Surprising absolutely no one, the core issue behind this government shutdown is getting little to no attention from America’s corporate media.

Thanks to the American Fascist Party (formerly known as the Republicans), some 22 million Americans are set to lose the assistance they rely on to afford health care.

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That’s why I was relieved to see The Washington Post at least attempt to explain what’s about to happen in a recent article titled, “Who will lose out when ACA health insurance subsidies expire?”

But any hope for clarity vanished after the first few paragraphs. America’s health care and tax systems are so convoluted that the Post’s “explainer” reads more like a Xerox manual.

Democrats, to their credit, are refusing to let this brutal cut go through—even if it means forcing a shutdown. But there’s a deeper issue they still refuse to face. One that, if ignored, will all but guarantee a continued fascist rise to power in this country:

America’s economic system is fundamentally broken—and the outrageous cost of health care is the way most people experience this failure.

Until they acknowledge this—and propose solutions big enough to meet the scale of the problem—Democrats are paving the road for the American fascist movement.

These aren’t fringe cases or unlucky families; this is the everyday reality of a system built to make money, not to help people.

Right now, nearly one-third of all Americans are underinsured or not insured at all. Nearly 45% of American adults report “struggling” to cover medical bills. And 7 in 10 adults say they’ve received medical bills they can’t afford.

At the same time, health insurance companies have been rolling in the dough. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, America’s largest health insurers have collectively racked up more than $371 billion in profits—over 40% of that going to UnitedHealth Group alone.

No wonder health insurance companies are viewed like the 21st century version of robber barons—perhaps even worse since we’re literally dealing with life or death issues.

But there’s a deeper desperation that’s not felt just by looking at the numbers.

Most working-class Americans that I’ve talked to, across the political spectrum, feel the deep unfairness of this system. People who have worked hard their entire lives—to help build the richest country in the history of the world—only to die at 60 because they can’t afford chemotherapy.

And there is also the mass confusion that seems baked into the business model. What’s the difference between a premium and co-insurance? A deductible or out-of-pocket maximum? A doctor who’s out-of-network at an in-network hospital?

Forget algebra and chemistry: high schools should be teaching how to read health insurance policies.

This is where the real danger lies. When people feel the system is rigged against them and no one in power even bothers to admit it, rage becomes the only language left. That’s the fuel fascist movements run on.

What we’re witnessing—most clearly in this health care crisis—is the breakdown of faith in the liberal order itself. The institutions we were told would guarantee a better life, from the “free market” to representative democracy, are no longer delivering. And that’s a very dangerous place to be.

As Robert Paxton, a leading scholar of fascism, wrote in 2004 about Hitler and Mussolini’s rise after World War I: “Fascist interlopers cannot easily break into a political system that is functioning tolerably well. Only when the state and existing institutions fail badly do they open opportunities for newcomers.”

He added that one of the most important preconditions for fascism’s ascent in Italy and Germany “was a faltering liberal order… Fascism moved from the back rooms to the public arena only where governments functioned badly, or not at all.”

If the failures of liberal democracies to contain war and respond to the Great Depression laid the soil from which European fascism grew a century ago, unaffordable medical bills may be doing the same for American fascism today.

But unlike then, we have a much better roadmap for how to get out of this predicament. As Paxton points out, although most Western countries had fascist movements in the 1930s, only two—Germany and Italy—succeeded in taking power.

In places where liberal governments performed adequately enough and responded, at least partially, to the demands of the working class, fascism was contained.

France, the United Kingdom, and even the United States all had their own nascent fascist movements in the 1920s, but none were able to move from the fringe to the mainstream—until now.

The difference wasn’t moral superiority; it was material reality. When people’s lives improved—when they could afford food, housing, and medical care—the fascist temptation lost its pull.

In France, the leftist Popular Front government expanded worker protections and social programs; in Britain, Labour built the welfare state; and in the United States, FDR’s New Deal put millions back to work and reined in corporate power—each proving that democracy could deliver materially for ordinary people.

When the system seemed capable of delivering a decent life, even imperfectly, fascism withered.

That’s the lesson Democrats still refuse to learn. Voters don’t want slogans about “defending democracy.” They want a democracy that actually defends them.

And while it is commendable that Democrats have taken a stand to prevent the elimination of health care subsidies provided by Obamacare—even so much as to shut down the government over it—it’s simply not enough.

America’s health care system needs a major overhaul. We need to ensure that every human has access to free health care, and that whether you live or die doesn’t depend on how much money you have.

That could mean embracing a public option for health care—like Medicare for All—or it could mean federalizing the health care system and running it like the National Health Service in Great Britain. Think of it as VA for All, a system where care is guaranteed, simple, and public—not parceled out by profit.

We should do this not just because it’s the right thing to do—but because the alternative is complete fascist takeover our country.

If Democrats want to defeat fascism, they must start by proving that democracy can work again—for ordinary people, not just corporations and donors. That means guaranteeing health care, raising wages, and rebuilding the safety net that late stage capitalism shredded.

People don’t need more rhetoric about the “soul of America.” We need rent they can pay, doctors they can see, and leaders willing to name the real enemy: an economic system that values profit over people.

That’s how we stop the next fascist wave—not by lecturing voters about norms, but by giving them something worth believing in again.