This diary began as a comment in reply to DKos member JBtakenote’s diary, and expands upon previous diaries I’ve written about the relationship between conservatism, the GOP (including it’s rank and file voters, 90% of whom voted for Mr. Trump), and fascism.
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The white nationalists that gathered in Charlottesville, VA did so to incite and cause violence. That people would be injured or killed wasn’t the result of things ‘spiraling out of control’, it is very much their intention to engage in violence against those that oppose them, and to create the conditions for violence to occur on a large scale.
That they feel they can operate openly, and with the feeling of impunity, is because they have received tacit (and at times overt) support from officials at the highest levels of government, and encouragement from one of the two major political parties— the GOP.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white nationalist groups and hate crimes in the US, provides a detailed summary of the the emergence of white nationalist groups (such as Nazis, like the Aryan Brotherhood, or the Klan) and their supporters, as prominent members of mainstream conservative politics (while consistently characterized by the media as ‘fringe’), culminating in the election of Trump as the GOP standard-bearer:
The undeniable truth is that Trump – first as a candidate and now, in his first 100 days as president – has given a giant megaphone to the baseless conspiracy theories and fabrications of the radical right, many of them freighted with racial and anti-Semitic undertones.
His election, in fact, represented a triumph for the true manufacturers of fake news. Arguably, his presence in the White House is the end result of a decades-long project by conservative politicians and media figures to delegitimize mainstream journalism and to herd a highly conservative segment of voters into a hermetically sealed echo chamber of rightwing media.
Trump ran an overtly fascist campaign, has three outright Nazi’s (Bannon, Miller and Gorka) among his closest advisers, not to mention the Klan member AG, and numerous other white nationalists installed in various government offices, and according to his former wife, he reads Hitler’s speeches for inspiration. His affinity for fascism and fascists was not lost on the white nationalists who had previously operated in camouflage, largely outside the awareness of the wider public:
Ever since the Tea Party’s peak, in 2010, and its fade, citizens on the American far right—Patriot militias, border vigilantes, white supremacists—have searched for a standard-bearer, and now they’d found him. In the past, “white nationalists,” as they call themselves, had described Trump as a “Jew-lover,” but the new tone of his campaign was a revelation. Richard Spencer is a self-described “identitarian” who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and promotes “white racial consciousness.” At thirty-six, Spencer is trim and preppy, with degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. He is the president and director of the National Policy Institute, a think tank, co-founded by William Regnery, a member of the conservative publishing family, that is “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world.” The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Spencer “a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old.” Spencer told me that he had expected the Presidential campaign to be an “amusing freak show,” but that Trump was “refreshing.” He went on, “Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.”
But this did not begin with Trump.
He is not the cause or creator of anything, he is the end-product of a decades long effort by the most conservative elements of the GOP, as detailed by Michael Joseph Roberto in his article, The Origins of American Fascism, in Monthly Review:
In the U.S. capitalist epicenter, the driving force of fascism came from the capitalist class itself, intent on extending and protecting the wealth and power it had gained during the boom years of the 1920s. In Germany, by contrast, fascism found its natural base in a disaffected lower middle class moved by rising nationalist anger over the punitive accords of Versailles. In Germany, terrorist ultra-nationalism brought Hitler and his party to power. In the United States, capitalists with the assistance of the State smashed labor during the Red Scare and shared common ground with reactionary terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in promoting the doctrine of “100 percent Americanism.” However, from 1922 until 1929 they propagated a more palatable nationalism in the form of the American Plan, a strategy of the “open shop” and company unions, used against organized labor.
Already in the 1930s, the most astute American observers traced fascism’s origins to big business and financial capital. Three studies from this period stand out, all written by Marxists or influenced by Marxism: Do We Want Fascism? (1934) by Carmen Haider, The Crisis of the Middle Class (1935) by Lewis Corey, and The Peril of Fascism (1938) by A. B. Magil and Henry Stevens. All three works, long buried by liberal historiography and political commentary, resonate in the current moment. Each argued that the United States would “go fascist” if the capitalist class continued to amass wealth and power over the rest of society. In this respect their position accorded with that of the Communist International, as articulated in 1935 by general secretary Georgi Dimitroff in his report to the Seventh Congress, defining fascism as the rule of finance capital itself.4 As I will argue, this definition now offers insights into the deeper motives of Trump’s ongoing Gleichschaltung.
… a coming American fascism did not require a third, fascist party. Instead, it could emerge from political realignments within the two-party system, transformed by a social and political crisis. Haider contended that with the Democrats in power, Republicans, who already included “several of our foremost financiers and industrial leaders,” knew what they had to do. “It would be an insult to their ability to think that they could not take care of a movement of discontent and direct it into party channels,” she wrote, “even though, possibly, this would imply a recasting of the party.” In that sense the Republicans would also pull in reactionary Democratic elites and reshape their party to oppose Roosevelt and the New Deal coalition. By such a realignment, fascism could take root without disturbing the two-party system.
