Regular readers, and those who've plowed through "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism", know that I've discussed at length the steady drumbeat of right-wing extremist memes that have increasingly pervaded mainstream conservatism for the past decade, and these constitute the main signs of the creep of fascism, all under the guise of "normal" politics. While the Republicans now running the country are clearly corporatist conservatives and not fascists, they also appear to be the kind who, if pressed, would align themselves with the thuggish and violent elements that are one of the real earmarks of fascism. Such an alliance would mean the real empowerment of these extremists -- and once empowered, they will be impossible to control.
I concluded previously that it seemed likely that any manifestation of fascism was some ways off, perhaps as long as a generation, if these trends were left unchecked. Now it appears that the timetable is moving much faster than that -- and countervailing forces are so far slow in coalescing, in no small part because of the utter, Stalinist ruthlessness of their opponents.
The most recent, and troubling, harbinger of this trend was reported yesterday in the Boston Globe, which detailed the Republican plans to demonize Democrats as essentially treasonous and disloyal in the 2004 election:
- The strategy will involve the dismissal of Democrats as the party of "protests, pessimism and political hate speech," Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee chairman, wrote in a recent memo to party officials -- a move designed to shift attention toward Bush's broader foreign policy objectives rather than the accounts of bloodshed. Republicans hope to convince voters that Democrats are too indecisive and faint-hearted -- and perhaps unpatriotic -- to protect US interests, arguing that inaction during the Clinton years led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Of course, this meme has been floating in conservative circles since well before the Iraq War broke out -- it is, after all, the explicit thesis of Ann Coulter's fraudulent screed, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (for more on that, see this post). Coulter's book is itself clearly extremist in orientation, since much of its subtext is devoted to rehabilitating the deservedly broken reputation of Joe McCarthy. And like so much proto-fascist thinking, its worldview is decidedly dualistic, posing everything in black and white, good and evil, us and them. This is, as I have pointed out, a politics specifically designed to attract followers who are, in Erik Erikson's famous formulation, part of a "totalist" mindset -- which is to say, avid participants in a totalitarian society.
The same kind of dualism is explicit in the Bush team's strategy:
- "The president didn't lay out a doctrine of preemption for political purposes," the senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. But, the official added: "The reason you focus on [preemption] politically is because it is a clear distinction. There is no fuzziness. There is no place you can compromise on that: Either you're for it, or you're against it."
It is likewise clear that the core meme -- that liberals are disloyal to America and thus traitors -- is penetrating mainstream conservatism at all levels. It is now a commonplace of letters to the editor, such as this one [scroll down] in the Wednesday Post-Intelligencer, from a Puyallup resident named Dorothy Hyatt, ostensibly about the recent CBS movie about Ronald Reagan:
- I hope Democrats and media Bush-haters will now get out of their rut of aiding the enemy by repetitive claims of Bush "lies" to get us into war and the imagined "failure" in carrying out reconstruction of Iraq.
… The frustrated outrage of the left-wingers in the Democratic Party, media and their Hollywood pals only confirms the cold-blooded heartlessness and hate-filled actions of this segment of our country. They feel no happiness at the liberation of Iraqi citizens. They have no conscience about encouraging the daily deaths of our service men and women by disparaging how this war is being carried out.
These accusations were common during the runup to the invasion of Iraq, particularly among counter-protesters drummed up by the Republican Party. But it has been a constant theme among prowar types in their attacks on critics of the administration, such as this piece in the Bay Area-based ChronWatch:
- Now, the liberals are doing it again. In their desperation to show that Bush is ''bad,'' they are giving hope to the forces of evil. The Baathists are saying, ''Kill a few more American soldiers, guys, the liberals are rapidly losing heart and blasting Bush. Accelerate our campaign. It’s working. I knew we could count on the weak-kneed liberals to help us drive the Americans out.''
