Introduction
Alexander S. Blank’s Neo-Nazism-Revanchism. Myths of “Psychological Warfare” (1985) offers a Cold War-era examination of fascism’s past and its ongoing legacy. Written on the eve of World War II’s 40th anniversary, the book adopts an intelligence-analytical approach to assess how fascism evolved and how its history has been interpreted or misinterpreted in East–West ideological battles. Blank’s analysis is rooted in a Marxist-Leninist perspective that treats fascism as a product of monopoly capitalism and imperialist crisis. At the same time, he critiques Western historiography and media, arguing that “bourgeois” propaganda has distorted the history of fascism to serve contemporary political ends. This essay reviews Blank’s key arguments about the evolution of fascism, the role of monopolies in supporting fascist regimes, the depiction of Adolf Hitler and his ideology, the falsification of fascist history by capitalist propaganda, and the framing of “psychological warfare” as a weapon of the West against socialist nations. Throughout, the aim is to maintain objectivity and clarity, presenting Blank’s insights with critical interpretation and logical structure.
The Evolution of Fascism in Blank’s Analysis
Blank traces the evolution of fascism from its origins in the early 20th century to its neo-fascist incarnations in the post-war era. In his view, classical fascism (exemplified by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) emerged from the severe socio-economic crises of capitalism in the 1920s–1930s and the fear of socialist revolution among the ruling elites. Fascist movements arose as violently anti-communist forces promising to restore “order” and national pride amid chaos. Crucially, Blank emphasizes that fascism was not a spontaneous outpouring of mass sentiment but was cultivated and brought to power by the most reactionary elements of monopoly capital seeking to crush the left and preserve their dominance.
After World War II, fascism was militarily defeated but not completely eradicated as an ideology. Blank describes how neo-Nazi and revanchist currents persisted, especially in West Germany (the Federal Republic) and other capitalist nations, albeit in altered forms. He notes that in post-war decades, overt neo-Nazi parties remained marginal, but far-right extremists often found space on the fringes of conservative mainstream politics. During periods of East–West détente in the 1970s, neo-fascist groups struggled to gain traction, as most citizens preferred peace and stability to revanchist agitation. However, Blank warns that whenever international tensions rise, these extremist forces try to revive old fascist myths and exploit public fears. In the early 1980s, with the renewal of Cold War hostilities and the arms race, he observed a “thunder” of ideological agitation – a “psychological war” – raging even in peacetime Europe. Reactionary political circles, often aligned with military–industrial interests, seized the opportunity to “‘replay’ the outcomes of World War II, spread ideas of revanchism and distrust among nations, revive obsolete anti-Soviet dogmas, and even grant indulgence to bloody fascism”. In Blank’s analysis, this resurgence of fascist and revanchist rhetoric is not a relic of the past but a deliberate political tool in the ongoing struggle between socialism and imperialism.
Monopoly Capital and the Rise of Fascist Regimes
A central thesis of Blank’s work is that monopoly capitalism was the midwife and benefactor of fascist regimes. He aligns with the classical Marxist interpretation (shared by historians like Georgi Dimitrov and others) that fascism is “the product of a definite stage of imperialist development” – essentially, the extreme reaction of big capital to economic crisis and the threat of proletarian revolution. The book provides historical evidence that Germany’s leading industrial and financial monopolies were instrumental in Hitler’s rise to power. Industrialists and bankers funded the Nazi Party, expecting Hitler to destroy organized labor and expand markets through conquest. Blank cites the well-documented connections between Nazi leaders and corporate executives: for example, the Krupp and Thyssen concerns, IG Farben, and other cartels funneled resources to the Nazis, and in return gained enormous state contracts and suppression of socialist unions once Hitler took control. He reminds readers that at the Nuremberg Trials some of these top industrialists (Gustav Krupp, Friedrich Flick, executives of IG Farben, etc.) were convicted for colluding with the Nazi regime. Fascism, Blank argues, was thus “the monstrous offspring of the general crisis of capitalism and the legitimate child of reactionary monopolies and the military” – a creation of the very elites who later sought to dissociate themselves from its crimes.