Here again, the NRA played a major role. A new “conservative Right” led by bankers and big businessmen opposed to New Deal labor provisions “might be expected to give impetus to a fascist movement directed against the present administration,” which Haider saw as the core of “a new Center group” that also included progressive Republicans and even many socialists. In Haider’s predicted realignment, a third group would also form, “an Ultra-Left party,” made up primarily of the Communists, who were then at the height of their influence in the United States. Under fascism, this party would be outlawed, “in accordance with the totalitarian idea of the Fascists.” At the same time, the fascists would also move to reduce the Center Party to impotency, if not destroy it outright.11
The GOP has been the home of the far-right, and has espoused overtly fascist views, for the past eighty years, since the days of FDR (see this, and this for additional examples).
There’s no need to use a term like crypto-fascist. The GOP, as an organization, is a vehicle for fascists to wield power, and I describe conservative voters as proto-fascists, cultivated to be receptive to the messages of a bigoted autocrat. Here’s a few of the diaries I’ve written about this since the election:
The Authoritarian Personality and Trump voters: conservatism’s true face is fascism. (Dec. 1, 2016)
These are not psychological features that are amenable to patient listening and reasoned discourse— in fact, patient listening and reasoned discourse are precisely the sort of displays that a conservative proto-fascist will respond to with disgust and hostility— (see items d., f. and g., above).
Try to understand them, reason with them, and you will be met with either dismissive contempt, or violent hate.
These are sixty million of your fellow citizens, and they don’t think any of us, not one person who calls themselves a progressive-- especially those who are not white heterosexual Christian males --deserve any place in society, are entitled to political representation, or equal protection of the law.
Believing otherwise, no matter how much you may want to, will get a lot of us imprisoned and killed. Because that was already happening before Trump’s election…
This isn’t something that ‘might happen’. This is something that has been happening for decades, and is now set loose without constraint.
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Looking at the birth of fascism in Italy, and seeing who Trump’s supporters really are. (Dec. 6, 2016)
It would be a mistake, I think, to say that fascism has been re-packaged and ‘rehabilitated’. I don’t think it ever went anywhere. It suffered electoral and tactical defeats following WWII, but I don’t think Trump voters were ‘conned’ into voting for a fascist regime by appealing to their ‘economic concerns’ or through a ‘populist message’. Populist appeals and playing on economic insecurity is modus operandi in how fascism recruits its very willing troops on the ground (ordinary, workaday people in ‘mainstream communities’).
In another diary a few days after the election, I cited the essay of Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism; in it, Eco identifies the mechanisms by which fascism draws in ordinary folk who feel ‘aggrieved’:
I believe no one who has read the history of the rise of fascism in Europe, or witnessed what conservatism, as embodied in the GOP for the past half century, has espoused, should be the least bit surprised. The people who voted for Trump voted for him because he is autocratic, not in spite of it. They voted for him because the support what he says, and what he has promised to do.
Umberto Eco, who lived through the ascendance of Mussolini, and the rise of fascism throughout Europe, gave us the clearest description of what fascism is, and why it appeals to those drawn to it, in his 1995 essay Ur-Fascism:
Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values…
Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. (emphasis added)
Those that make use of the narrative of the sufferings of ‘the White Working Class’ obscure why this group is fertile for recruitment by fascists (I’m white and working class too, as are my wife and children, so why weren’t we taken in?)— resentment tied to cultural identity and affiliations.
The economic and social concerns and hardships of a white working class Trump voter are not different than those of a Latina, African-American, or Syrian refugee family. In fact, the WWC Trump voter is likely to be better off financially, have greater opportunities, and don’t face daily discrimination. Yet, as Eco notes, they attribute their concerns and hardships to anyone they perceive as different from them and their tribe.
