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| Photo by Brad Dodson on Unsplash |
Though often attributed to Sinclair Lewis, it was actually the Southern Jewish politician James Waterman Wise (1868–1925) who said “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Whatever its origin, the notion is recognized widely as an apt description of our current predicament. American fascists will not be adorned in swastikas but rather American flags and Christian crosses. In Orwellian fashion, they will tear our Constitution to shreds while claiming to be its defender.
The most recent fascist tendencies arose with the emergence of the Tea Party in 2008 as a racist response to our first Black President, Barak Obama. In 2015, that morphed into the MAGA Trump movement that since has overtaken the Republican Party. The Trump-led January 6 attack on the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of our democratic election is the culminating act of the movement so far.
Given the grave images of that day and the revelations of the January 6 hearings regarding what transpired at the top levels of government, many of us would like to hope that the eyes of the 74 million who voted for Trump in 2020 would have opened and they would be shocked. But alas, their eyes are open, and they are not shocked.
On the cusp of the 2022 midterm election, it appears that a large percentage of our American compatriots, even after four years of Trump Republicans in power, are more than willing to give them back control of the House where the January 6 hearings are taking place, thus ending those hearings. Trump Republicans already control the Supreme Court, and they may also take the Senate. There is every reason to believe they can win back the executive branch in 2024, with or without Trump.
If and when Republicans control all branches of government, we now know that they will not be inclined to give that control back. That means that anything resembling free and fair elections will no longer exist, and thus we will be living in an authoritarian state not so different from Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey, two leaders with whom Trump famously developed bromances.
It is now time for those of us in the liberal majority to be clear-headed about the following fact: Enough Americans support Trump-Republican Party politics that they likely will be put back into power. Thus, our form of constitutional government, as flawed as it is, will likely be replaced by a far worse right-wing authoritarian regime.
Given that likely future, it would be wise of us to assess what that authoritarian state might look like. America in 2022 is not the same as Italy or Germany in the 1930s, and thus fascism here will not look the same as it did back then.
As stated in the subtitle, this article as an initial inquiry, so please do reply with additional projections or critical objections. I will convey those ideas in a follow-up article, and will gladly leave your names (and pen names) off for those who wish to remain anonymous.
Before I get to the main subject, let’s be clear about what is meant by the term fascism.
Political movements are often referred to as fascist when what is really meant is the more general term authoritarian. Fascism is one particular form of political authoritarianism, the latter of which as a category includes any government where there exists a concentration of political power in one person or a minority group. Authoritarian governments include theocracies like Iran, monarchies like Saudi-Arabia, plutocracies run by wealthy oligarchs as in Russia, or any form of modern authoritarian regime on the left such as Stalinism.
Fascism arises out of contemporary capitalist-based constitutional democracies, and it is a response to perceived crises and contradictions that arise therein. Some examples might include an economic recession or depression, or the rise of concentrated wealth with corresponding increased poverty. Fascist movements arise to combat leftist reactions to the same, such as an increase in union activity or the election of a left-leaning government that attempts to redistribute wealth.
The above definition is often lost on those whose understanding of fascism is limited to Hollywood clichés wherein leather-clad German Nazis represent the forces of evil in a battle against a righteous America. This trope obscures the fact that fascism can arise in any modern nation, including the United States, and it also obscures the historical reality that Hitler’s form of fascism did have powerful American supporters. For more on that, I recommend Ken Burns’ latest PBS documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust.”
After a review of many sources on the subject, both academic and those with direct experience, fascist movements can be summarized as generally manifesting the six following features:
- Fascism is victim or grievance based. Their grievances regard what the fascists feel they are losing relative to the past. This loss is experienced as life-or-death, and they are convinced they are in a battle for their very existence. In the case of today’s Republicans, the slogan “Make America Great Again” strikes directly at their sense of loss. The right’s racist obsession with “replacement theory” is also a manifestation of this fear.
- Fascists protect the interests of the upper classes. Not all powerful capitalists initially support a fascist takeover of political control, but it becomes a lesser of two evils when faced with opposition in the form of labor unions and leftist economic reforms that cut into their profits.
- Fascism appeals to nationalism and hyper-patriotism as a replacement for democratic institutions. Nationalism becomes a form of tribalism that subordinates individual citizens to powerful authoritarian leaders who lord over servile (loyal) underlings. Fascists want action and thus have contempt for deliberative liberal norms, procedures, and institutions. With this in mind, a minority group is set up as representing the will of the population as a whole rather than deciding political matters through free and fair elections. We experience this today in the Republican Party’s complicity in Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election, and their references to “middle” or “rural America” as the real America. This is opposed to the more liberal coastal regions where most Americans actually live.
