European culture and military superiority didn’t conquer the Americas, European pathogens did. By the time European colonists had landed enough armed men to do actual battle with anyone, European germs had reduced the native population by as much as 90%! Armed Europeans may have thought they and their culture were superior but their superiority was an illusion. Turns out those Europeans brought more than just literal pathogens in the holds of their ships. They brought diseased thinking with them, too. Fascism’s roots are as European as smallpox. In the end, it’s just another deadly European pathogen.

Italy birthed fascism during World War I. Benito Mussolini coined the term basing it on the Roman word fasces – a bundle of rods tied around an ax, which represented the power of Rome. One of fascism’s core principles (in addition to absolute state power, dictatorial rule, corporatism, extreme nationalism and imperialism) is superiority of the nation’s people over all others. The goal: remove “all others” from the fascist environment.

Though born in Italy, fascism would really take flight when it arrived in Germany. Something in the German national character sparked to fascism especially as they reeled after WWI’s terrible defeat. Us versus them – that’s always the kindling. Hitler began by imitating Mussolini. In short order, Hitler surpassed his fascistic mentor.

The man had bigger “dreams”, I guess…

America has mythologized its founders to its own detriment. Yes, they had a great idea – self government (what Lincoln later called “government of the people, by the people and for the people). But, being wealthy, white, Christian Europeans, they brought tons of baggage with them everywhere they went.

They wrote something about “all men being equal” but didn’t mean it literally. They meant the “men” part. But not the “all”. The only men “equal” to them, they believed, were other men exactly like them. Alas, that’s not the case.

Meanwhile back in Europe – as America began to take shape – religion and tribalism and a thousand years of history pitted nations against each other. We can see World War I as Old Europe’s death rattle. World War II was the death rattle’s death rattle.

Hitler didn’t just draw inspiration from Mussolini. He saw something equally essential in American racism. Slavery drove the point home: white people deserved to own Black people. But, let’s remember who those white people were: former Europeans.

America remains a great idea as yet unrealized. Racism stands between us and realizing all of our potential. We can cure some racism; the rest is a cancer that must be eradicated. Like all other European pathogens.