Fascism: unity, energy, and its energy sources.
This paper is part of a fascism series I am writing about. You can read the original paper here which includes the other parts:
In every single movement, there is a unifying force that brings us all together to fight for a certain common goal. These goals can have certain effects on the people whether it is good or bad, is up to opinion. What are the intentions of such a unity? Where does this unity get its energy from? Most importantly, where does it get the resources to get such energy from? For fascism, this question will be answered in this paper.
What unites fascism?
In Germany, there was a massive turn to the left for many in the working class. Everyone was one shade of red or another. On the other side, the industrialist class was growing ever stronger and accumulating so many more assets to where it threatened the exalted people (which is always the middle class). This frightened the middle classes who wanted someone to blame. They wanted to act then and now.
In America, the middle class has been hallowed out and social progressivism is on the march. Even worse, socialism is back and making head waves especially with the young. The American middle class is clearly terrified and wants someone to blame.
So, what exactly gives unity to the far-right?
During the 1960s, the business class had had enough of the New Deal. The working classes were already paid enough, and profit rates were falling. So, what do they do? They make alliances with the socially conservative groups. It was around this time that the first vestiges of the religious right started to appear.
Contrary to popular belief, the religious right began as anti-segregation of black people into churches and schools. The original leaders were more concerned about unfavorable people entering the sacred spaces they considered theirs but knew that if they didn’t appeal outside the WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) community, they would have no chance of succeeding. This opportunity came when Roe v Wade overturned abortion bans, and the religious right had a chance to expand north into the Catholic community. This alliance would go on to become incredibly influential in politics. So influential that a couple years ago, that same court decision was finally overturned, and abortion bans came back in full force. Now, this alliance backs Donald Trump with a passion and believes that he is the holy messiah who will bring about the rapture.
Obviously, this is incredibly insane stuff. These same people will fuel conspiracy theories about maybe a pizza place having pedophile rings in their basements (QAnon) or even the idea that they are being replaced by Jewish bankers (Unite the right). Donald Trump will regularly repeat lies like Mexicans (all Latinos are Mexicans by the way) coming illegally across the border. They are easily debunkable ideas but for some reason, they have a powerful effect on people who may not be very good at research. So where on earth does this energy come from?
Uneasy alliance with traditional conservatives and elites
In Germany, Hitler had a secret meeting with industrialists and said what he really meant by “socialism” [2]. Many of them were conservatives who were worried about the left potentially taking the government and their wealth (including private property rights) away. They gave his Nazi party the funding it needed to take a big portion of the seats in the Reichstag and with that, he was appointed chancellor of Germany. When the building burned down it was assumed that the communists did it (no proof was provided) so Hitler utilized this to get the political capital he needed to create conspiracy theories around this idea and have the leaders of the communist party of Germany arrested. Hitler really capitalized on this hysteria to pass the Enabling Act which was passed by everyone, liberals and conservatives alike except social democrats (who stood bravely against this whole thing), to give Hitler the ability to pass laws by decree. Pretty much giving him unlimited power. By this point, habeus corpus was suspended so there was really nothing the opposition could do.
Conspiracy theories are a major part of all this. At every major point, the Nazis would make these wild claims about everyone they didn’t like. The Jews and communists were their two main targets of conspiracies. There is a secret cabal of Jewish communists who are trying to bring down our greatness! They undermined us once during the Great War and they’ll do it again! Of course, none of this is true but Jewish people have disproportionate control of banks, so it is assumed that Jewish bankers (who apparently communists) are trying to undermine the national body,
In fascism, the nation is viewed almost as a body with the people being blood cells and often the private-state fusion being the organs. The brain of course is the grand poohbah or great leaders such as Hitler or Mussolini or Trump. The body does whatever it can to get rid of “invaders” so it is whoever they don’t like. To fund all of this, they would always need appeal from the organs to do so or the private capitalists.
Let’s turn back to America.
In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president and this frightened both the racist white and business communities. It was assumed that Obama would tax the bejabbers out of the rich so businessmen gathered in Memphis to form what would be known as the “tea party movement”. It was mostly a hosh posh of far right paleolibertarians (that’s what they thought they were anyway), racist white men, and corporate astroturfing who feared a black democrat. The movement grew quite big and was quite successful in framing Obama was a “Kenyan Muslim” who would raise their taxes (he didn’t even propose it at all). All this anger eventually led to the election of Donald Trump who capitalized on the right-wing populist sentiment.
Use of conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories are very useful in many ways. They create narratives and if there is already sentiment towards the target like say black people, LGBT+, Jews, or Muslims, they make fertile ground for even the most ridiculous of things. So, if you say them enough times like Joesph Goebbels did, they are believed. This is called the “illusory truth effect”. The key is to target the isolated like those who feel the world is changing too fast, the aggrieved middle class who feel pressures from above and below, and the already cemented status quo which is clearly showing signs of breaking. Reality is incredibly disturbing (especially for the upper classes) and difficult to digest (sociology like class theory for example is boring) so what happens is that people will instead exchange the truth and facts for the pronouncements of the top group.
