Portside

From Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth to Donald Trump's favourite film, Citizen Kane, US culture has long told stories about homegrown authoritarianism. What can we learn from them?

The rise of a right-wing nationalist regime in the United States is now a realistic possibility.

Duterte's campaign to rid the Philippines of drug users and pushers through extrajudicial executions elicited shock even among the most hardened observers. And his now legendary cursing of President Obama as a "son of a bitch" - part of an angry farewell to a long-standing alliance with Washington and an embrace of China - upended Asian geopolitics.

Reader Comments: Time's Trump Cover Is a Subversive Work of Political Art; Reader's Disagree - Is Trump Passing Secrets to Putin - or is Borowitz Satire or Incredible Reality Check; Why Does the Media Misjudge Fascists; Trump Nominee Meets with Austrian Nazis; Teacher Shortages; Trump's Job Plan; Hotel Workers Beat Trump; Los Angeles Fashion Industry; Discussion - Building Mass Socialist Party; Cuban Art Exhibit in New York; and more...

Austria’s far right has suffered a setback, but it would be a mistake to believe the dynamic they created is broken.

Not long before Mussolini and Hitler came to power, much of the US press believed that power would "moderate" them, or considered them something of a joke. Are we seeing similar mistakes today?

The rise of fascism shaped Schrödinger’s cat fable.

Trump's nationalism is absolutely about ethno-purity and an element of populism as well, although it's clearly a misdirection...it's largely about wounded national pride which has been a potent motivating force on the American right for a very long time. The reason Trump is now playing the conservative anthem "Proud To Be An American" at his rallies is: Good old fashioned jingoism - the one thing that brings the old right, the new right and the alt-right together.