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There's a goodly number of "dystopian USA" TLs and such out there, but never have I found one where the United States goes fascist. Dictatorships, yes, nasty presidents, yes, but never fascist. And I don't mean that Phillip Roth "Plot Against America and Butterflies" shoehorn fascism, I mean genuine fascism as defined thusly by Robert Paxton:

  • a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
  • the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;
  • a belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
  • dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
  • the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, by exclusionary violence if necessary;
  • the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny;
  • the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason;
  • the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;
  • the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess within a Darwinian struggle.

So, your AH Challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the United States come under a fascist regime at some point in its history. The POD may be no earlier than June 22, 1865.


Best of luck :)
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