America Has Beaten Authoritarianism Before

I caught the recent article by Christopher Armitage at The Existential Republic which claimed that ‘once they (fascists) win elections, it's already too late’ and something about that didn’t sit right with me. I don’t think that’s actually true—and history backs me up. So if you saw that piece and felt a chill run down your spine, this is for you.

What do we do now that authoritarianism is tightening its grip? We fight back.

The “0% Success Rate” Argument Misses the Point

Christopher Armitage’s recent essay makes a chilling claim: once fascists gain power through elections, they have never been removed democratically. The historical examples he cites—Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary—are real and sobering. But the conclusion he draws is flawed because it rests on a selection bias that distorts the lesson for today.

The Problem with Defining Fascism by Its End State

Armitage defines fascism as a fully consolidated one-party regime, either de facto or de jure. By that definition, of course none were voted out—because elections, at least free and fair ones, no longer existed. It’s like saying, “No one has ever escaped a house once it is fully engulfed in flames,” while ignoring the people who grabbed the extinguisher when the smoke alarm first went off.

History is full of authoritarian surges that were rolled back before total consolidation:

• McCarthyism (1950s): A homegrown authoritarian movement that weaponized state power and fear. It didn’t abolish elections, but it eroded civil liberties and normalized illiberal governance. It ended through institutional pushback, media exposure, and public backlash—not war or coups.
• Massive Resistance (1954–1964): Southern states openly defied federal law after Brown v. Board, closing schools and nullifying court orders. It took federal courts, civil rights activism, and the Civil Rights Act to break that authoritarian backlash.
• Jim Crow South (1877–1965): For nearly a century, Southern states operated as authoritarian enclaves inside a federal democracy—disenfranchising millions, crushing dissent, and maintaining one-party rule. They were dismantled through federal intervention and mass mobilization.

These cases don’t fit Armitage’s dataset because they didn’t just let the house burn. In the end, democracy succeeded with a little help from true patriots.

The Slave Power—America’s First Authoritarian Capture

Before fascism had a name, the United States faced its own authoritarian crisis. In the decades before the Civil War, a coalition of Southern elites—planter aristocrats, pro-slavery politicians, and their Northern allies—built what abolitionists called “The Slave Power.” Their goal was simple: preserve and expand slavery at any cost, even if it meant breaking democracy.

How They Seized Power

• Disproportionate Representation: The Three-Fifths Compromise and Senate structure gave slave states outsized influence in Congress.
• Judicial Capture: The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision (1857) declared Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories.
• Federal Enforcement: The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) forced free states to return escaped enslaved people.
• Expansionist Agenda: The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) opened new territories to slavery under “popular sovereignty.”

By the early 1850s, the Slave Power had captured all three branches of government. They weren’t content to defend slavery where it existed—they wanted to spread it west and even into the Caribbean.

Sound familiar??

Lincoln’s Entry and the Backlash Abraham Lincoln re-entered politics because of this authoritarian overreach. His 1854 Peoria speech warned that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was a radical assault on free government. The Republican Party was born as a direct response to the Slave Power’s expansionist push.

In 1860, Lincoln’s election marked a democratic repudiation of that agenda. But instead of accepting electoral defeat, Southern elites chose secession. When they couldn’t rule through democracy, they tried to destroy it. So, there may have ultimately been a war, but it’s because authoritarians were being pushed out by the popular will of the people.

Modern Parallels

• Minority Rule Through Structural Advantage: Then it was the Senate and the Three-Fifths Compromise; today it’s gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and a captured judiciary.
• Expansionist Authoritarianism: Then it was spreading slavery into new territories; today it’s imposing minority rule through state legislatures and federal courts.
• Rule or Ruin: Then, secession; now, whole-sale refusal to accept the legitimacy of opposition party victories and political violence.

The Lesson The Slave Power shows that authoritarian capture can happen inside a democracy—and be reversed through democratic means. But it also shows the cost of delay: by the time the system corrected itself, the price was a civil war.

Why the U.S. Is Not Weimar—Yet

Armitage argues that “the window isn’t closing; it’s closed.” That’s an opinion, not a historical inevitability. The U.S. still has:

• Competitive elections (even if gerrymandered and litigated).
• Independent state governments.
• A decentralized economy where opposition states control most GDP.
• A civil society that can still organize.

This is not Nazi Germany in 1934. It’s closer to competitive authoritarianism—think Hungary or Poland in early stages—where institutions are under siege but not dead. Out time is NOW.

The Real Lesson

The danger is real. History shows that once authoritarian movements consolidate power, reversal is rare and bloody. But history also shows that partial authoritarian episodes can be defeated without war—if institutions, states, and citizens act before the house is fully on fire.

The question isn’t whether fascism is inevitable. It’s whether we recognize that we’re in the gray zone now—and whether we’re willing to fight like hell to keep it from going black.

So, if you have any doomers in your life who felt as I did reading Chris’s post, share this with them.