In Blank’s view, this relationship between monopoly capital and fascism continued in subtler ways after the war. He contends that neo-fascist and revanchist movements (especially in West Germany) received covert encouragement or at least indulgence from certain capitalist interests and state apparatuses that were “closely linked with the military-industrial complex”. The rationale was that reviving nationalist and anti-communist fervor could justify higher military spending and preserve elite power. As evidence, Blank points to the political climate of the early 1980s, when Western governments embarked on arms build-ups and some officials downplayed the dangers of neo-Nazi extremists. He observes that West German authorities often showed leniency toward right-wing extremists (allowing former Nazis a platform and tolerating neo-Nazi symbols), even as left-wing and peace activists faced harsh surveillance and repression. Such double standards, he implies, reflect an underlying class interest: the reactionary bourgeoisie quietly benefits from the agitation of neo-fascist elements, so long as it serves anti-communist and militarist ends.
Hitler’s Ideological Framing and Legacy
Blank devotes considerable attention to how Adolf Hitler is depicted in historical narratives, contrasting the book’s own interpretation with that of Western biographers and propagandists. In Myths of “Psychological Warfare”, Hitler is not seen as an otherworldly evil or a singular pathological phenomenon, but rather as a political instrument of Germany’s ruling class and a product of his times. The author acknowledges Hitler’s personal charisma and fanatical will, but he situates those traits in context: without the backing of wealthy patrons and the resonance of Nazi ideology with certain public anxieties, Hitler’s rise would have been impossible. Notably, Blank cites the analysis of psychologist Erich Fromm, who argued that while various social-psychological preconditions (like widespread feelings of insecurity or authoritarian family structures) may have predisposed some Germans to follow Hitler, the decisive factor in the Nazi seizure of power was the support of “the representatives of heavy industry and the half-bankrupt Junker aristocracy” – without which “Hitler could not have succeeded”.
In contrast, Blank is sharply critical of how many Western accounts frame Hitler and his ideology. He singles out the influential West German historian Joachim Fest as an exemplar of what he calls the “personification” approach to Nazi history. Fest’s biography Hitler: A Career (and its film adaptation) portrays Hitler as the near-absolute architect of the Third Reich’s trajectory. According to Fest, *“the Nazi dictatorship was from first to last the embodiment of Hitler’s colossal will to power”*. This interpretation reduces fascism to the story of one man’s pathological ambition and talent for mass manipulation. Fest emphasizes Hitler’s personal qualities – his fanatical conviction, his demagogic skill, even a perverse “genius” in tapping into popular desires – as the explanation for Nazism’s success. Under Fest’s pen, Hitler becomes “the voice of the aspirations of broad layers of the population,” a leader who (for a time) fulfilled many Germans’ hopes and achieved a form of “social revolution” in Germany. Blank notes that Fest even credits Hitler with positive achievements like ending mass unemployment and restoring national pride by overturning the Versailles order.
Blank’s analysis infers a dangerous subtext in such portrayals. By highlighting Hitler’s modernization efforts and initial “achievements” while treating his atrocities as the outcome of personal fanaticism or abstract evil, Fest and similar authors effectively sanitize aspects of Hitler’s regime. Fest’s narrative style, Blank argues, “leads the reader to conclusions by selective emphasis”: the horror of Hitler’s crimes is acknowledged but underplayed, and the responsibility of German elites or capitalism at large is downplayed. For instance, Fest does not outright deny Nazi aggression or the Holocaust, but he frames World War II’s outcome as stemming more from Hitler’s strategic blunders than from the overwhelming force of the Allied and Soviet war effort. He even implies that if not for certain mistakes, the Nazi state might have persisted – a conjecture that skirts the fundamental criminality and unsustainability of Hitler’s project. In Blank’s view, this kind of historiography turns Hitler into a quasi-mythical figure (part visionary modernizer, part demonic fanatic) while obscuring the fact that Hitler operated with the active partnership of Germany’s corporate barons and conservative establishment. The ideological framing of Hitler in Western propaganda thus serves to isolate Nazism from its roots in capitalist crisis. It personalizes evil in Hitler alone (or a few Nazi madmen), implicitly absolving the social forces that empowered him.
