The far right—a user’s manual

AMERICA is not about to be overrun by neo-fascists. Most politicians have no difficulty condemning the far right. The Republican National Committee chairman has told white supremacists, “We don’t want your vote.” Yet this floppy fringe should not be taken lightly. “As a speaker, Hitler exercises astonishing sway over a German audience, presumably because public speaking is an unknown art in Germany,” was the British embassy in Berlin’s snarky verdict in 1937. European fascists were a bit of a joke, until they were not. Nor was America immune from swastika-waving wingnuts.