Contemporary Fascism

The Problem With Fascism

A few weeks ago, Retired Major General Randy Manner pushed back on Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) after Kennedy complained about President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters being called “fascists.”

According to General Manner, "President Trump is not like any sane leader. I'm very proud of General Milley for saying that President Trump is a total fascist.”

"The challenge is because most MAGA Republicans, they don't understand what fascism is.

The reality is that they are, in fact, fascists themselves."

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Timothy Snyder[1], a distinguished history professor at Yale, wrote a short book describing how fascism arises, takes hold of a society, and what we can do so that this cancer does not spread in our country: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

Even though this small volume is only 175 small (literally)[2] pages, some will reject it because their votes have been cast and their minds, like the polls, are closed.

Others live in a fantasy world called “It Can Never Happen Here.”

It should be evident by now that a vote for Trump was a vote for fascism and oligarchy.

Dr. Rufus Fears, the aptly named history professor from the University of Oklahoma, used to say, “The first lesson of history is that we ignore the lessons of history.”

It not only can happen here; it is happening here.

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Those of us manning the barricades must see that Snyder’s message gets out.

To make it easier for the reader afflicted with a closed mind or, to be kinder, with a busy schedule, I have created a summary, which I will present in two installments for quick and easy digestion.

Each should require approximately ten minutes.

This is the first installment.

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The Solutions

Lesson One: Do not obey in advance. 

·     Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked.

·     A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

·     Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.

Are you listening, Mr. Bezos? Mr. Zuckerberg?

Lesson Two: Defend Institutions.

·     It is the institutions that help us preserve democracy.

·     They need our help as well.

·     Do not speak of ‘our institutions’ unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

·     Institutions do not protect themselves.

·     They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning.

·     So choose an institution you care about – a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union – and take its side.

·     It took less than a year for the new Nazi order to consolidate.

·     By the end of 1933, Germany had become a one-party state in which all major institutions had been humbled.

Lesson Three: Beware the one-party state.

·     The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start.

·     They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents.

·     So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections.

·     Vote in local and state elections while you can.

·     Consider running for office.

·     We need paper ballots because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted.

·     We need to remove private funding from what should be public campaigns for office.

·     We will have to take seriously our own Constitution, which forbids oath-breaking insurrectionists from running for office.

Lesson Four: Take responsibility for the face of the world.

·     The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow.

·     Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate.

·     Do not look away, and do not get used to them.

·     Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

Lesson Five: Remember professional ethics.

·     When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important.

·     It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers or to hold show trials without judges.

·     Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

Lesson Six: Be wary of paramilitaries.

·     When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of the leader, the end is nigh.

·     When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

Lesson Seven: Be reflective if you must be armed.

·     If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you.

·     But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things.

·     Be ready to say no.

Lesson Eight: Stand out.

·     Someone has to.

·     It is easy to follow along.

·     It can feel strange to do or say something different.

·     But without that unease, there is no freedom.

·     Remember Rosa Parks.

·     The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

Lesson Nine: Be kind to our language.

·     Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

Digression:

When I point out that “Make America Great Again” is a stupid expression, I do not claim this as an original idea. Others have argued, “Again? Like when?”[3]

When we invaded their land and attempted racial cleansing of the Native Americans?

During 246 years of African-American slavery?

When we killed approximately 700,000 of our fellow citizens in a Civil War and assassinated one of our best presidents?

During the 89 years when Jim Crow laws governed a large portion of the country, North as well as South, lynchings were common, and red-necks could murder young black boys like Emmit Till without fear of legal consequence?

What was his crime that justified his torture and death?

He allegedly flirted with a white woman, an allegation she later recanted.

During the Great Depression when families struggled to survive and chased a dream called “California,” only to find a different kind of dust bowl living in Hoovervilles?

During the Vietnam War, when we drafted intelligent young college graduates and sent them off to be maimed and sprayed with Agent Orange in a war in Southeast Asia that no one understood and cannot explain to this day?

During the Watergate years?

Before elections were rigged in both Kennedy v. Nixon and Bush v. Gore?

During the 60s, when assassins gunned down JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, and James Meredith?

“Make America Great Again – Like When”?

Did the Maggots give that careful consideration before making that their mantra?

Lesson Ten: Believe in truth.

·     To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is a spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. [4]

·     … truth dies in four modes.

·     The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality [5], which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.

·     The second mode is shamanistic incantation. … the fascist style depends upon ‘endless repetition,’ designed to make the fictional plausible. [6]

·     The next mode is magical thinking, or open embrace of contradiction.

·     A billionaire can pay neither taxes nor debts. [7]

·     Liberating the wealthy from taxes will not increase the national debt.

·     Fighting corruption means selling the presidency for favors.

·     A disease that kills hundreds of thousands will vanish.

·     The winner gets fewer votes.

·     The vote is always rigged, and you should vote for me anyway.

·     Black people are taking the vote away from white people, even though history shows that the opposite has been the case.

·     The final mode is misplaced faith.

·     It involves the sort of self-deifying claims a president made when he said, ‘I alone can solve it’ or ‘I am your retribution.’

·     Post-truth is pre-fascism.

* 

Drilling Down

·     “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt (1966).

·     “Fascism: A Very Short Introduction” by Kevin Passmore (2014).

·     “Strongmen: Mussolini to Present” by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2021).

·     “Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World” by Anne Applebaum (2024).

·     “The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy” by Federico Finchelstein (2024).

The war against Fascism is real.

Please don’t fiddle while our democracy burns.

We need you!

Part Two – Coming Up.

[1] https://timothysnyder.org/

[2] 4.5” x 6.5”.

[3] The first person I heard who made this point was Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey. The historical examples are courtesy of yours truly. If you quarrel with them, quarrel with me; Corey Booker is not to blame.

[4] Is that why Mr. Musk always wears those sunglasses?

[5] If you disagree with it, it must be “fake news.”

[6] “Lock her up!”

[7] We cannot afford Social Security or Medicare because our yachts need maintenance.