Falsification of Fascist History in Bourgeois Propaganda
According to Blank, a systematic falsification of fascist history is underway in much of the Western “bourgeois” propaganda, aimed at reshaping public memory in a way that serves contemporary political goals. He argues that this distortion takes multiple forms, all of which exonerate the capitalist system and shift blame onto other factors. One major example Blank identifies is the “doctrine of totalitarianism,” developed during the early Cold War by thinkers like Hannah Arendt, Carl J. Friedrich, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Totalitarianism theory ostensibly put Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the same basket, labeling both as totalitarian regimes and often drawing a direct equivalence between fascism and communism. Blank describes this doctrine as the “concentrated expression of all anti-communist concepts” in the West – a prime ideological weapon used to undermine the moral standing of socialism. He notes that some Western writers even suggest fascism arose as a reaction to communism or that the existence of the USSR somehow caused Nazism, thus perversely blaming the victim (socialism) for the crimes of the fascists. The clear purpose of such claims, Blank writes, is “to slander real socialism, present fascism as an alien excrescence in the capitalist system, portray the monopolies as ‘victims’ of Nazism, and free imperialism from any responsibility for fascism’s crimes”. By recasting fascism as a freak aberration or equating it with communism, bourgeois ideologues whitewash the capitalist roots of Nazism and erode the credit due to socialist forces for resisting and defeating fascism.
Blank provides concrete illustrations of how fascist history is being rewritten or sanitized in Western media and education. In West Germany’s schools of the 1970s–80s, for example, history textbooks treated the Third Reich in oddly “neutral” or euphemistic tones. Students learned about the Nazi period as a time of strict order and disciplined society, with Adolf Hitler sometimes presented as a leader who did “much good for the German people” by reviving the economy and restoring national pride. Some curricula even highlighted the autobahn highway network and elimination of unemployment as the Nazi regime’s positive accomplishments, claiming *“we owe our autobahns to Hitler”*. The atrocities of the regime were mentioned, but often in a fragmented way: textbooks listed Hitler’s victims (Jews, Catholics, political opponents) without explaining why they were persecuted, and they rarely acknowledged the communist and working-class role in antifascist resistance. Blank points out that nowhere in these materials was it taught that Germany’s wealthy industrialists had backed Hitler, nor that fascism was a brutal bulwark against the left. Instead, Nazi defeat in World War II was sometimes ascribed to incidental factors like “Russian winter” or Hitler’s tactical errors, rather than the collective sacrifice of the Allied nations and the Soviet Red Army. Such selective history, Blank argues, produces a distorted collective memory—one that quietly preserves a sense of German military honor (“not tarnishing the glory of German arms” even in defeat) while downplaying Nazi crimes and eliminating inconvenient facts about class struggle and capitalist complicity.
Media and popular culture in the West also come under Blank’s scrutiny. He describes a campaign of disinformation and myth-making in Western Europe and the United States, which intensified as the WWII victory anniversaries approached in the 1980s. One striking incident he discusses is the controversy over the Soviet documentary series The Great Patriotic War by Roman Karmen. When a version of this series (titled “Unforgotten War”) was finally aired on West German television in 1983, it faced virulent opposition from right-wing politicians, ex-Nazis, and certain media outlets. Reactionary voices labeled the documentary – which showed the Soviet perspective on World War II – as “propaganda” and managed to push it to a minor TV channel, with some regions even banning or censoring parts of it. In Blank’s view, the furious reaction to a fact-based war documentary revealed how allergic the West German right wing was to acknowledging the truth of Nazi aggression and the Red Army’s role in defeating it. Meanwhile, establishment media heavily promoted alternative programs that either trivialized or subtly rehabilitated the Nazi era. Blank notes, for instance, that around the same time, a West German network gave prime-time billing to Hitler: A Career, the documentary based on Joachim Fest’s work, complete with authentic Nazi newsreels and a narration that even purported to read Hitler’s “inner thoughts” aloud. Far from an objective account, Fest’s film (and others by Nazi-era filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, which saw renewed distribution) packaged fascist imagery in an enticing way, without proper historical condemnation. Blank quotes American sociologist Bertram Gross to capture the effect of these efforts: fascist leaders became adept at spreading “a system of myths” about their aims and deeds, myths that long outlived them and continue to obscure the true nature of fascism to this day. Indeed, Blank argues that in the 1980s, an entire “industry of myth-making” was active in the West, reviving old ghosts and fabricating new legends about the Nazi past to manipulate public opinion. These ranged from historical revisionism (minimizing Nazi culpability, blaming World War II on misunderstandings or Stalin’s policies) to open attempts at rehabilitation (for example, portraying Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess as a peacemaker, via forged “diaries” that some Western media trumpeted before they were exposed as hoaxes). According to Blank, such falsifications are not random but rather form a coordinated narrative that serves contemporary agendas: they erode the moral clarity about fascism, stir up nationalist nostalgia, and legitimize the renewed militarism and anti-communism of the present.
