What is Fascism?
From Merriam Webster: “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.”
From Dictionary.com: “a governmental system led by a
dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism,
regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive
nationalism and often racism.”
“Fascism is Capitalism in decay”. –Vladmir Lenin
“Fascism is Capitalism plus murder”. – Upton Sinclair
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism
because it is a merger of state and corporate power” – Benito Mussolini
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined
with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties,
classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his
use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” – Henry A. Wallace
“I really am a pessimist. I've always felt that fascism is a
more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It's
something essentially splendid because it's not at all routine or automatic.
Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how
to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the
secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are
not satisfactory.” – Norman Mailer
“I am your voice.” – Donald Trump
“Believe me.” – Donald Trump
“Nobody knows the system like me. That is why I alone can
fix it” – Donald Trump
“They’re not going to refuse me. If I say do it, they will
do it.” – Donald Trump
How to Become the Fascist Dictator of
the U.S. in 5 Easy Steps
Step 1: Identify a
cultural majority that is privileged, and has traditionally controlled the
zeitgeist, but now feels dispossessed by economic woes, a changing cultural milieu,
and progress. Convince them you are their voice. Convince them you can bring
them back to their glory days. Convince them they are heroes and tie their
sense of heroism to their national identity. You will make them great again.
You will Make America Great Again.
Fascist Dictators do not occur in a vacuum. The soil has to
be fertile. Right now in America, the soil is fertile, at least for a large
enough demographic. Donald Trump has discovered that poorly educated whites
aren’t exactly feeling the greatness of this country right now. Economically,
they’re not doing well. They’re struggling to make ends meet, and are often
barely surviving. Meanwhile, they are also being told that there is something
wrong with them for being white. At least, that’s how they see it. They are
being told that they are competing for jobs with illegal Mexicans. They’re
seeing African Americans, women, and Asians rising through the ranks of the
business and political world, while they are struggling. Historically, America
has been a country designed for white men. They grew up learning all of the
racist and sexist jokes and stereotypes, and when they looked at the founding
fathers of this country and all of their favorite movie and sports heroes, they
saw themselves. That was America. This view was wrong—America was never
designed for them to be successful. It was designed for an ever growing
oligarchy to be increasingly successful: they were effectively just cattle—it was
important that they believed it. When they saw the whiteness and maleness of
their masters, they assumed a kinship where there was none. But they had to
believe they were not too different than the great white men they admired,
otherwise the system wouldn’t work.
And now they’re scared. They’re angry. They feel their grip
on the social ladder slipping, and they are falling into the abyss of being
just another minority. They believe in America. They believe in the police.
They believe every American war is somehow a war to protect their freedom, and
cops and soldiers are heroes by default. They are Christians. They see self-righteous
liberals with better educations attacking their faith by advocating for equal
rights for gays, women, and minorities. These same deviants are insisting on
making these good white men accept the idea of sharing a bathroom with
transgendered people. They’re insisting that people like that are not able to be
discriminated against.
And everyone is so politically correct these days. There
must be a secret thrill that runs up the spine of these poorly educated white
men when they are able to gather and talk about women and muslims and Barack
Obama. When they’re able to say the word ‘nigger’, and not be reprimanded for
it.
And Barack Obama. Talk about a smack in the face. His name
doesn’t sound American. He’s black. He’s well educated. He doesn’t succumb to
the stereotypes they want him too, and he was way too effective as president.
He was re-elected twice. He does not know his place. Worst of all, he does not accept the idea of American Exceptionalism.
And men just can’t be men anymore. Women are so sensitive.
They can’t just appreciate a compliment. They’ve become rigid in this new
America. And look at what’s become of the newer generations of men? As Rush
Limbaugh calls them, they are ‘the new castrati’. They’ve given up any desire
to resemble John Wayne. They’re soft. And as Limbaugh also recently opined, why
is everybody so hung up on consent?
Our peculiar American Christianity—a fusion of nationalism
and cherry picked doctrines—is under attack by both the secularists and
Christianity proper. There are all of these annoying atheists talking about
evidence. Uppity blacks are filming police abuse and misconduct and demanding
fair treatment. The educated class is talking about global warming: another
means by which they can control us. The white men we respected who claimed to
stand for conservative principles have been absorbed into the system and no
longer represent us. No one takes the flag seriously. Irony abounds.
And then there are the guns. Guns are an essential element
of this demographic’s mythology. They have these guns because they need them to
protect themselves and their families against a tyrannical government. ‘You can
have my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hand’. ‘Come and take it!’.
