The fate of quislings after fascists are defeated

Vidkun Quisling, sentenced to death by firing squad for betraying Norway to the Nazis, 1945.

The American people are stunningly stupid and easy to deceive. But even Donald Trump and his machinery of deceit cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The Trump resistance is starting to form. The conservative columnist David Brooks wrote yesterday in the New York Times:

“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”

We can only guess what percentage of the American people would happily follow Trump into full-on fascism. My guess would be 20 percent. The rest of us will do whatever it takes to get our democracy back. And we won’t forget who the fascists are and what they did.

In their gloating and triumphalism and sadism, Trumpists haven’t started to imagine what might happen to them once Trump is put down. Since they don’t know much history, maybe we should start reminding them.

I asked ChatGPT’s “deep research” AI for a summary of what has happened to “collaborators” in the past — both as a legal process, after fascists are deposed, and as a grassroots resistance as people rise up against fascist treatment.

Here are two AI reports. They will open as PDF files in your browser:

The historical record shows totalitarian regimes almost universally establish networks of camps, prisons, and forced-labor colonies. 982 words.

Meanwhile, the stories of resistance and eventual justice (from the Nuremberg gallows to the lustration files) serve as enduring reminders that even in the darkest times, there were those who defended freedom and, when light returned, insisted on accountability. 5,282 words.