The other day I had an amiable chat until the chap says, “You’re a bloody fascist!”
“Truly?” asks your Big Red Car.
“Yes. You’re a bloody fascist.” No exclamation point this time.
“What exactly is a fascist in this context?” asks your BRC.
The chap could not really enlighten me. Deer in the linguistic headlights sort of dumbfounded look.
I then conduct an experiment and ask pals of mine from both sides of the aisle, “What is a fascist?”
Blank stares and one good overview of Benito Mussolini’s bio.
Fascism is a political concept woven around hyper-nationalism, military glorification, traditional cultural celebration, and the idea that the nation and its powerful leader are superior to the individual citizen. The darker side of fascism is the absolute crushing of political dissent and open opposition.
Understandably in the United States, wherein the power of the government is derived from the will of the people, fascism would not be an easy sell.
The opposite of fascism might be a democracy –the US is, of course, a Constitutional representative republic with democratic elections — wherein the force of the ballot box determines who wields power, where the government does not control who can vote, where elections are competitions, and wherein both political dissent and individual rights are embraced.
When it is used in an American context, the fascism talkers focus on things like government mandates surrounding the whole Pandemic shit show. In this instance, language manglers would say this is evidence of fascism — a strong figure mandating the collective action of the entire population to worship government mandates arguably trampling on individual rights.
This is all made even worse when the underlying rationale for the mandates is specious and therefore the imposition is really devoid of any justification which exposes the fascist nature completely.
Today, in the US the term is thrown about as a general insult when the insulter lacks any real knowledge of what fascism is and it’s a handy insult, sort of like calling someone a racist.
OK, dear reader.
Historically, fascism has often come in a seductive ball gown with lots of cleavage. It whispers that it will overthrow the “established order” and relieve the individual from the oppression of the government.
This is exactly what Hitler pretended to do after World War I when he ran to overturn the burden of the Versailles Treaty that had Germany:
Accept blame for initiating World War I and admit to its defeat;
Give up all of its overseas colonies to the victors;
Surrender more than 13% of its European territory to the victors;
Agree to limit the size of its army and navy so it could not wage war; and,
Pay reparations to the victors.
When Hitler came onto the scene — he was a political operative — he screamed about restoring the country’s honor, lifting the yoke of Versailles, and restoring Germany’s rightful place in the world while uniting all the German peoples and eliminating those who were not fully Aryan — German white supremacy.
Loathsome little toady put all this in a book that nobody actually read. We should take crazy politicians at face value, read their books, and not let them acquire power and test out their book theories. [Serious consideration: what happens if Hitler is assassinated in 1932?]
As he acquired power, he created one of the signature elements of fascism — a cult of personality focused on the leader of the movement and a massive concentration of power behind that leader. This was buttressed by his ability to give bombastic speeches and to invigorate crowds — all before the Internet.
Hitler was a beast and the manifestation of evil on earth, but he started as a politician and when he stole power at the ballot box, Germany had endured feckless leadership, hyperinflation, a wrecked economy, and massive unemployment. Germany was ripe for Hitler and he was a keen eyed opportunist.
Here is the unemployment scene in Germany — Hitler began to wield power in the 1932 – 33 timeframe.
In the lead up to World War II, Hitler put the German people to work, stabilized the economy, shored up the German mark, and rebuilt German honor and prestige.
Germany had no great tradition of democracy or a representative republic that worked to push back against this maniac and he slaughtered, literally, all opposition.
Fascism doesn’t arrive on a flight from some distant departure with suitcases. It creeps in gradually and there are five recognized phases of fascism.
Disillusionment — the ground must be or made to be fertile for the creation of fascism. The citizens must be fed up with their government and prepared to make wholesale changes. The citizens often feel powerless and believe their government is the enemy.
A cloak of legitimacy — the movement must become acceptable. It must establish legitimacy at the ballot box and around dinner tables. If you don’t have a job and a movement promises you full employment, how difficult will it be to consider that movement legitimate?