This is ludicrous, of course. Baathists or other insurgents in Iraq are likely paying little attention to Bush's critics, or much of anything in American media, since both their access and their interest is limited, as is the level of "inspiration" they are likely to get from such news in any event. What is far more likely to hearten the enemy in Iraq is the continued blundering by the Bush team, clearly in well over their heads, as the violence in Baghdad and elsewhere ratchets up incrementally and irrevocably, leaving our forces increasingly exposed to attack.
Arguments like those posed by conservatives have little or no real basis in reality. What they are about -- their sole purpose, in fact -- is to intimidate and silence the administration's critics.
Rhetoricians like Gillespie, Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and the rest like to believe that they are only playing hardball politics, hoping to knock out their opponents, without recognizing that this kind of rhetoric has real-life consequences when it is embraced by the populace at large. Just as Limbaugh fervently denied that he and the rest of the right-wing radio haters had anything to do with Oklahoma City, today's conservatives will piously pretend they are not inciting violence. But the reality is that this kind of hatred inevitably plays out in unpredictable ways, many of them violent indeed.
Consider, for instance, the recent offering from Kathleen Parker:
- Miller is not alone, though some are more sanguine when it comes to evaluating the roster of contenders. Here's a note I got recently from a friend and former Delta Force member, who has been observing American politics from the trenches: "These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot.
This is not mere hyperbole; it is an exercise in eliminationism. As Buzzflash recently observed, talk like this is part of an increasing trend in conservative rhetoric: Pat Robertson wishing to "nuke" the State Department, Bill O'Reilly saying Peter Arnett should be shot, Coulter wishing Tim McVeigh had set off his bomb at the New York Times Building, John Derbyshire wishing for Chelsea Clinton's demise. Unsurprisingly, the same kind of talk is now heard on the "street" level, and it often pops up on talk radio. As we learned in Oklahoma City, eventually this kind of "hot talk" translates into all-too-real tragedy.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that conservatives are less and less inclined to rely on "intellectual" or political exchanges, and are turning more to an eliminationist strategy that seeks to demonize liberals and make them social outcasts -- and concomitantly, acceptable targets for violence because of the "damage" they cause the nation through their ostensible treason.
Already, this eliminationism is manifesting itself in the nation's military, where anyone deemed insufficiently supportive of the Bush administration is likely to face recrimination. The most prominent example of this is the way Sgt. Robert Ferriol, a former Marine Corps intelligence analyst, was drummed out of his job recently for daring to dissent from the party line. Many more soldiers are quietly reporting that they are simply keeping their views completely under wraps, since the consequences are becoming plain for them. Here's how Ferriol described it:
- I honorably served my country for eight years in the United States Marine Corps; providing honest intelligence analysis and collecting countless awards and promotions throughout my career. I was also a leader and mentor to scores of young men and women. In those eight years, I sacrificed more of myself for this country than most men and women ever will in their lifetime. But, thanks to the zeal and quick judgment of this individual, I am no longer serving our beloved country. His forecast was correct. Following his letter to DoD, I was brought up on charges of "Disloyal Statements" under Article 134 of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Not because anything I wrote was disloyal, but because of my political views and how they differ from Mr. Simpson and others like him. The unfortunate aspect of this is not my demise, but their inability to understand or accept the opinions of others as different from their own. Nonetheless, I was forced to retain an attorney and undergo weeks of scrutiny before being cleared of the charges. I was, however, never allowed to work in Intelligence again; forced to separate the Marine Corps over threats that I would not be allowed to reenlist. Never mind the fact that there is not one single negative mark on my entire eight years of service (the letter incident was considered "hush-hush" so not even that made it on my record), or the fact that every one of my superiors stood up for me during this time, praising my abilities and loyalty to this country. None of that mattered; only my "liberal beliefs."
At the same time, the Republicans in power are proceeding to eliminate Democrats from any kind of hold on power in Washington, part of a transparent drive to make them at best a permanent minority party, if not obliterated altogether. The intent, it is clear, is to create essentially a "one-party state."
