Has Fascism Arrived in America?
Last Sunday, my wife and I were coming home from church and I stopped at a red light. A car pulled up around us and was on my driver’s side. The driver was laughing at something that I couldn’t figure out. I opened the car window to hear what it was that was so funny. He then opened his window and remarked, “You voted for Obama?!” It was clearly a reference to the bumper sticker on my car that says “Obama ’08.” My wife wisely suggested I close the window, which I did. When the light turned green I let him speed off, not wanting to get into a heated exchange with an obviously demented individual, especially one who was driving a car. But the episode left an indelible impression upon me.

Living in a free society with the right of expression does have its benefits. No body can tell us to shut up, and we are free to voice our opinions as we wish. But, unfortunately, the flip side of that coin is that along with the benefits comes the very somber reality that those who lack the basic tenets to form a coherent or cogent thought are also accorded the same rights. It is at those moments that I thank God that the Founding Fathers established not just a democracy, but a republic with a representative form of government. Men like Hamilton and Madison were petrified at the prospect of what they referred to as the “tyranny of the majority.” The specter of a simple majority taking control of the whole of society and deciding what all of its citizens could or could not do was as unacceptable to them as the system of government they had just successfully revolted against. Only a republican form of democracy insured liberty for all. It was an experiment that has thankfully lasted for over two hundred years, and there has never been anything like it since.

But as precious and as unique as our system of government may be, it is constantly under attack by groups who can’t stomach the idea of diversity of thought. There is, within these groups, an underlying and pathological contempt and hatred not just for those who are different than them, but for the values and beliefs such people hold. For these groups such values and beliefs pose a grave threat to their way of life. As long as such people are allowed to live and breath, they will always be feared and hated. The Nazis blamed the Jews for the nightmarish conditions that Germany had to endure after World War I, and the result was that six million of them were murdered. Pathological dissent often reads like freedom of expression until it is turned up a few notches and it is given voice in the form of riotous hatred. In such instances, the ignorant and frightened are often manipulated and mobilized to act in manners they normally would not be prone to do. Shakespeare understood this all too well when he wrote his masterpiece: “Julius Caesar.” Haven’t we seen the likes of Mark Antony all throughout history? Have we not seen the mob that turned on Brutus in the Nuremberg rally? Or in the town-hall meetings that have been taking place throughout the country? Whenever fear meets prejudice, the result is usually the same: the truth is drowned out and our baser selves come out in full force.

In an op-ed piece called “Fascist America: Are We There Yet?” in Campaign for America’s Future, Sarah Robinson describes in great detail how fascism takes root in a society.

"Historian Robert Paxton defines fascism as 'a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline.' He goes on to add that it is 'a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.'


"According to Paxton, fascism unfolds in five stages. The first two are pretty solidly behind us -- and the third should be of particular interest to progressives right now.


"In the first stage, a rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist renewal (what Roger Griffin calls 'palingenesis' -- a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes). They come together to restore a broken social order, always drawing on themes of unity, order, and purity. Reason is rejected in favor of passionate emotion. The way the organizing story is told varies from country to country; but it's always rooted in the promise of restoring lost national pride by resurrecting the culture's traditional myths and values, and purging society of the toxic influence of the outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.

"Fascism only grows in the disturbed soil of a mature democracy in crisis. Paxton suggests that “the Ku Klux Klan, which formed in reaction to post-Civil War Reconstruction, may in fact be the first authentically fascist movement in modern times. Almost every major country in Europe sprouted a proto-fascist movement in the wretched years following WWI (when the Klan enjoyed a major resurgence here as well) -- but most of them stalled either at this first stage, or the next one.


"As Rick Perlstein documented in his two books on Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, modern American conservatism was built on these same themes. From 'Morning in America' to the Rapture-ready religious right to the white nationalism promoted by the GOP through various gradients of racist groups, it's easy to trace how American proto-fascism offered redemption from the upheavals of the 1960s by promising to restore the innocence of a traditional, white, Christian, male-dominated America. This vision has been so thoroughly embraced that the entire Republican party now openly defines itself along these lines. At this late stage, it's blatantly racist, sexist, repressed, exclusionary, and permanently addicted to the politics of fear and rage. Worse: it doesn't have a moment's shame about any of it. No apologies, to anyone. These same narrative threads have woven their way through every fascist movement in history.

"In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers' strikes. And these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of us.

"Paxton wrote that succeeding at the second stage 'depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner.' He further noted that Hitler and Mussolini both took power under these same circumstances: 'deadlock of constitutional government (produced in part by the polarization that the fascists abetted); conservative leaders who felt threatened by the loss of their capacity to keep the population under control at a moment of massive popular mobilization; an advancing Left; and conservative leaders who refused to work with that Left and who felt unable to continue to govern against the Left without further reinforcement.'

"And more ominously: 'The most important variables...are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascists (along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the fascist leaders) and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate.'


“That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity. When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.


“All through the Bush years, progressive right-wing watchers refused to call it 'fascism' because, though we kept looking, we never saw clear signs of a deliberate, committed institutional partnership forming between America's conservative elites and its emerging homegrown brownshirt horde. We caught tantalizing signs of brief flirtations -- passing political alliances, money passing hands, far-right moonbat talking points flying out of the mouths of "mainstream" conservative leaders. But it was all circumstantial, and fairly transitory. The two sides kept a discreet distance from each other, at least in public. What went on behind closed doors, we could only guess. They certainly didn't act like a married couple.

“Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to 'a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.'


“This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding. According to Robinson this is the 'catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it.'