Gaining power through embracing traditional values — the movement must retreat either right or left and embrace traditional values which they espouse as missing from the current political environment. In today’s world this can either be uber liberal/progressive or ultra conservative.
Dominate, dismantle, and rebuild institutions — the administrative power of a nation is buried in its institutions and the fascist formula seeks to dominate these institutions as a means to dominate the people.
The first stop for the fascist is the law making body because it will ultimately try to make its bad acts sanctioned by laws.
Consider the power wielded by the Teachers Union in the US during the Pandemic and its ability to completely control the behavior of society.
Create and implement radical reforms — once the fascist movement controls the institutions, it can use the law and rule making capabilities of the institutions to advance its cause. In the US, this could be the regulatory state.
The German Nuremberg Laws are a perfect example of the way fascists take control — gradually, then suddenly. In the 1930s, the German legislature passed a series of laws.
1. The Flag law saw the Nazi swastika identified as the only legitimate German flag while simultaneously mandating that no Jew could fly the German flag. They started with this to de-humanize and marginalize the Jews.
2. The Citizenship law defined who was and who was not a citizen. The Jews were declared non-citizens and, thereby, lost the right to vote or hold office. Of course, this crushed any legitimate opportunity for dissent.
Fascists are all fabulous election cheaters.
3. The Blood law prohibited marriages (and sex) between Jews and non-Jews, annulled any existing marriages, and prohibited the employment of any non-Jewish women below the age of 45 from domestic employment in Jewish households.
As you can imagine, this ground work provided the foundation for the horrific things that happened later. It was gradual and it happened in the German legislature, an institution coopted and controlled by the Nazis.
Fascists have certain large behaviors that reveal their intentions and signature.
Extreme nationalism — which may not mean exactly what you think it means in this context. Yes, extreme nationalism can be the glorification of the state, its military, the culture, traditional values, but it also means in this context the creation of subdivisions in society that only the government can safeguard and, thereby, creating a faux symbiotic dependency.
You can see a whiff of this in the entire transgender issue — laws legitimizing a class of people that only the government can safeguard while arguably compromising another legitimate class of people (women athletes).
Empowering cult like factions — not all Germans were Nazis, but enough were to ensure Hitler never endured a legitimate challenge to his dictatorial authority. Amongst the Nazis was the SS which was a cult within a cult capable of unspeakable horror.
Today, there is a legitimate concern that things like abortion, climate change, gender assignment, and green energy have risen to cult level beliefs.
This manifests itself in the disproportionate allocation of resources and the application of litmus tests of support and cancellation if one does not pass the appropriate litmus test.
You can be cancelled completely if you hold the wrong beliefs on any one issue.
Total disregard for any semblance of truth — in much the same way Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s loss in World War I and all the ills thereafter (all of which he wrote of in his shitty book, Mein Kampf).
It is a shibboleth to “follow the science” until the science leads you to two X chromosomes or an X and a Y chromosome when it comes to defining gender. Or, if one determines gender by such a simplistic march of discovery looking to biology and the implications of a penis v a vagina.
If you don’t like that science, the fascists make up some new science.
The creation of self-energizing movements tied to voting blocs — this is an outgrowth of the creation of “issue” cults and their power at the ballot box. These movements become institutions and organize around a single issue — the NRA, the abortion industry, the green energy movement, the climate change crowd.
Punishing the dissenters — one of the ways the fascists always consolidate and concentrate power is to get rid of the dissenters, the voices that may oppose or expose their actions.
Yes, dear reader, there is. Not the creation of an overwhelming fascist movement that is headed toward a successful abandonment of our Constitutional representative republic and the anointing of a dictator, but the signs of fascist behavior, the tells, the footprints — yes, they are here.
The nation has no real understanding of what fascism is, but the behaviors are all over the place. That is unfortunate as fascism has not a single redeeming merit to it.
Stop calling people fascists when you don’t have a bloody clue what that means.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Have a great day, you bloody fascists!
