Fighting Fascism
Fascism is back. Seventy years after fighting a war with fascism, it has come back in the form of Donald Trump in the U.S., Marine Le Pen in France, ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and in other far right parties around the world. It is back because the global 1% have taken control of world’s economies and left the rest of us fighting amongst each other for the scraps.
People are hurting, high school educated middle aged white’s life expectancies are dropping in the U.S.(1), and are drawn to the demagogues who hark back to mythical past where everything was great, ordered and simple. Donald Trump says that there are good guys, his supporters, and bad guys, mexicans and muslims. He will stop the bad guys, bring the world back into balance and “Make America Great Again.”
People’s pain is real and Donald Trump and the far right are redirecting their pain to hate immigrants and muslims instead of hating what the 1% has done over the past 40 years to rig the system in their favor. It is a scam and a con, and Trump is the master of the deal. This is his biggest, most corrupt, most dangerous deal of all.
We need a movement to oppose this rise of fascism.
The opposite of what Donald Trump espouses gives a big clue as to what such a movement should stand for:
- He blames the most vulnerable — We will stand with and protect them
- He has no compassion for refugees — We will welcome them
- He sows fear - We will sow courage and steadfastness in the face of fear
- He stands for violence and thugery — We stand for non-violent, non-cooperation in the face of injustice
- He stands for hate — We will stand for love, especially our enemies
- He stands for exclusion — We will stand for inclusion
- He is the decider and the fixer - We will include people from every gender, race, religion, class, sexual orientation into all levels of decision making
- He creates lies, the bigger the better — We will stand for truth, evidence, and the scientific method
- He obliterates history — We will understand how our history of colonism, genocide and slavery made our unequal system of today
- He obscures how power has corrupted our democracy — We will highlight and fix corruption
Even if Donald Trump does not become president and even if Marine Le Pen does not become prime minister of France, we must not allow these ideas to flourish. We must fight them tooth and nail.
The world is disintegrating from climate change and we need to use all of these principles to survive into the next century.