- Fascists rely on demonizing different races, national identities, and their leftist political rivals as scapegoats upon which to rally support. There is often a social Darwinian component whereby the fascist believes they belong to a superior culture or race. This can and often does include gender. This, of course, is what the MAGA’s obsession with being replaced by non-White Americans is all about. This is also why right-wing propaganda sources like FOX “news” present Democrats and other leftists as an evil anti-American force instead of fellow Americans with different views. The fascist’s main grievances are against the political left, which strives to overcome the past forms of discrimination and wealth inequality that fascists want to protect.
- For fascists, militarism and nationalism go hand-in-hand. This includes the encouragement of paramilitary (militia) groups. Fascist movements attract war veterans who are often disenfranchised and are normalized to militaristic command and have a propensity for violent solutions. Many of the early fascists prior to WWII were the veterans of WWI, including both Hitler and Mussolini. For us, this includes the members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, many of whom have confessed guilt for the violent insurrection on January 6.
- Fascist rhetoric is anti-intellectual and primarily reliant on appeals to emotions. Fascists share love for those on their team with whom they feel identical, and have a paranoid hatred for those who disagree with them, and with little tolerance for grey area. One of the frustrations experienced when debating those on the right is their tendency to contradict facts or even themselves and thereby appear illogical, or they flat-out lie. Their heroic national identity is a transcendent religious-like force that must be defended at all costs, including the denial of facts and logic. The right’s belief in “American exceptionalism” refuses any self-criticism for slavery, racism, colonialism, or any other societal flaws that might tarnish their romantic fantasy.
- Expect them to do all they can to give the appearance that nothing has really changed. Nothing is wrong here. If there are no massive protests, then it really will look on the surface as if nothing has changed. Americans will be encouraged to go to work, to shop, to go to Disneyland, and to take vacations. Controlling the population will be through the amusement/entertainment industry, heavy-handed surveillance, and it will emulate Hannah Arendt’s notion in her post-WWII essay regarding the banality of evil. As Arendt pointed out, our day-to-day contact will be with ordinary shallow bureaucrats trying simply to advance their careers.
- Unlike Nazis, our fascists will not attempt to eliminate minority groups or legally enslave anyone domestically based on minority status alone. Their point isn’t about not wanting Jews or people of color, it is that they should all know their place, which is to remain subservient. The same goes for women. They will hire minorities; they just don’t want people of color or Jews to have any controlling power over the political system or economy.
- Information and education will be geared even more toward indoctrination that reinforces blind patriotism and some level of allegiance to Christian rituals. They will support ideologically friendly media entities like FOX, which will proliferate, and they will marginalize or eliminate media sources that do not support them. Our tax dollars will go to fund Christian schools, and prayer and pledges of allegiance will be required at schools and public gatherings.
- There will be few, if any, repercussions for their actions, and a stern legal system will be in place for the rest of us. Freedom of speech will be respected up to the point you are deemed an “enemy of the people.” They will build even more jails that will be filled. On the other hand, they will run crony capitalist schemes that make them rich. There will be no whistleblower or witness protection laws, so bosses will act as they wish.
- Complicity will be rewarded with jobs and promotions, and dissent will get you fired. If that doesn’t work, you will be punished severely.
- They will increase socialism (the public economic sector), as without it the economy will sink. But it will be national socialism, by which I mean geared almost exclusively toward the creation and maintenance of a police-military state that protects their interests.
- Global warming will not be addressed, nor will other environmental problems. They will destroy the planet to get their way.
What is to be done?
Should they lead a fascist takeover of our government, the biggest threat to Republicans is economic. Like all unstable authoritarian regimes, the economy will retract, and there will be an enormous brain drain as educated people seek greener pastures in which to live and work.
It is essential to keep in mind that liberal counties that vote blue in elections create most of this nation’s wealth. For example, counties that voted for Biden in the 2020 election generated 70 percent of the GDP of the United States in 2018.
That’s worth repeating: Regions where the majority of people vote blue create 70 percent of our nation’s wealth, which gives people living in those regions a great deal of economic power should they decide to use it.
If there is one thing that Republicans desire as much as or more than power, it is money. Greed is the common denominator that drives the party more so than their pseudo-Christianity, racism, or machismo. The way to hurt Republicans is to kick them in the pocketbook, and those living and working in blue regions have the power to do just that.
The way to shut down American fascism is to disrupt the normalcy that they will strive to project to the world in order to maintain some semblance of international respect. This is necessary for, among other things, propping up the US dollar as an international currency. The left majority could potentially spoil the coup if they instigated, in mass, a founding fathers’ style protest movement that included a general strike to shut down the economy.
The problem with that plan is that it will be very painful. Protestors and strikers will go to jail, be injured, and be killed. One wonders, are Americans today too soft and entitled to go there?
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