The renowned Frankfurt School thinker Max Horkheimer famously remarked, “Those who do not wish to discuss Capitalism should also keep quite about fascism.” How prescient those words were in light of recent events. According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, Trump now has 35% of total support for the nomination nationwide among Republicans. His success (the two candidates immediately trailing him have roughly one third the support he currently has) is a global phenomenon in that anti-immigrant parties in the UK and continental Europe are similarly doing well among middle class voters who express feelings of fear and animosity at the growing diversity of their societies. Political figures like Trump play on these fears, and amplify them, to partisan advantage.
In many ways, the current times in the US and elsewhere mirror the exact situation in the early 1930s when we experienced the first world wide depression. Angry demagogues stirred up confused and frightened electorates by scapegoating those most vulnerable to attacks; Jews, Homosexuals, Trade Unionists and members of the Communist Party were among those blamed for the nation’s sudden catastrophic circumstances. Similarly, Trump today blames immigrants, notable Mexicans and Muslims with a special emphasis on the latter in the wake of the outrageous terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. It is clear that Trump is exploiting fears of perceived US vacillating and “weakness” in the face of overwhelming danger. And it seems to be working!
That a ultra-rightist fanatic who openly expresses hate and the desire to engage in unprecedented religious persecution of a minority to the point of violating our constitution is scary enough. He has advocated shuttering Mosques, forcing Muslims to register and carry identification (the equivalent of forcing Jews to where the Yellow Star of David in Nazi Germany), the “wholesale surveillance of Muslim-Americans and warrantless searches of mosques” and finally, the banning of all Muslim immigration for the foreseeable future. Even fellow conservatives and Republicans have denounced such nauseating persecution as “unAmerican” and extreme. And they’re right. But the problem is the more Trump amps up the hate, the more middle class America loves him! The fact that easily one in three Republicans want to see him in the Oval Office is proof enough of this fact. Pollsters have even stated that many opinion polls underestimate Trumps appeal as evidenced by the large crowds turning out to hear him speak. And that is the real clear and present danger. Fascism is a looming threat.
Historically, the appeal of fascism is strongest when a country faces endemic and seemingly irreversible economic crisis, sees a resulting rapid decline of the middle class and consequent socio-economic polarization, experiences a crushing defeat in a war or perceives the rise of a dangerous, implacable enemy. Trump has three of the four working in his favor. Academic experts on fascism reject the label for Trump as inappropriate; fascism requires a blatant rejection of democracy and democratic process, the open advocacy of violence as a “necessary” cleansing agent for a society allegedly “polluted” by foreign and “impure” elements with alien ways and beliefs, the violent overthrow of the existing order and traditional authority by new, generally urban based, fascist elites and forced participation in fascist civil society organizations through compulsory mass mobilization. Trump isn’t quite there; he’s just a right wing populist playing on the fears of the middle class and a horrible bigot. America’s long history as a democracy wouldn’t allow the growth in popularity of someone who advocated such alien principles. But the potential in all of this to lead to fascistic extremism and fascistic methods such as internment camps, warrantless searches and seizures, mass persecution and violent hysteria is well within our historic experience. There is no such thing as political exceptionalism; under the requisite downward pressures on democracy as a political system, any country can go the fascist route.
Robert O. Paxton, a historian who’s book The Anatomy of Fascism is one of the most comprehensive and informative, sees fascism as a political movement or agenda with an “obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood” requiring the massive use of “redemptive violence” to overthrow the existing order by a cadre of “committed nationalist militants” in order to “cleanse” society of political impurities and obstacles to what is perceived to be the “national will” or “national destiny.” There is an element of “purification” in all this in that the scapegoating of corrupting element and foreign interlopers are targeted for elimination. Trump focuses on traditional bogies that appeal to nationalist and nativist prejudice such as foreign trade partners like China, foreign immigrants, liberals who disagree with him and other targets of populist suspicion. Though Trump’s rhetoric is not properly speaking fascist in its entirety, it carries many of its elements and the appeal it has to a frightened, ill informed and financially insecure middle class in search of effective leadership is certainly fascist in character. Paxton discusses these elements in detail;
• a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
• the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;
• the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
• dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
• the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
• the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;
• the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;
• the beauty of violence and the efficacy of the will, when they are devoted to the group’s success;
• the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.
Paxton concludes his book by noting that the potential for the rise of fascism and the manifest existence of certain of its tendencies is present “within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States.” Though he believes that the severity of crisis at any given time predisposes the society in question to the political rise of fascism, it is not inevitable. We all can make choices and this is the real lesson of history, not to give in to fear.
