To conclude, we'll drop the roleplay and do some synthesis - what are we really arguing about when we argue about fascism? Since it's a new lesson, I'm genunely curious how it will go! Of course, this week's student discussion leaders claimed the first two teams and left me to lead Trump's defense 🙃

Today, we’ll argue! They'll be equipped with a few additional pieces to develop their definition and criteria with (Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism," Eco's "Ur-Fascism," Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism"), but they'll have to bring their own evidence to charge or exonerate Trump with.

For Tuesday, they read Dylan Matthew's Vox piece and the intros from these volumes by Gavriel Rosenfeld & Janet Ward and Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins. We also looked at recent interviews with John F Kelly and Robert Paxton. During class, each team constructed and presented their preliminary cases.