Antifa is a decentralized network of far-left militants that oppose fascism, racism, or otherwise far-right extremism. Image courtesy of Jon Tyson on Unsplash.

Content Warning: This article contains descriptions of political extremism and the holocaust.

As someone who had a Roman Empire phase a few years back, I immediately knew what the Rubicon was. The Rubicon is a river in Italy, and the reference is to Julius Caesar at the end of his governorship. He was ordered to disband his army and stay north of the Rubicon; instead, Caesar marched his army across this muddy creek in an act of civil war. While crossing, Caesar famously stated: “The die is cast” (alea iacta est).

In the modern world, the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” is used as a point of no return. Sometimes we refer to people who have done something so bad, or gone too far, as having “crossed the Rubicon.” When times are bad, we wonder just how far from the Rubicon we are. For example, we wonder when a protest becomes a riot. An election to a takeover? When is the moment an economy in danger becomes one in collapse?

We often look for these points of no return, these riverbanks, hoping we haven’t crossed them. The thing about these points of no return is that we only know we crossed them after it happened. The Rubicon is not like the Rhine or the Mississippi, or any large river. It is a creek that has been lost to centuries. Making it very easy to just say, “We haven’t crossed it yet.” Despite large evidence of a rise in active extremism in the United States, we’re not willing to call it out yet.

According to Innuendo Studios, “We are increasingly comfortable saying that our democracy is under threat, and that we are at risk of descending into authoritarianism. To say that the threat has arrived, and I’m referring to myself when I say, I’m not ready to say it’s arrived. No one wants to say it prematurely.”

Ask yourself, right now, how far are we from the Rubicon? There was a time in Germany in the 1930s when a number of things could have been considered the moment. If you could ask a German, “If there was a chancellor who promises to jail anyone of a specific group, or build camps for people he considers lesser, or take over the government in a coup by his own paramilitaries, would you call that terrible?” The German would say, “Absolutely.” And yet those moments arrived and then passed in Germany. The Germans called them, much like we do now, “Troubling, dangerous, understandable.” But never “too far,” until it was too late.

The modern extremists have done such a good job at acting so unbelievably terrible, that describing them as what they are, fascists (if you’re an extreme ultranationalist), or Anarchists/Revolutionary Socialists (if you’re an extreme leftist that isn’t a democratic socialist, which is slightly different), sounds like you’re just making it up. We never arrive at the point where they are fascists, just approaching that point.

The thing is, almost everyone is aware of it. Everyone just expects it to happen all at once. To wake up to flags flying the swastika or the hammer and sickle. Unmarked soldiers and police taking people out of their homes to kill them, or entire shutdowns of elections. But those all happened at their own pace. To quote Innuendo again, “You don’t have to cross the river quickly, just steadily. So that every step makes the last one feel inevitable and the next one obvious.”

The Nazis didn’t start the mass genocide of Jewish people on day one, and they certainly didn’t start taking away people for being aligned with communism until later. Some people say that the moment won’t ever happen, while others say it’s already happened. It’s time to stand up and truly ask: has it happened? Is it going to happen soon?

I can’t tell you if it happened, not any better than you can. I’m going to ask you right now, put down anything you’re doing, grab a pen and something to write on, and write down your answer: What is your rubicon? What is it that will make you say, “Fascism has come.” What will make it so that you no longer have rights or freedoms? Ask yourself: what can happen to make me say, “This is it”? Keep in mind, your Rubicon can be anything, from a Muslim registry to unconstitutional acts—anything at all. Feel free to comment on your Rubicon at the bottom of this article. I’m eager to see what it might be. Here’s mine: military against civilians.

After writing your Rubicon, put it on a bathroom mirror, or on the side of your laptop, anywhere you see consistently. Because I guarantee you that when your Rubicon happens, it won’t feel so drastic; you’ll just think of the next logical step.

*Previous version stated, “The Nazis didn’t start the mass genocide of Jewish people on day one, and they certainly didn’t start taking away people for being aligned with communism until later (ironic because they called themselves National Socialists in order to win votes from German socialist voters, despite not actually being “socialist,” a topic I will talk about in a later article)”.  Since then, the parenthetical statement has been removed as a result in a shift in the writer’s beliefs.