Psychological Warfare as a Western Tool Against Socialism
All of the above elements, in Blank’s assessment, coalesce into a broader strategy that he labels as “psychological warfare” waged by the imperialist West against socialist countries. The book argues that psychological warfare is not a myth in itself, but the myths propagated under its umbrella are potent weapons. Blank describes Western psychological warfare as a concerted campaign of propaganda, ideological subversion, and historical distortion aimed at undermining socialism and preparing public opinion for confrontation with the East. This campaign operates through mass media, academia, popular culture, and any other channel that can influence minds. For example, he details how Western radio broadcasts, television programs, and literature beamed into Eastern Europe and the USSR are full of anti-communist messaging. Western “ruling circles,” Blank writes, “create a dense thicket of anti-socialist prejudices” around their own populations, inundating citizens with fearsome images of the Soviet Union and socialist allies. By doing so, they hope to isolate socialist countries diplomatically and justify aggressive policies (such as the NATO military buildup in Europe). In Blank’s words, imperialist ideologues are “poisoning the international climate” by spreading distrust, revanchist ideas, and racist or anti-Soviet falsehoods, all of which impede détente and peace initiatives.
The “myths of psychological warfare” referenced in the book’s title are the specific false narratives used in this ideological offensive. We have already encountered several: the myth that fascism and communism were equivalent totalitarian evils, the myth that Nazi Germany was only defeated by chance or Western might (minimizing the Soviet role), the myth of a perennial “Soviet threat” to justify arms escalation, and even the myth that revanchist or neo-Nazi sentiments are harmless expressions of patriotism rather than dangerous fascist revivals. Blank underscores how these myths are recycled and amplified. For instance, anti-communist propaganda often resurrects Nazi-era slanders (depicting Bolshevism as a Jewish conspiracy or communists as subversives), repackaging them for contemporary audiences. He observes that “sinister myths, excavations into the past, born on West European soil, are modernized across the ocean (in the United States) and sent back to Europe” to achieve the same aims as advanced weapons like Pershing missiles – in other words, to threaten and destabilize the socialist bloc. This vivid comparison highlights Blank’s contention that psychological warfare is not mere rhetoric but a form of aggression. Just as NATO missiles could strike at socialist nations’ security, Western ideological weapons strike at their morale and unity.
Blank also connects the notion of psychological warfare to the encouragement of neo-fascist and ultra-nationalist forces in capitalist countries. He argues that Western governments tolerated neo-Nazism and revanchism insofar as those movements fueled anti-communist fervor and kept the populace in a state of fearful readiness for conflict. In West Germany, for example, revanchist groups (demanding the reversal of post-1945 borders or the “return” of lost territories) were allowed to operate and even received financial support under the banner of expellee organizations. Blank cites the fact that significant public funds were funneled into revanchist causes – “in 1982 alone, 40 million marks” were allocated to support the idea of “return to the homeland” for Germans from beyond the post-war borders. This, he implies, is part and parcel of psychological warfare: keeping historical grievances alive, merging them with anti-Soviet sentiment, and thus creating a constituency receptive to hardline policies. Indeed, Blank notes that contemporary revanchism in West Germany was “fermented exclusively on the yeast of anti-communism, fanned by Washington”. By framing every concession to peace or disarmament as a betrayal and stoking fears of the Eastern “other,” psychological warfare tactics sought to ensure that public opinion in the West would accept military buildup and confrontation.
In sum, Blank portrays psychological warfare as a deliberate Western construct—a fusion of propaganda and policy. Its “myths” aim to rewrite the history of fascism in order to demonize socialism and rehabilitate elements of fascist ideology under new guises. Its practice involves everything from academic theories to TV docudramas, from school curricula to political speeches, all coordinated (directly or indirectly) to erode the moral and ideological confidence of socialist societies while rallying the capitalist world for an existential clash. The ultimate danger Blank foresees is that such sustained psychological aggression, if unchallenged, can lay the groundwork for actual military aggression. By manipulating perceptions, it becomes easier for the imperialist powers to pursue risky strategies (like deploying new nuclear missiles in Europe in the 1980s) and to cloak offensive intentions as defensive necessities. Therefore, demystifying and countering these myths is, in Blank’s view, a matter of survival for the socialist project.