"According to Paxton, the forging of this third-stage alliance is the make-or-break moment -- and the worst part of it is that by the time you've arrived at that point, it's probably too late to stop it. From here, it escalates, as minor thuggery turns into beatings, killings, and systematic tagging of certain groups for elimination, all directed by people at the very top of the power structure. After Labor Day, when Democratic senators and representatives go back to Washington, the mobs now being created to harass them will remain to run the same tactics -- escalated and perfected with each new use -- against anyone in town whose color, religion, or politics they don't like. In some places, they're already making notes and taking names.

Where's the danger line? Paxton offers three quick questions that point us straight at it:

1. Are [neo- or protofascisms] becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene?

2. Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities?

3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?

By Robinson’s reckoning, we're three for three. “That's too close. Way too close.”

“History tells us that once this alliance catalyzes and makes a successful bid for power, there's no way off this ride. As Dave Neiwert wrote in his recent book, The Eliminationists, "if we can only identify fascism in its mature form—the goose-stepping brownshirts, the full-fledged use of violence and intimidation tactics, the mass rallies—then it will be far too late to stop it." Paxton (who presciently warned that "An authentic popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black") agrees that if a corporate / brownshirt alliance gets a toehold -- as ours is now scrambling to do -- it can very quickly rise to power and destroy the last vestiges of democratic government. Once they start racking up wins, the country will be doomed to take the whole ugly trip through the last two stages, with no turnoffs or pit stops between now and the end.


“What awaits us? In stage four, as the duo assumes full control of the country, power struggles emerge between the brownshirt-bred party faithful and the institutions of the conservative elites -- church, military, professions, and business. The character of the regime is determined by who gets the upper hand. If the party members (who gained power through street thuggery) win, an authoritarian police state may well follow. If the conservatives can get them back under control, a more traditional theocracy, corporatocracy, or military regime can re-emerge over time. But in neither case will the results resemble the democracy that this alliance overthrew.


“Paxton characterizes stage five as "radicalization or entropy." Radicalization is likely if the new regime scores a big military victory, which consolidates its power and whets its appetite for expansion and large-scale social engineering. (See: Germany) In the absence of a radicalizing event, entropy may set in, as the state gets lost in its own purposes and degenerates into incoherence. (See: Italy)

“It's so easy right now to look at the melee on the right and discount it as pure political theater of the most absurdly ridiculous kind. It's a freaking puppet show. These people can't be serious. Sure, they're angry -- but they're also a minority, out of power and reduced to throwing tantrums. Grown-ups need to worry about them about as much as you'd worry about a furious five-year-old threatening to hold her breath until she turned blue.


“Unfortunately, all the noise and bluster actually obscures the danger. These people are as serious as a lynch mob, and have already taken the first steps toward becoming one. And they're going to walk taller and louder and prouder now that their bumbling efforts at civil disobedience are being committed with the full sanction and support of the country's most powerful people, who are cynically using them in a last-ditch effort to save their own places of profit and prestige.
“We've arrived. We are now parked on the exact spot where our best experts tell us full-blown fascism is born. Every day that the conservatives in Congress, the right-wing talking heads, and their noisy minions are allowed to hold up our ability to govern the country is another day we're slowly creeping across the final line beyond which, history tells us, no country has ever been able to return.”

Austin Cline, Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism and a former Publicity Coordinator for the Campus Freethought Alliance, recently wrote an article titled, “If Fascism Comes to America, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag, Carrying the Cross.”

“It should be clear that there is nothing fascist about "Islamofascism," so that's an example of people using the fascist label as a means of attack rather than as a serious description. Fascism is more like a religion than it is like a political movement. Fascism isn't motivated by rational conclusions about economics, political philosophy, or social policy. This makes real religions like Christianity well suited for integration with a fascist movement. If fascism occurs in America, it will be Christian in nature because only Christianity has the power to motivate a mass-based movement with a passionate concern for unity, redemption, victim-hood, and nationalism. Christian fascism will also be convinced of its own righteousness, moral purity, and godly intentions.”

While Cline’s proclivities can hardly be described as unbiased with respect to religion, in that he is a self-professed atheist, he has, I feel, accurately articulated the neo-conservative evangelical community in this country, and those of us who call ourselves Christians should be very afraid of the growing fascist tendencies within it. Groups like Randall Terry’s “Operation Rescue,” James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” and John Hagee’s “Christians United for Israel” are about as inimical to the true ideals of Christianity as the laws of the Pharisees were to the teachings of Christ. In deed they are worse for they have become symbols for millions of people of a faith that they neither understand nor adhere to.

The latest battle over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is another case in point of how the Right is looking to rewrite the laws of the land and weaken decades of judicial progress. Ideological arguments over judicial activism are a smoke screen for a larger agenda, to take the country back to a pre-Warren Court day with a weaker Federal government and less corporate oversight and regulation. Imagine an America with no "Brown v. Board of Education" or "Mapp v. Ohio" or "Baker v. Carr" or "Griswold v. Conneticut." Such landmark issues as racial segregation, criminal procedure, voting rights and reproductive rights might never have been heard, or if they had been heard would've gone the other way. Imagine a country where racial segregation was still a states' rights issue. Weakening the federal government does not restore the nation to its earlier post-colonial days the way the Founding Fathers intended, it makes it far more vulnerable to the kinds of activities we've been seeing from the Right; hence far less likely to withstand the sort of onslaught that malitia movements and fascist organizations could potentially bring about. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine has had a devastating impact on broadcast journalism in this country over the last twenty years, making it far easier for wingnuts like Glenn Beck and Mark Levin to stir up the pot of discontent with virtually no checks and balances to thwart them.

If all of this sounds too fantastic to contemplate, remember they thought the same thing in Germany in 1932 and look what happened. If history has taught us anything it’s that anything is possible. A famous quote is worth mentioning here. "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." That quote ironically came from Ronald Reagan. Ironic in that many of his most ardent admirers don't even understand its meaning. And that is the most frightening thing of all.