Fascist has long been a used as blanket term for any tyrant that shows autocratic behavior … and is not a Communist (at least during World War II, when Communist police states were given a free ride if they were Western allies). The Fascists were, in fact, a radical right-wing national political party founded in 1921 by the Italian Benito Mussolini. In 1921, the Italian king Victor Emanuel appointed Mussolini as prime minister, and his Fascist party remade the Italian way of life, including language, education, politics and social interaction. Adolf Hitler admired Mussolini’s iron-fist methods and integrated them into the Nazi ideology.
The term fascist has become a catchall for repression, state terror and political evil—a counterpoint to Democracy—and has also become a description for ideological conservatives of all right-wing stripes. So often is it used for the slightest infraction of the liberal position that some critics have argued that it has become trivialized. But as of this national election, candidate and former president Donald Trump has invited opponents to label him fascist or fascistic, and the description has stuck; critics have been forced to agree that if it talks like a fascist, acts like one and spews the bile of one, then it is one.
The board game Secret Hitler is not specifically a critique of Trump’s overt sympathy with dictators and dictatorial power, and it’s decidedly not the first game to address political, social and economic issues. Table games pitting Marxism against Capitalism, the U.S. against Castro, and such general war games as Strategy and Battleship have been popular since the Cold War, but this is the first such game that has used the hot button of “Hitler” in the title. Which contributes to an overwhelming fear that democracy is indeed in danger. (Witness the rhetoric of last night Madison Square Garden Trump rally, seeped in divisive, racist, vulgar and hate-filled rhetoric)
Some historians believe that fascism cannot happen here in the United States—but it is undeniably clear that many of the paths to tyranny are being espoused in the current election rhetoric.
Here is the official product description for the game that brings our dangerous polarization into the spotlight:
Secret Hitler is a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930’s Germany. Players are secretly divided into two teams—liberals and fascists. Known only to each other, the fascists coordinate to sow distrust and install their cold-blooded leader. The liberals must find and stop the Secret Hitler before it’s too late.
Each round, players elect a President and a Chancellor who will work together to enact a law from a random deck. If the government passes a fascist law, players must try to figure out if they were betrayed or simply unlucky. Secret Hitler also features government powers that come into play as fascism advances. The fascists will use those powers to create chaos unless liberals can pull the nation back from the brink of war.
The video below provides detailed instructions on what an insurrection in a liberal democracy can look like …