Conclusion
Alexander Blank’s Neo-Nazism-Revanchism. Myths of “Psychological Warfare” presents a richly detailed, if highly polemical, analysis of fascism’s legacy and its entanglement with capitalist interests and Cold War propaganda. Through an objectivist, fact-driven lens, Blank charts how fascism originated in the crises of monopoly capitalism and was sustained by powerful economic actors, how Adolf Hitler’s image has been contorted by Western narratives, and how post-war neo-fascist currents have been tacitly nurtured as instruments of anti-communist strategy. The book’s insights into the falsification of history – from equating communism with Nazism to romanticizing aspects of the Third Reich – serve as a warning about the political uses of historical memory. Blank’s concept of Western psychological warfare ties these threads together, suggesting that the battle over historical truth and ideological framing is itself a front in the struggle between imperialism and socialism.
In evaluating Blank’s arguments today, one may note the context of their time: the work reflects the Soviet perspective of the mid-1980s, when the threat of nuclear confrontation and the shadow of World War II still loomed large in policy debates. Some claims in the book carry the imprint of its era’s rhetoric, yet many observations – such as the commercial rehabilitation of fascist imagery, or the tendency to depoliticize and personalize the explanation of fascism – remain relevant to understanding how history can be contested and co-opted. The value of Blank’s analysis lies in its reminder that history is not merely about the past; it is continually rewritten in light of present struggles. By scrutinizing the “myths” constructed around fascism, Blank invites readers to think critically about the intersection of knowledge, memory, and power. His work stands as an invitation for further reading and reflection on how societies remember the trauma of fascism and learn (or fail to learn) its lessons. In an age when extremist ideologies and misinformation still pose challenges, the book’s core message about vigilance against historical distortion continues to resonate.
References (APA style)
Blank, A. S. (1985). Neonatsizm–revanshizm: Mify “psikhologicheskoi voĭny” [Neo-Nazism–Revanchism: Myths of “Psychological Warfare”]. Moscow: Mysl’.
Fest, J. (1973). Hitler [German edition: Hitler. Eine Karriere]. Munich: Ullstein. (Analysis cited via Blank, 1985).
Gross, B. (1980). Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America. New York: M. Evans. (Quote on fascist myth-making cited via Blank, 1985).
Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from Freedom. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. (Analysis of authoritarian personality cited via Blank, 1985).
Alexander S. Blank’s 1985 analysis, Neo-Nazism-Revanchism. Myths of “Psychological Warfare”, intended as a Cold War dissection of fascism through a Marxist-Leninist lens, has transcended its original context. When examined against the actions of the United States government between January 21, 2025, and today, August 26, 2025, Blank’s work reads less like a historical artifact and more like a terrifyingly precise autopsy of the American democratic collapse.
The past seven months have offered a grotesque validation of Blank’s central thesis: that when elite dominance is perceived as threatened, the most reactionary elements of capital will cultivate and install fascist structures—not as an aberration, but as a deliberate, violent tool for control. The current administration is not engaged in conservative governance; it is executing a project of revanchism, historical falsification, and industrialized psychological warfare aimed at the annihilation of democratic accountability. Blank’s framework provides the diagnostic manual for the authoritarian kleptocracy currently strangling the United States.
The “Legitimate Child of Reactionary Monopolies”
Blank’s most forceful argument is that fascism is the “monstrous offspring of the general crisis of capitalism and the legitimate child of reactionary monopolies.” It is not a spontaneous uprising of the masses; it is cultivated by ruling elites to crush opposition and secure their dominance.
In 2025 America, this dynamic is no longer concealed; it is celebrated. The veneer of working-class populism has been shredded to reveal the machinery of oligarchy. The aggressive deregulation agenda pursued since January—the systematic dismantling of environmental protections, the evisceration of labor rights, and the relentless neutering of financial oversight—are direct payments to the fossil fuel conglomerates and finance capital that financed this autocratic return.
This is not governance; it is a transaction. Just as Blank detailed how German industrialists (Krupp, IG Farben) bankrolled the Nazis in exchange for the destruction of unions, the current administration operates in overt partnership with the architects of the “Project 2025” manifesto. The implementation of this blueprint, crucially the activation of Schedule F in February, represents the apotheosis of this fascist fusion. This was not administrative reform; it was a purge. By replacing nonpartisan civil servants with ideological sycophants, the administration seized the administrative state on behalf of corporate interests, ensuring the government serves not the public, but the oligarchy and the leader’s will.
