Fascism
Conservatives are very confused about fascism. For example, even the well-regarded senior fellow from the Stanford University Hoover Institute, Thomas Sowell, is confused.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people — like themselves — need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat
This statement is confused on several levels, but for the current discussion, it’s his claiming fascism is an ideology of the left. I’m disappointed that someone with such academic credentials would get this wrong, but I suspect it has more to do with his political views than his academic background.
Derek Hunter, a contributor to TownHall, a very conservative website published an article titled, “Sorry, Liberals, But the Nazis Were Progressive Leftists.”
The simple truth is every single despotic totalitarian is a left-winger. Under the umbrella of “progressive” lives socialism, communism and fascism. But to hide the reality of what their ideological brethren have committed, Democrats lie and say monsters like Mao, Stalin and Hitler were of the right. This is impossible.
Wow, really serious confusion. The term, Fascism, is a very loaded term as a result of war we fought against Hitler, and conservatives want to use that negative emotion against the left. Such use is propaganda. Hunter’s TownHall article is pure propaganda, serious confusion employed against his enemy, the left. The source of the confusion is his failure to acknowledge that he’s really talking about authoritarianism.
Someone needs to tell him we have (i) non-authoritarian right: Libertarianism, small government, low taxes, (ii) non-authoritarian left: socialism, public libraries, schools, roads, police and fire departments, etc., (iii) authoritarian right: nationalism, cultural purity, mythic past, anti-intellectualism, victimhood (LGBQT), and (iv) authoritarian left: anti-racism, social justice, wokeism.
For a good discussion of Fascism, see the book by Stanley Jason, How Fascism Works: the Politics of Us and Them.
The name for authoritarianism on the right, is Fascism, and on the left, is Leninism. The name, I’ll use here, for non-authoritarianism on the right, is Libertarianism, and for non-authoritarianism on the left, socialism.
The Growing Authoritarian Right — Neo-Fascism
Hunter and Sowell want to think about conservatives being non-authoritarian Libertarians, for limited government, but that is not what is happening.
The fundamental feature of fascism is as Jason points out, is dividing the country into us vs them. First, “us” has a mythic past, and “they” don’t. Make America Great Again, American First, just like the Nazi fascist anthem Duetsches Uber Alles.
Here in the United States this translates into white supremacy, the “us” are European-Americans, white people. “They” are created by demonizing. Books by Black and LGBQT authors are being banned. Conservative’s priority issue is closing the southern border. “Replacement theory” is pressed upon us by Fox News who demand cultural purity. They are afraid of European-American culture being replaced.
The authoritarian right is all in on nationalism, a special feature of fascism (the “N” in Nazi). Globalism is a swear word among them. American “exceptionalism”, a mythic history that forces Jim Crow and the slavery history of the Founding Fathers into a memory hole.
Another essential fascist property is hierarchy. The SOTUS gave States the ability to force women into submission to men, a patriarchy where women are subject to men’s choices. Conservative Red States are eagerly passing laws with the effect of allowing rapists to choose the mother of their children. Even Idaho is pressing to pass laws that allow the parents of a rapist to force the woman to provide the rapists child.
They are trying to destroy public education and promoting charter schools where they’ll freely promote the “us”, the Mythic Past, cultural purity, over them, the LGBQT. Energizing this part of fascism is anti-intellectualism. Universities tend to produce liberals, and conservatives are thus working to abandon support of universities and their “socialist” ideas.
Another feature of fascism is propaganda. Orban of Hungary, who has managed to take over Hungary’s tv networks, told conservatives at the CPAC conference in Texas they must make Fox News the primary source of news in the U.S. In support of achieving that, conservatives demonize “Main Stream Media”.
Putin has transformed Russia into a fascist state, where he has taken complete control over the government and their media, and is operating under a mythic past of the Russian Empire. Just as Hitler began annexing countries and parts of countries around Germany, Putin has annexed Georgia, Crimea, and now wants all of Ukraine.
The anti-fascist response of the United States against Hitler must be summoned now against Putin’s attempted seizure of the Ukraine, just as it had in 1941. CPAC, the conservative political group, in a tweet, however, demanded Democrats “to end the gift giving to Ukraine” while displaying a Russian flag. They referred to Ukraine as “Ukraine occupied territories”, in support of Putin. They are in full support of fascist movements around the world, Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey.
Wokeism
Wokeism describes authoritarian extremes of both left and right. On the left we have anti-racism, social justice, and support for the transgenders.
Full disclosure: I believe structural and endemic racism exists and must be dealt with. However, I’m not in favor of what is happening now, cancel culture, pulling down statues, punishment for speech in opposition of those issues. I believe we counter racist speech with anti-racist speech, not punishment. I don’t believe history of any kind should be erased. The authoritarian left wants to cancel colonialization history, and the authoritarian right wants to erase abolitionist, Jim Crow history. Let’s not erase any history.
About the transgenders, I support people being able to be whatever kind of person they want to be. However, I don’t support transgender women who have benefited from male puberty from being able to compete against cis women who haven’t had that benefit.
Wokeism is broadly regarded as a feature of the authoritarian left, but the authoritarian right has its own version of wokeism.
This new Republican wokeism renders the woman to being a vessel for bearing children. That is where they want women to be. Men can’t bear children so they want complete control over those who can.
At this time, all this is unfolding. Several Red States, Idaho, Alabama, Louisiana, are proposing anti-abortion laws with no exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. The development of “personhood” for fertilized cells appears to be advancing. Our country is dividing up into Red States and Blue States. We don’t know for sure where this will end up.
I Dread the Future
Fascism is on the march, in Turkey, Hungary, Italy, Russia, the United States. There are some hopeful possibilities. The Ukraine is fighting back against the Russians. We’ll see what happens with the midterm elections in the U.S. Will fascist conservatives, like Mastroni in Pennsylvania, win? It is my feeling that the non-authoritarian right, now called RINO’s, and the non-authoritarian left, socialists, are losing. The authoritarian left maybe headed for the dustbin. We even see non-authoritarian left going after them.
We’ll see, but the strength of the authoritarian right, for example CPAC, the supporters of Trump, seems to be increasing. I’m pessimistic. We may be looking forward to being forced into a world with the domination of Fox News, private charter schools where the mythic past is taught, and the history of slavery and Jim Crow erased, women everywhere being forced to carry pregnancies to term against their will, expansion of systemic racism, LGBTQ demonized, no more same-sex marriage, Republican State Legislatures free to gerrymander, suppress Black votes. My worst case scenario is described here.
I can’t leave us there, though. Perhaps people will respond like they did in the 1940’s, push back against fascism, support the Black Lives Movement, let everyone be what they want to be, even if that means a woman being a man, or a man being a woman; no family ever again going bankrupt from medical expenses; the super-wealthy paying their fair of taxes; free college; recognition of the price African Americans and the Indigenous had to pay for what they now have, as well as the recognition of what yet needs to be done for their complete freedom.