This dynamic— ascribing personal hardship to nefarious efforts to unfairly help ‘unworthy others’— sets the stage for fascism, as John Pollard describes in his book, The Fascist Experience in Italy
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Use the weapons of the enemy: creating a social media campaign ti fight fascists. (Dec. 8, 2016)
In a comprehensive review of the rise of right wing extremism in America, and the continuum that connects various strains and subgroups within the broader ideology ‘conservatism’ with the most violent elements of the right, Conservative and Right-Wing Movements (which is essential reading for all progressives), Kathleen Blee and Kimberly Creasap at the University of Pittsburgh describe how fascist groups in America use social media and the internet to recruit, communicate, and operate with near impunity:
Right-wing groups create virtual communities through Web sites, blogs, social networking sites, chat rooms, and online discussion boards (Adams & Roscigno 2005, Burris et al. 2000, Daniels 2009, Gerstenfeld 2003, Levin 2002, Reid & Chen 2007, Simi & Futrell 2006) (pg. 277)
… the Internet certainly has allowed right-wing movements to distribute propaganda to supporters and the general public. Right-wing sites often visually mimic more mainstream sites to make them familiar to viewers, while infusing racist and/or xenophobic rhetoric into their messages (Daniels 2009, Futrell et al. 2006, Gerstenfeld 2003). Virtual means such as the Internet provide anonymity for movements that promote hate speech and violent actions. Interactive online forums allow people to be involved in radical or extremist movements with little risk to their reputations, jobs, or family relationships (Simi & Futrell 2009). contact among right-wing activists that would otherwise be difficult because of geographical distance or fear of being observed and prosecuted (Blee 2002, Futrell et al. 2006, Gerstenfeld 2003, Levin 2002, Reid & Chen 2007). Furthermore, virtual communities offer a sense of belonging, companionship, and social support networks (Gerstenfeld 2003, Simi & Futrell 2006). Because mainstream media tend to portray right-wing movements negatively, right-wing activists create virtual communities to control their images (Gerstenfeld 2003, Simi & Futrell 2009). In interactive forums, such as blogs and discussion boards, users shape “virtual identities,” which are “people’s online performances of who they want others to think they are” (Anahita 2006, pp. 143–44). (pg. 277)
There are two tasks for progressives faced with the rise of fascism embodied in the election of Trump: 1) understand those who choose to align with fascists, and 2) resist fascism in all its forms, in all its guises, in each and every instance that it shows itself.
In regard to the first task— understanding those that choose to align with fascists, I’ve written diaries here, here and here, making the case that Trump voters need to be viewed, as a group, as proto-fascists, comfortable within communities that espouse white supremacy, prone to authoritarianism, and fundamentally opposed to the idea of an inclusive, pluralistic American democracy, opposed in their worldview to a society based on equal protection of the law, equal justice, and equal educational and economic opportunity.
Blee and Creasap make this abundantly clear as well:
A particular kind of conservative movement known as the New Right (NR) emerged in the 1970s, a time when the right had little electoral or cultural influence. Fragmented groups of free market enthusiasts, libertarians, anticommunists, and social conservatives found common interest, shaping a movement that rapidly became a force in political life. The NR’s explosive growth challenged long-held scholarly assumptions about conservative mobilization. For one, the NR did not primarily attract social groups in decline, such as the status-insecure middle class and Protestant fundamentalists that Bell (1963) identified as the core of the Old Right. Rather, its campaign to return America to political, economic, and moral strength mobilized a wide range of social groups, including economically successful middle classes (Durham 2000, Johnson 2000, McGirr 2001). Too, the NR’s success was not due primarily to its strong leadership, a common description of the Old Right (Ribuffo 1983). Instead, its leaders inspired grassroots action. For instance, antifeminist spokesperson Phyllis Schlafly fought against gender equity by mobilizing women fearful that they would be drafted into the military or that men would relinquish economic responsibility for their families (Critchlow 2005, Schreiber 2008). Scholars are divided on the racial nature of the NR. Some argue that the NR relied on racially coded messages to mobilize white evangelical activists. Race, one scholar of the NR writes, was used to connect “recipes for national revival to racialized and often exclusionary images of the national community,” particularly those of immigration, affirmative action, welfare, and traditional values (Ansell 2001, p. 189). Such racial ideology, unlike earlier forms of white racism, was not based on biological claims of white superiority. Rather, it rested on ostensibly nonracial values, such as disdain for government policies of equal opportunity (Ansell 1997). (pg. 272)
...studies of Europe suggest that extremists recruit members and spread ideologies through a variety of social arenas, including those that are ostensibly nonpolitical. For example, European racist skinheads contribute to the violence of sports hooliganism with racist songs and chants at soccer matches (Milo 2005, Pankowski & Kornak 2005). In Germany, the right wing has made inroads into mainstream culture with Nazi-esque lyrics and violent references to Hitler in the music of mainstream hip-hop artists (Putnam & Littlejohn 2007). There is some evidence of comparable practices in the United States, such as racist skinheads who attend NASCAR auto races and other gatherings of whites they regard as likely to be receptive to their message (Cooter 2006). Whether such practices are widespread or increasing among right-wing groups is unknown. More broadly, more study is required of how right-wing movements draw from, and themselves shape, their social and cultural environments to serve political agendas. (pg. 279)
Fascists are not ‘fringe members’ or ‘opportunists’ within the conservative movement, they are the logical endpoint of conservative ideology and policies. The subcultures that exist within conservatism are the breeding ground for fascism; fascism emerges from conservatism, conservative ideas and values, from within conservative communities.