This is unprecedented in American history, of course -- and in fact, the Republicans' ruthlessness is delving all kinds of fresh depths. The most recent instance of this was the White House announcement that Democrats would no longer be able to inquire about how it spends our tax dollars:
- The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.
…"It's saying we're not going to allow the opposition party to ask questions about the way we use tax money," said R. Scott Lilly, Democratic staff director for the House committee. "As far as I know, this is without modern precedent."
Norman Ornstein, a congressional specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed. "I have not heard of anything like that happening before," he said. "This is obviously an excuse to avoid providing information about some of the things the Democrats are asking for."
Just a few days before that, the House subcommittee that oversees the distribution of "pork" to congressional districts announced that Democrats would no longer be eligible to obtain funding for projects in their districts:
- Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), who chairs the subcommittee that controls spending on education, health and jobs programs, recently stunned Democrats by announcing plans to reject every "earmarked" project they are seeking in the final, compromise version of the bill, which funds the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor.
… Hoyer said: "To tell the 130 million people represented by Democrats that they are shut out from getting health and education projects is consistent with the undemocratic, autocratic, confrontational process that's being followed by House Republicans."
Thus the eliminationist strategy is both figurative and literal. On the political level, it means driving liberalism from the halls of power permanently. On the real-life level, it means driving liberals themselves from polite society.
The proto-fascist nature of this strategy could not be more clear, especially considering that eliminationism was a central feature of fascism's last major manifestation.
Ed Bishop at the St. Louis Journalism Review recently had an excellent piece remarking on this trend (since replaced, but Google's cache still works):
Bishop reached largely the same conclusions:
- I'm not saying the Bush Administration is fascist, far from it. I think it is operating well within the mainstream of small-"l" liberal democracy. But that's not the case for the administration's propagandists, for Limbaugh and other right-wing radio and television commentators. They are promoting a kind of American fascism. To put it bluntly, Limbaugh's rhetoric is fascist.
Limbaugh and his ilk have gone beyond the legitimate conservative arguments-that, in the long run, in most cases, individual effort is better than collective effort; that the marketplace foresees and adjusts to economic and social problems better than governments do; and that a weak federal government is best for the general welfare. They have become propagandists for much more, for things that can only be described as fascist.
To make sure we're on the same page here, I'm going to get pedantic for a minute: Fascism is a form of totalitarian government whose hallmarks are a leadership that cannot be questioned, aggressive nationalism, racism, close ties to capitalist elites and the absence of legal due process.
The hallmarks of fascist propaganda are half-truths, lies, appeals to patriotism, and verbal bombast and threats that seek to cut off debate and cower opponents. This propaganda counts on the acquiescence of good people in order to succeed.
I'm afraid there is a growing trend in America's mainstream press to give that acquiescence, to accept the narrow boundaries of debate set by people like Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who recently wrote a book called "Treason," in which she said all liberal members of the Democratic Party were traitors.
To prove their patriotism-to prove they're "good Germans"-many people at mainstream news outlets have moved beyond the center in their analysis and news presentation to a kind of self-conscious, flag-waving, looking-over-their-shoulder conservatism.
It isn't only journalists who are observing this trend. Academics, particularly those with real working knowledge of the components of fascism, are seeing it too. Of particular note was this recent interview with former Princeton professor Richard Falk, who defines fascism as "the convergence of military and economic power on behalf of an ultranationalist ideology that views its enemies -- internally and externally -- as evil and subject to extermination or extreme punishment."
Falk explains:
- Certainly the people who are the architects of these policies would reject my analysis, and probably sincerely so. They think they're doing something else: it will all be done in the name of democratization. It's a very deceptive and confusing style of political domination, because it pretends to be the opposite of what it is.
… It's very difficult, because the methods and the mentality of those who are controlling and developing this kind of politics of domination are such that they have no willingness to accommodate their adversaries. So there's no room for politics, in a way. And that makes it . . . it almost certainly drives the conflict toward a collision of extremes.
It is now appearing inevitable that this collision will occur in 2004 -- particularly if Democrats make a serious run at unseating Bush.
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