson answers with history, memory, and plain talk, linking Donald Trump's campaigns to older patterns of recruitment, patriarchal…

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