Although it’s amusing to imagine these typically out of shape, older men with
no formal training and no significant amount of actual firepower combatting the
biggest, most well trained, well equipped military in the world, the symbolism
is very important to them. Suddenly everyone wants to regulate their guns, the
last token of their supremacy. This is very emasculating.
Enter Donald Trump. He is a rich, powerful white man, but he’s
not like the white men who betrayed us. He’s not a part of the system, but he
has succeeded in it. He has manipulated it for his own gain. He understands how
it works. He doesn’t talk like the politicians. He tells us we’re great. He
tells us we are the heroes that we’ve always thought we were. He doesn’t use
big words. He doesn’t do nuance. He tells it like it is. He’s by no means a
conservative or a Christian, although he will toss those words around. He is a
force and an ideology unto himself. He tells us he’ll get things done. He’ll
return us to power. He doesn’t say how, but we believe him, because things have
gone awfully wrong. Besides, he’s kind of a Molotov cocktail we can throw at
the system that has abandoned us. He is the great ‘Fuck you!’ to the white men
who finally let us know, we are not their kind of people.
Step 2: Inflame
racial/ideological/economic fears inherent in your target group. It’s us versus
them. You can fight them, you can make them go away—or go back to their proper
place—but you can only do it through me. I am the strong man.
Trump has made it clear. He is the candidate of the
uneducated white male. Not surprisingly, that is the only constituency he is
carrying. Sure, he has made overtures to other groups. “I will be so good to
the African Americans. They’re amazing people’. ‘Ask the gays who will protect
them’. ‘Latinos love me’. ‘Nobody is better to women than I am’. And so on. But
one thing that is obvious from the get-go. First of all, he refers to these
groups as if they are part of some kind of hive mind. They are all the same.
They’re ‘amazing people’. Individuality is out the door right away. Secondly,
Trump is not really appealing to these groups. He is sanding down the edges of
his implicit bias against these groups in order to appeal to more moderate
members of the white underclass. ‘See? I’m not as racist as people say I am. I
said African Americans are amazing! I’ve told them I’m going to be so good to
them! Ignore the frequent retweets from white supremacist groups and the direct
appeal to the idea that America was great sometime before the most recent 10 to
30 years, you know, before all of these other groups started giving us lip.
Trump’s own behavior towards women has made it clear that he is not the
gentleman he claims to be. He has bragged about sexually assaulting women while
he believed he was engaged in a private conversation. Some folks pretend
everyone is getting upset because he used the word ‘pussy’, but, no, it’s
because he was bragging about sexual assault. He was also asserting his own
status as a person who was above the law and decorum. Because he’s a star.
Because he’s rich. Because he’s Trump. He has been investigated and charged
with discriminatory housing practices. He has claimed that Mexican illegal
immigrants are largely rapists, killers, and criminals. He fanned the flames of
the racist conspiracy that Barack Obama was not born in the United States using
National Enquirer type tactics that he so loves: ‘I don’t know, but people are
saying…’, etc. The Alt Right, a racist (not conservative) white nationalist
movement has been one of his biggest constituency groups, led by Steve Bannon,
Breitbart magazine, and others. Bannon is even an official member of his
campaign now. Trump has welcomed these actors into his fold with open arms, and
routinely winks at them to let them know he is with them. By not rejecting
these figures (he was even hesitant to renounce David Duke and the Ku Klux
Klan), he has subtly normalized them. It is these elements that come to his
rallies and beat up protesters (often black), and create an overall threatening
environment for any kind of dissent.
Step 3: Make
outlandish promises. Use simple language. Either tacitly or explicitly
encourage violence and/or social bullying tactics.
He’s going to build a wall to keep out all of those scary
elements. Mexicans. Isis. Syrians. Mexico will pay for it. How will he do it?
He just will. Trust him.
He’s going to renegotiate trade deals to make them better.
What is his strategy? He makes the best deals.
He’s going to defeat ISIS, and he has made sure to let you
know that they are a clear and present danger to you personally. How he is going
to do it? Just trust him. But, know that torture and war crimes are on the
table, and soldiers will follow his orders because ‘They’re not going to refuse
me. If I say do it, they will do it’.
He’s going to be so good to America.
He is the law and order candidate.
He will restore America to its former glory (wink)
He will get rid of all the things you hate, and replace them
with things you will love.
How? Just trust him.
And anyone who questions him must be marginalized. People
who question him are ‘losers’ and ‘liars’ and ‘crooked’. Everybody gets a
nickname. He even saw fit to publicly mock a disabled reporter for daring to
question him. Isolate and eliminate the target.