The Alt-right is a phenomenal example of this exchanged reality. What they do is they will see something like women’s rights, black suffrage, or even LGBT issues and try to make the exact opposite. For example, they will claim that “Western civilization” (they mean white people) are under attack because efforts for social equality have gone too far and now, “reverse racism” is affecting white people and bringing them down. Another is maybe “cultural Marxism”, while an older idea, has infiltrated the educational institutions and is infecting students with the idea that climate change is happening or being transgender is okay or even multiculturalism is a good thing.
Let’s respond to both.
First, no there is no evidence that “western civilization”, oh fuck it just says white people. White people are not under attack. White birth rates are slowing down because industrialized society and high-income people generally have higher access to birth control. White people are not being replaced by brown people from Latin America, it is just where immigrants are coming from. A big part of the reason why they are coming here in droves is because their home countries are purposely kept poor so you can live the high life in America.
Second, you do realize that your repeating literal nazi propaganda, right? “Cultural Marxism” is just a rebranding of “cultural bolshevism” which the nazis would use to say that Jews were taking over the universities and infecting German society.
The internet has been a great tool for the absolute worst people in society to spread their heinous messages. Right-wing populism has managed to gain massive momentum among frightened people and a good portion of this is because of access to information, be it good or bad. False information tends to spread a lot faster than factual reality. There is of course, another way jovial way of spreading your message.
Mass rallies
I once saw a study on the internet of young students who never once heard a Hitler speech at one of his Nuremburg rallies. A lot of them said that they sounded a lot like Trump speeches with the screaming on the microphone, constant conspiracy theories, and the amount of hate spewed at certain enemies. They genuinely looked surprised at how much Hitler sounded like Trump. The uncool part of all this is, this has basis.
According to his niece Mary Trump, Donald when he was young would read and study both Mussolini and Hitler to memorize their quotes and style of speeches. If you look at both their rallies, they sound a lot alike. In fact, here is one image that I used in a previous paper:
Rallies will have a certain effect on people. They bring people together so they can rally for a common cause. The energy you feel from the rallies can be like no other. I was once at a Bernie Sanders rally in Minnesota, and it felt like I was unifying with people of all backgrounds. White, black, disabled, all genders, they were all there. We were listening to a man who brought us all together to rage against Walmart who pays their employees shit wages.
At Trump rallies, as you can see in the picture above, it was a sea of white faces. The constant rhetoric from clips is the “us vs. them” rhetoric. Very populistic stuff. I have done a paper on this sort of thing before, but right-wing populism is disingenuous. It has a very narrow worldview that offers quick, easy, but dangerous answers to complex problems. You can read this here:
I come from a pro-trump area and let me tell you, they spout his populist rhetoric all day and night. Like, it legitimately gets creepy. The local white people have a lot of issues with the migrant community of Somalians. There has been tensions between them because the Somalis are different people and are often subject to racism, especially after 9/11 (which is a key event of humiliation). The Somalis have had to be somewhat defensive of their community because of the hate they get, occasionally taking it a little far, to the point where the lizard part of our brains confirm their prejudices. Trump even once said in a tweet that he felt bad about the MN locals in the Somali situation.
There was a study which once suggested that in places where Trump held rallies, there was a 226% increase in hate crimes [6]. The study does emphasize nuance in that it was dependent on certain other factors beforehand like the presence of hate groups. They hit the point in many ways without realizing it. In Southern Strategy rhetoric, you don’t say “n-ger” but rather you say something like “thug culture” or “forced school-busing” if you want to go back to Lee Harvey Atwater. Basically, anything that is a microaggression towards a certain group that the locals already hate, Trump enflames them. Microaggressions can almost even combine into a microaggression of microaggressions. Modern fascism is a lot more underhanded this way than outright like it was in the past. It’s a great way of having plausible deniability. Though lately however, Trump is getting much more macro-aggressive by the minute.
What is worse, is that blood tends to be met with blood. These things tend to escalate into full warfare which is clearly what Trump is counting on, and fascism goes for every time. Enough microaggressions, often flamed at his rallies, to the point of macroaggression and systemic warfare.
How do we address this?
I do not have as many definitive answers as to how we address these things, but I have heard stories of people doing stuff like talking to their loved ones or even maybe suggesting they drop their technology. People are getting this stuff often through communication and information technologies like social media or newspapers which print out phony stuff. We are more addicted to our social media than ever before and now are used to constant stimulation. Please, go outside, go for a 20-minute walk without anything on you, and maybe talk to those who are different from you.
Historically, conservatives have always thought that they could control the fascists. Rich people are often arrogant, and their hubris often knows no bounds. This current attempt at doing so is already showing signs of blowing up in their faces. The fasces (the fascist symbol appropriated from ancient Rome) cannot be wielded. If conservatives go through with its attempted takeover of democracy, I promise, it will end badly for them. They will be stuck out of power for many years, and something tells, even forever if they don’t address climate change.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoy what I do, don’t forget to clap, follow, and share so everyone can read my message! My email is derekhudley@gmail.com if you wish to contact me.
Sources:
[2] Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 — Wikipedia
[3] https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.ErqJ0wwmkLDvZjaXuxLoUAAAAA?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain
[4] Republicans, didn’t and still don’t understand the forces they are dealing with. Derek Hudley
[5] Hate Crimes Increased 226% in Places Trump Held Campaign Rally, Study — Business Insider
