Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

[woo me with science]

18. K&R. It is well past time to stop using euphemisms like "centrist" and "moderate"

to describe policies and politicians who are doing nothing less malignant than implementing fascism in the United States of America.

Monied corporate corruption of our government is now deep, systemic, and bipartisan, and it has dismantled democracy itself.

Austerity and attacks on safety nets in a country that has already devastated its middle class are opposed by over 80 percent of Americans across party lines, yet these economic positions are nevertheless described as "centrist," as though they fell in the mainstream of American opinion. Policies coming out of our government now routinely bear little resemblance to what people have repeatedly stated in polls that they want, and neoliberal politicians lie their way through campaigns because they realize how unpopular their positions really are...yet we persist in calling them "centrists."

Secret laws, secret courts, "Kill Lists"/indefinite detention without due process, and mass surveillance in the United States of America are extreme violations of our Constitution and should not be considered "moderate" positions in any sense of the word. They are extreme, even fascistic policies, yet the politicians who espouse them are permitted by us to describe themselves as "moderates."

We desperately need to start using the words, "corporatist," "extreme," and even "fascist" to describe what is happening in this country under the corporatist/neoconservative/neoliberal/Third Way agenda. We are witnessing a malignant merger of state and corporations and the active dismantling of our Constitution. The corporate state is pouring our tax dollars into propaganda and marketing for their agenda, and IMO the vast majority of Americans, while aware of their own economic pain, have little understanding of the peril facing our democratic institutions and basic Constitutional protections.

We use words that suggest the current neoliberal and neocon policies are business as usual in America...just another flavor of policies that Americans can trust still fall safely within the boundaries of a democratic, constitutional, representative political system. They are "centrist" or "moderate." But they really aren't. They are fascist. Thank you for posting this again. We desperately need to adjust our labels to drive home the seriousness of the crisis we face.