Donald Trump and his top advisers are trying to install a right-wing nationalist regime in America. Their efforts, if successful, would be disastrous for ordinary people, in the United States and around the world.

But all is not lost. The process of regime change is just beginning, and the outcome is far from determined. Understanding the roots of this dangerous trajectory can contribute to developing strategies for resistance and for moving toward a progressive future.

The United States is not the only nation to see rising nationalism. Right-wing regimes have emerged in Turkey, India, Hungary, Poland, and the Philippines as well as in Russia under Vladimir Putin. These regimes stress patriotic themes, play upon and intensify citizens’ fear of minority ethnicities and religions as well as other long oppressed groups. They promise to resolve festering economic problems, blaming them on convenient scapegoats, such as foreigners or immigrants. When right-wing nationalist regimes are consolidated, they invariably restrict long-established individual rights and introduce, or intensify, the use of extra-legal violence at home and abroad.