Do Fascists Feel Joy? -- TEASER
Gaslit Nation
Gaslit Nation
4.7 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world's leading philosophers and psychologists were based in Germany and Austria during the rise of Hitler. They studied the darkest chapter of human history while trying to make sense of it and survive it themselves. Their teachings are an urgent alarm for us today: fascists seek endless conflict through domination, and it will never be enough.
Drawing on George Orwell's analysis of Hitler, we see that while democracy offers the radical concept of "having a good time," fascism preys on a neurotic, broken need for "struggle, danger, and death." It is an addiction to conflict, often first learned in the childhood home, according to Erich Fromm, that views empathy not as a virtue, but as a target.
Walter Benjamin, before losing his own life to suicide to avoid the concentration camps, pointed out that fascists seek pleasure in their own demise. It is the fleeting, hollow glee of a bully kicking over a sandcastle because he doesn't know how to build one.
Joy is how we win. The hate-fueled fascist high is a non-renewable resource. It requires a constant supply of new enemies to sustain a house of cards built on lawlessness and corruption. True joy, born of community, love, and creation, is sustainable energy, even in the unlikeliest of places, as our heroes who came before us also showed us. Stay safe. Stay defiant. And find some joy today: it's the best revenge.
For our bonus episode this week, we sit down for a special Self Care Q&A with Vatican reporter Colleen Dulle, author of Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter! To listen to the bonus, subscribe to our Patreon at the Truth-Teller level or higher. We are extremely grateful to our listeners who are keeping us afloat during very difficult economic circumstances. Every bit of support helps give us the freedom to tell the truth, so thank you again for making Gaslit Nation possible!
Show Notes:
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Part I of Our Conversation with Colleen Dulle: MAGA's Vatican Cold War: https://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/magas-vatican-cold-war
A Recent Gaslit Nation Salon Excerpt Giving the Bigger Picture of U.S. China-Panic Chaos under Trump from the Pentagon's Perspective: https://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/stay-sane-with-us-join-the-gaslit-nation-salon
"An observer arrested in South Minneapolis. Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune" https://bsky.app/profile/amreports.bsky.social/post/3mcxlw4ijx42p
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You've Got to Read George Orwell's Review of 'Mein Kampf' https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a45897365/george-orwell-reviews-hitler-mein-kampf/
Police charge Trump campaign manager with assault https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/police-charge-trump-campaign-manager-with-assault#:~:text=Police%20in%20Jupiter%2C%20Florida%2C%20released,provided%20by%20Jupiter%2C%20Florida%20police.
Ex-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski accused of sexual assault https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/27/ex-trump-campaign-manager-corey-lewandowski-accused-of-sexual-assault
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1978, the Czech dissident Vasslav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called |
| 0:07.0 | The Power the Powerless. |
| 0:09.0 | And in it, he asked a simple question, how did the communist system sustain itself? |
| 0:15.0 | And his answer began with the greengrocer. |
| 0:18.0 | Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window. |
| 0:23.6 | Workers of the world unite. He doesn't believe it. No one does. But he places a sign anyway |
| 0:30.6 | to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. |
| 0:40.3 | Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals |
| 0:46.3 | they privately know to be false. Havil called this living within a lie. |
| 0:53.3 | The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. |
| 1:01.0 | And its fragility comes from the same source. |
| 1:05.0 | When even one person stops performing, when the green grocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. |
| 1:14.2 | Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. |
| 1:22.0 | Welcome to Gassanation's bonus show. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer |
| 1:29.1 | of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide, famine, and Ukraine. The film |
| 1:34.9 | The Kremlin doesn't want you to see, so be sure to watch it. Our opening clip was Canadian Prime Minister, |
| 1:40.2 | Mark Carney, sounding like a Gaslit Nation episode from eight years ago at the World Economic Forum. |
| 1:46.7 | I hold a special place in my heart for Mark Carney. |
| 1:49.7 | I happened, I harpened, to be in London the week before and the week after the Brexit vote. |
| 1:58.2 | I was researching Mr. Jones in the Orwell Archives. George Orwell, for those who |
| 2:02.9 | don't know, was a character in my film. So I was all up in the Orwell Archives having, blissing out. |
| 2:08.8 | Meanwhile, there's an absolute meltdown on live TV and all around me, the House of Cards back |
... |
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