During his rallies his followers whoop and attack and shout
down opponents. They spew all kinds of racial slurs and violent language. They
want to lynch people. What does Trump do? He ruminates on how he’d like to
punch people in the face. He demands people be removed. He smiles as the target
is heckled and assaulted on the way out. He winks and talks about what a love
fest his rallies are. He demands loyalty pledges. He passes on the most
outlandish conspiracy theories (I hear people say Ted Cruz’s dad was involved
with Lee Harvey Oswald…). If he loses, the system is rigged. Get ready to do
your patriotic duty and take the country back. Maybe ‘second amendment people’
can take care of Hillary Clinton. He is actively encouraging and recruiting ‘poll
watchers’ to make sure no funny business is going on at the polls. Gangs of his
followers are being encouraged to stand around and monitor voting lines and to harass
and cajole voters. Folks were livid years ago when a few black panthers showed
up at a voting location on their own accord to monitor the polls. Here we have
a candidate actively recruiting for the same behavior. But then again, Trump’s
followers are not black.
Step 4: Details are
not necessary. Things will work because you will make them work. You are a powerful
protector of this disenfranchised group. Make bold proclamations, but feel no
need to stick to or even elaborate on your plans. By shifting your plans or changing
them outright, you make your followers prove their loyalty to you.
I’ve discussed above the nature of Trump’s policy details:
There really aren’t any. We’re just supposed to trust him because he is the
strong man. The genius of his movement is that he managed to recruit his
demographic’s die-hard loyalty on the sole basis of his lack of political
correctness, and his promises on immigration. When after the primary he
indicated a softening of this position into something more aligned with the
position of Jeb Bush (whom he maligned for his position), his followers shrugged
and accepted it, even though they claimed to be voting on issues. No, they’re
not voting on issues. They’re voting for the strong man they pledged their loyalty
to. Trump has maneuvered many of his vague plans over and over, and has proved
that his followers are there for him, not the ideas. He was right when he said
he could stand in the middle of the street and shoot someone and not lose a
vote.
Step 5: Demand
loyalty. Isolate and humiliate outsiders. Threaten political enemies with death
or imprisonment. Threaten the media. Create distrust in the system. Create
distrust in the system. Lie outright and unapologetically: It is true because
you say it is true, and anything that they say is aimed to sabotage you. The
system is rigged against you, but you will fight it because you are strong.
You cannot challenge Trump. You can’t ask too many
questions. You have to respect and admire him, and fawningly do his bidding.
Otherwise, you’re out. You’re in the way of progress. He has expressed
admiration for dictators in the past: Kim Jong Un, Putin, Saddam Hussein...and
much like those people he admires and would seek to emulate, he wants to force
his opponents into compliance. He is unique among presidential candidates in
this country because he has publicly threatened to jail his political opponent.
He has cut off coverage from media outlets because he didn’t like the way the
reporting was going. He wants to open up libel laws to make it easier to sue
the media. He’s stated that he hates the media ‘but wouldn’t have them killed’,
ha ha. His lies have been well documented, but he continuously tosses them out
there. Why? Because a lie stated often enough becomes the truth. Trump’s lying
is also a good way to reinforce loyalty. If they will believe it because you
say it, even though it has been demonstrated as false, then you have them right
where you want them.
Donald Trump is the perfect embodiment of fascism. He is
very much an ends justifies the means kind of guy. Very much a power for power’s
sake kind of guy. The question of, ‘is it right for me to do this?’ never seems
to occur to him. The question is always rather, ‘What can I get away with?’. He
brags about this. He even uses it to extol his qualities as a candidate. With
Donald Trump, we will have the perfect fusion of government and the
corporation. He has shown an absolute ignorance of this country’s history and
its founding documents, and has avidly stated his enthusiasm for totalitarian
regimes and cults of personality. It's true that Trump doesn't have much of a political history outside of his bragging that he buys and sells politicians. Some people mark that as to his credit. But his whole life has been one long Freudian nightmare. He represents the grossest and most evil things about America. He is absolutely amoral, and relishes in decadence and recognition. His persona is emblematic of a deep insecurity and fearfulness and need for validation. Sadly, he does not care about the constituency he has gathered around him. He is here for him, and that is all. A discussion of Trump can't be a discussion about ideals, because he doesn't have any. A discussion of Trump will always be a discussion about character. Sadly, his is very poor. For Donald, it’s all about being huge. Hopefully
in November his loss will be the hugest thing he has ever seen, and it will cause him to shrink back into the nothingness he came from and belongs to. Then, hopefully, we can get back to a principled discussion about ideas and return to constitutional notions of freedom, and ethical notions of integrity.
Incriminating Links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/