American Revanchism and the Architecture of Grievance
Blank identified “revanchism”—a pathological desire to recover lost status and “‘replay’ the outcomes” of past conflicts—as the fuel for neo-fascist resurgence. He noted that extremist forces exploit public fears to revive old dogmas and spread distrust.
The entire MAGA project is a revanchist fever dream, predicated on a profound grievance against modernity, multiculturalism, and the very concept of egalitarian democracy. It seeks not a return to a policy era, but to a hierarchical social order defined by white Christian nationalism.
The administration’s policies are explicitly designed to reclaim this mythical past. The nationwide assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the executive orders aimed at enforcing “biological truth” in federal documents, and the mobilization of the Comstock Act are not mere culture war skirmishes. They are the codification of revanchism.
Furthermore, this revanchism demands vengeance. The obsession with the “stolen” 2020 election has metastasized into the systematic weaponization of the Department of Justice. The DOJ is no longer an instrument of law but a tool of political retribution, pursuing the leader’s enemies while shielding his allies. This fulfills the fascist impulse: the law is a weapon for the strong and a shackle for the weak.
The Falsification of History and the War on Truth
Perhaps the most chilling parallel lies in what Blank termed the “systematic falsification of fascist history.” He criticized “bourgeois propaganda” for sanitizing the past, rewriting textbooks to emphasize national pride and “order” while obscuring systemic crimes and elite complicity.
Since January 2025, the United States has witnessed a state-sanctioned effort to rewrite its own history. The aggressive push for “patriotic education” and the executive actions aimed at “Ending Radical Indoctrination” are explicit attempts to replace historical accountability with nationalist hagiography.
More insidiously, the administration has engaged in the active falsification of recent events. The relentless campaign to rewrite the history of the January 6th insurrection—rebranding those who attempted to overthrow the government as “hostages” or “patriots”—is a direct assault on collective memory. As Blank argued, such falsifications are not random; they form a coordinated narrative that serves contemporary agendas by “eroding the moral clarity about fascism” and legitimizing political violence.
Psychological Warfare: The Industrialization of the Lie
Blank described “psychological warfare” as a concerted campaign of propaganda, ideological subversion, and distortion aimed at undermining opposition and preparing the populace for confrontation. This involves creating a “dense thicket” of prejudices and fear.
The current administration does not engage in mere propaganda; it has industrialized it, creating a closed-loop epistemic ecosystem where truth is irrelevant, and loyalty is the only currency. Blank observed how Western propaganda sought to demonize an external enemy (the USSR) to justify aggression. In 2025, the enemy is internal: the “radical left,” the “deep state,” immigrants, and the press.
The administration’s strategy relies on what Blank termed the “myths of psychological warfare.” These myths—the pervasive conspiracy theories about election fraud, the existential threat of “woke ideology,” the dehumanization of political opponents as “vermin”—are amplified relentlessly by state-aligned media. The executive order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government” is a masterpiece of Orwellian doublespeak, serving as the pretext for the actual weaponization of the state against the administration’s critics. This is designed to achieve what Blank recognized as the goal of ideological aggression: to strike at the morale and unity of the opposition while rallying the base for an existential clash.
The Evisceration of Democracy
The erosion of American democracy under this regime is not a byproduct of incompetence; it is the objective. It is a calculated, ruthless dismantling of the checks and balances that define a republic.
Blank warned against the “personalization” trap—reducing fascism solely to the leader (like Hitler), which obscures the systemic forces and elite complicity that enabled him. While the cult of personality around Trump is central, the collapse of American democracy in 2025 is a systemic failure. It is the culmination of a decades-long project enabled by the Republican Party, a compliant judiciary, powerful corporate interests, and a sophisticated propaganda machine.
The realization of the Unitary Executive Theory—a polite term for the demolition of checks and balances—is the centerpiece of this assault. The rapid implementation of Schedule F, purging expertise and institutional memory to install ideological loyalists across the DOJ, intelligence agencies, and the State Department, has destroyed the separation between political ambition and impartial governance.
The United States is witnessing the construction of an authoritarian state under the decaying façade of a republic. Blank warned that sustained psychological aggression lays the groundwork for actual aggression. In 2025 America, the aggression is here, directed inward, shredding the social contract and extinguishing the light of democracy. The mechanisms of autocracy Blank analyzed four decades ago are not historical curiosities; they are the operating reality of the American present, driving the nation toward an abyss.
