Fascism and Hitler. You know, the light stuff.

Always wanted to learn a little bit more about fascism? Well today is your lucky day, because we can't really discuss what's really going on in "Yertle the Turtle" without a brief lesson in the F-Bomb.

So what is fascism? We thought you'd never ask. Fascism is a type of governance that operates without pesky things like "The Senate" and "The House of Representatives" and "Voter Choice," swapping these things instead for a small group of dudes making decisions for everyone else.

Just take a second to imagine what this would mean on your kid's playground. That's the difference between everyone deciding what to play during recess, and three guys getting up on the slide and shouting, "From now on, we will only play, 'Get us three guys chocolate milk from the cafeteria. Go!" Not very fair, right? In the mind of fascists it sure is, because what's good for them is what's good for everyone else.

That's the other thing you should know about fascists: they're super-duper big fans of revolution, but they don't think of it as the kind of thing that comes from the bottom and shakes the top (unlike Mack, who we'll discuss in a bit). They think revolution starts from above with a Supreme Leader, who reorganizes a society through the power of dictatorship.

Enter Yertle, who wants to assert his dominance over the weaker members of his own race. You see, for Yertle, it doesn't really matter that he's got to climb on top of all of the other turtles to see such great things, because:

(1) He's a fascist, so he believes anything that's good for the guy at the top (who conveniently happens to be him) will be good for everyone else.

(2) All the turtles that are lower down than him have flaws or are simply weaker than him, so it'd probably be better if they died out anyway. Since they're not real turtles unless they're strong turtles, Yertle feels he has no obligation to treat them humanely.

Phew! That's a lot to digest. But don't worry. Everything else that this book is really about comes out of this whole fascist Hitler thing. Read on, Shmoopers.