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Fascism in 21st Century American Politics

 

  • "The Cult of Tradition"
  • This is couched in the prevailing belief that things were better "back in the day," ignoring hardships of the past and focusing instead on rose-colored nostalgia.  When you're specifically looking at the culturally syncretistic aspect of this point, you're merging aspects of religion or socially conservative movements into that rose-colored view of the past.  We uphold folks like John Wayne as idealistic 'men,' when we're ignoring the fact that he was an actor and most of his mythos comes from fictitious characters.  This is an appeal to history, asking voters to support things like making a country great again.

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  • "The Rejection of modernism"
  • This goes hand-in-hand with "The Cult Of Tradition."  If things were truly better "back in the day," that must mean that modernity is worse off.  This is at the root of things like anti-DEI measures, because that's "modern," and as we all know, straight white men do everything better.

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  • "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake"
  • Our system was designed to be slow and deliberate.  Our bureaucracy is meant to go slowly.  DOGE and Elon Musk rushing through dismantling everything misses the point completely.

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  • "Disagreement Is Treason"
  • https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/10/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-justice-department/index.html

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  • "Fear of Difference"
  • Fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants

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  • "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", 
  • fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.  Egg prices, anyone?

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  • "Obsession with a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. 
  • Trump has said, repeatedly, that any election he loses is rigged

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  • Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak."
  • Trump can't decide if Joe Biden is "Sleepy Joe" or if he's in control of an all-powerful cabal of evil satanists.

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  • Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. 
  • https://thegroundtruthproject.org/a-covid-19-face-off-the-day-militias-stormed-michigans-capitol/

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  • "Contempt for the Weak"
  • "Soyboy" and "Cuck" are insults meant to demean one's masculinity

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  • "Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death.
  • https://www.npr.org/2023/07/25/1189939229/covid-deaths-democrats-republicans-gap-study

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  • Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."
  • https://www.newsweek.com/andrew-tate-matt-bernstein-gay-satire-babies-1894051

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  • "Selective Populism"
  • MAGA is a cult

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  • "Newspeak" – Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
  • See "Alternative Facts"

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