The word fascism is bandied about a lot these black days, and not only on longitudes. But what exactly is fascism? And how can one recognize it?
Some history: the National Fascist Party began in Italy under Benito Mussolini (“Il Duce”) in 1922. It later was called the Republican Fascist Party. It dissolved at the end of WWII, for obvious reasons. The party was characterized by extreme conservatism, nationalism, totalitarianism, and corporate economics. Its proponents believed that men and women have separate, traditional roles, and homosexuality is a social disease. They were strongly Christian (Catholic flavor) and strongly anti-Semitic.
Conservatism, traditional roles, corporate economics, anti-gay, strongly Christian…some whiffs of similarity to the U.S. Republican Party, perhaps?
Since the Italian political party’s dissolution, fascism as a philosophy has persisted and surfaced in various countries around the world. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fascism as this:
“A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”
But while all the above is certainly valid, when exactly does a country (like, for example, the United States) slip from liberal democracy and into fascism territory? Might longitudes and others be echoing Henny Penny (aka “Chicken Little”) with unfounded cries of “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”?
A few essays ago I mentioned secular humanist Lawrence W. Britt‘s popular article “Fascism, Anyone?” It was published in Free Inquiry magazine soon after Bush-Cheney convinced a dazed, post-911 U.S. Congress to invade the country of Iraq with an infamous lie about “weapons of mass destruction.” Britt compared the regimes of seven leaders – Mussolini, Hitler, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), Papadopolous (Greece), Suharto (Indonesia) and Pinochet (Chile) – all right-wing conservative, like Trump – and discovered 14 areas of fascist commonality between all seven.
In bold below are the 14 areas of commonality between the seven…okay, I’ll quit the circumspection…eight:
- Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism (MAGA, bombastic threats against Canada, Greenland, and other vulnerable countries/territories)
- Disdain for the importance of human rights (ICE terrorism, violations of due process, anti-LGBTQ rights)
- Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause [hate speech, insults, unfounded accusations, and federal policies targeting practically every demographic other than white, male, heterosexual, conservative Americans (the largest voting bloc)]
- The supremacy of the military/avid militarism (unconstitutional Executive-branch acts of war, threats of invasions)
- Rampant sexism (“Grab her by the pussy”…for starters)
- A controlled mass media (authoritarian threats and pressures against FCC, ABC, CBS, Meta, Washington Post to silence critics, free speech violations, journalist arrests, lawsuits against any media outlet deemed a critic)
- Obsession with national security (rejection of international law)
- Religion and ruling elite tied together (White House prayer meetings, pedophile faith advisors)
- Power of corporations protected (Big Oil and coal industry mollycoddling…for starters)
- Power of labor suppressed or eliminated (ending collective bargaining rights of federal employees, gutting benefits for working families)
- Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts (Kennedy Center and university takeovers by conservatives)
- Obsession with crime and punishment (executive orders criminalizing the homeless, National Guard deployment against non-violent protesters)
- Rampant cronyism and corruption (Epstein, Musk, Trump himself, Fiore, Santos, Bannon, Navarro, Trump himself, clemency to violent insurrectionists, Trump family crypto cash-ins…the list is endless)
- Fraudulent elections (???)
Unless one has been living in a Patagonian cave for the last 10 years, or regularly sniffing airplane glue, it is not hard to recognize how enthusiastically Donald Trump and his Republican Party have exhibited the above characteristics of fascism…so I won’t belabor examples far beyond what’s merely inside the parentheses. My stomach is tied in enough knots as it is.
In longitudes‘ opinion, America’s one last hope before the sky hits the ground with a thud might be point number 14. There is, as of yet…and as far as this blog is aware…no evidence of any serious election malfeasance in election years 2016 through 2024. But voter suppression by Republicans and claims of fraudulence? Is J.D. Vance an Ohio hillbilly?
America’s big problem, however, is the quality of its voters. Even America’s founders wrestled with the idea that a country’s democracy is only as good as the citizens which make up that democracy. Constitutions and laws are devised by humans, and they can easily be violated by humans. And, sadly, they have been.
Information, which the U.S. seems to regularly overdose on, does not equate with knowledge, the absence of which is like a sailor being deprived of vitamin C. And the U.S. now has its gums bleeding and its teeth falling out. Britt himself, at the end of his article – and somewhat sardonically – cited the importance of “a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils.” Americans, indeed, are well-informed. The trouble is, their info is derived from their own echo chambers. And the chamber on the right emits poisonous gas. (This isn’t to excuse the echo chamber on the left).
After Trump’s recent State of the Dis-Union address rant – which, by the way, I didn’t subject myself to – a Facebook friend of my wife’s posted something, in total seriousness, along the lines of Trump being an absolutely perfect leader. Perfect if you love fascism, maybe. Obviously, this airplane glue sniffer was hoping for a reaction. My wife gave it to him.
Facebook and other social mediums abound with such nonsense. Back in the pre-fascist, pre-internet days of newspaper letters to the editor – when people had to write, which required thinking – ideology-obsessed automotons like Trump cultists certainly existed, but they were relegated to the shadows. But the Old Guard is gone. Fascism doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it is cultivated and takes time to grow. The GOP’s decades-long move to the extreme right has produced the monstrous fruit we see now, and the onetime fringe is now the mainstream. Do humans have to periodically shit on themselves before they finally say “Oops”?
I guess so.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty – John Adams
longitudes 
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