"American Fascism": Towards a militantly democratic Democratic Party

[TygrBright]

Last edited Wed Mar 31, 2021, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Today one of my favorite bloggers, John Scalzi, published this post:

Reader Request Week 2021 #5: American Fascism

It is not a terribly long read but it is long-format blogging. And very worth a read, and worth following all the various links as he draws a stark case for America's current wave of apple-pie fascism. Snippets:

In a larger sense, the history of the United States is a history of Will to Power, competing neck-to-neck with what we prefer to see as our more noble and democratic Power to the People. What is “Manifest Destiny” if not Deus Vult in mid-18th century dress? Did the US not essentially pick fights with Mexico and Spain for land and political influence? Did it not ignore whatever treaties it made with the Native Americans whenever it felt like it? Did it not rise to prominence on the labor and pain of African slaves, and tear itself apart because the South decided it was better to gamble on a quick war to keep those slaves, than to imagine them as people? And then, having freed those slaves, did the US then not engage in a century-long effort to keep those slaves and their descendants as legally close to a slave state as possible? Did the US not likewise demonize and restrict the rights of Chinese and other Asians? In the end, who benefited from the United States, who still benefits from it, and how was it managed that only they received the vastly largest share of the benefit?

If you know the answers to these questions, and yet still wonder how the United States might not be immune to fascism, the likely problem is that you’re hung up on the word “fascism” rather than the conceptual, social and political elements that allow for fascism. “Fascism” is a brand. Authoritarianism is the substance inside the can. The United States has had all of the ingredients for authoritarianism as long as it’s existed, and we make a fresh batch of it whenever we feel like it.

and

Creeping fascism has been the goal of the US Republican Party for a while now, what with its policy of steadily eroding and ignoring democratic norms, and its strategy of creating economic and informational insecurity to scare poor and working class whites, with the goal of inflaming their systemically-inculcated bias toward racism, for the benefit of the wealthiest of its party members, and to retain power even (especially) as the majority of US citizens have left it and its political interests behind.

And it certainly got a boost in that from Donald Trump! If someone like Mitch McConnell is the GOP’s ego, Trump is its id, a loud, proudly ignorant racist and buffoon who doesn’t give a shit about democracy, admires dictators, was enraged he wasn’t treated as a king, and who ended his presidency with an attempted putsch against his democratically chosen successor. Trump may not have come into the White House as a fascist, but he certainly left as one. His party — with some notable exceptions — gave him aid and comfort in his transformation and in his attempt to overthrow democracy in the United States. Moreover, it is now actively, unapologetically and with full fervor attempting to curtail the ability of United States citizens to participate in the democratic process, in a manner we haven’t seen so openly since the time when the Nazis were looking for a legal model for the persecution of the Jews and everyone else they found inconvenient. That is in fact actual fascism. You could say fascism has captured the GOP, but that ignores that fascism (and specifically, white christianist fascism) was always the plan, from at least Newt Gingrich onward. The Republicans meant to get here. And now they are here.

I was already well on the way to "fully awake" in this perception, but reading it booted me the rest of the way. America is in grave and immediate peril of becoming a fascist state.

And then I looked at the Democratic Party.

As Scalzi pointed out, we have our own history of proto-fascism, we are not Angels of Light unalloyed. Leaving history aside, though, are we even equipped to fight this fight?

Two tendencies concern me:

1. "Stay firmly in the middle to attract and keep a majority of voters." This is actually relatively sound doctrine in normal times when an imminent, existential threat doesn't menace the structure of our democracy. People are generally leery of change and a substantial centrist block of people are okay with SOME change, in baby steps, carefully tested a little at a time (I won't debate the silliness of this POV here, it's real and it's a biggish part of the electorate, though.) But not with, you know "radical" change, all at once, with potentially-unknown outcomes, etc. And

2. "A truly progressive agenda is our Only Hope." This is also, essentially, sound doctrine in the sense that the existential threats are not limited to political ones... climate change and all its sequelae including recurring pandemics, economic disruption, population migration, etc. are sure to kill us if we don't deal with them intelligently and vigorously. BUT...

We cannot do the second without having the political power to do so. And the first is no longer an effective way to get, and keep for long enough to enact real, life-saving change, the necessary political will and its mandate to power. No, it's not.

But I don't believe we can use the second as a rallying cry to get that mandate, in part because the fascists have done a thorough job of spiking those guns with propaganda, fear-mongering, water-muddying, etc.

Instead, I think we need to militarize the Democratic Party in the direction of the actual threat that prevents progressive action: Fascism itself, and the Fascist Party of America, otherwise known as the GOP.

There is no shortage of evidence. There is no shortage of cautionary illustrative examples of what happens to the people when fascism wins. We can no longer afford "moderation" or even "compromise" with a Fascist opponent.

It has to be about Democracy, and saving Democracy in America.

soberly,
Bright