This would probably be a good place to end but it is necessary to stress two further points. One is that the “threat” of which Trump speaks is mostly a myth that requires proper debunking. In the first place, American Muslims are peaceful, law abiding, loyal citizens. In the US they tend to have higher than average education levels and income. According to one recent
survey, two thirds of Muslim-Americans are college educated with the same proportion earning national incomes above the national average. A
Pew Research center survey from 2007 determined that the vast majority of Muslims-Americans strongly reject extremist violence such as suicide bombings and feel a deep loyalty to America as their home. Most importantly, since 9/11, according to a
Duke University study in 2013, more Muslim terror plots were foiled by Muslim-American cooperation with local law enforcement officials by reporting suspicious people and activities than were uncovered by US government investigations lacking such assistance from the Muslim-American community. Most Muslim-Americans see the need to do more to combat terrorism and speak out against it. It is also very interesting to note that up to now, more people in the US have died from mass shootings than by acts of Jihadist terrorism!
The fear created by the scapegoating of a foreign enemy, real or imagined, is classic fascist demagoguery but it is certainly not confined to fascist political activity or appeals. Trump’s willingness to engage in such undemocratic oppression of minorities is deeply disturbing and has all the potential of morphing into a full blown fascist movement if unchecked, especially if the economic crisis in the US should deepen. And so we come full circle from my original statement; the connection between the rise of fascism and endemic capitalist crisis.
We know through empirical evidence that although fear of terrorism and violence is justified, the wholesale phobia and persecution of an entire religious group is not! Such appeals are especially strong during times of insecurity and crisis. But fascism isn’t really about an insecure middle class casting about for any kind of leadership that panders to their fears; it’s a top down imposition by the rich and big business who see now long term solution to the current crisis and who feel increasingly threatened by the sharpening of class antagonism and its potential political impact. Economic crisis itself is only a necessary though not sufficient condition for the emergence of fascism. What is equally important is the stability of the political system to sustain the existing status quo and to reduce the intensity of the class conflict so as to remove the threat to the ongoing profitability of the capitalist system.
Heightened class conflict, as evidenced by the rise of the left and the popularity of candidate who openly espouses “socialist” political reforms to the approval of thousands of cheering supporters is undoubtedly considered a real threat by capitalists to their system. Massive reforms that redistribute income from the rich to the poor threaten profitability and it is easy to see how certain sections of the capitalist class would approve of the mobilization of fascist activity to reverse this trend and shift support away from the social democratic way out of the crisis. The emergence of the politics of class war with Americans openly discussing the one percent/ninety nine percent divide is something unprecedented since the 1930s. Such class polarization was bound to be met with a far right backlash. Trump’s authoritarian politics is an example of capitalism gradually going on the defensive.
Sociologist, William Robinson sees the current crisis as being rooted in the 1970s when the conditions for middle class decline in the US and elsewhere began to emerg. Since then, globalization has created important shifts in the system that redistributed wealth and income upward and created chronic stagnation as the system increasingly financialized as a means of coping with constant threats to capital’s rate of profit.
Robinson explains;
Emergent transnational capital underwent a major expansion in the 1980s and 1990s. This involved what we could call hyper-accumulation, achieved through a number of factors. These include the introduction of new technologies, above all through computerization, informatics and the internet. They also include neo-liberal policies that opened up the world to transnational capital, and new modalities of mobilizing and exploiting the global labor force...But by the late 1990s, stagnation in the global economy set in. The system was again facing renewed crisis. Sharp global social polarization and escalating inequalities worldwide fueled the chronic problem of "overaccumulation." Quite simply, global inequalities and the impoverishment of broad majorities mean that transnational capital cannot find productive outlets to unload the enormous amounts of surplus it has accumulated. By the start of the 21st century, the Transnational Capitalist Class turned to several mechanisms to sustain global accumulation (profit-making) in the face of stagnation and overaccumulation.
One way in which capitalists deal with the threat to stable profitability is to pursue wars abroad “that unleash cycles of destruction and reconstruction, and generate enormous profits for an ever-expanding "military-prison-industrial-security-energy-financial complex.” Robinson sees the wars in the Middle East and the militarization of local law enforcement as examples. Still another was the financialization of the domestic economy through expanding the financial system to fill gaps left by stagnating middle class income and falling tax rates on the rich. The crisis since 2008 has made both options highly problematic and has left a restive middle class with dangerously unprecedented dissatisfaction with the existing system.
Though most of the capitalist class and the US political establishment see Trump as a crackpot and openly reject him, it is disturbing to see his growing popularity. Big capital still has cards left to play in its effort to save the system and may yet attempt to reform its way out of the crisis rather than risk uncertainty and havoc by supporting Trump. It could also be the case that Trump is merely a tactic to push the discourse further to the right and away from the class politics of a social democrat like Bernie Sanders. If the strategies of maintaining the status quo or social reform from above fail to save US capitalism and prevent increasing class war and political instability a third option ominously waits in the wings. Robinson notes;
Yet another response is what I term 21st century fascism. The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital and to organize a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global working class – such as white workers in the North and middle layers in the South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the specter of downward mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinization, homophobia, racism and a racist mobilization against scapegoats, which includes the search for scapegoats (such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims). Twenty-first century fascism evokes mystifying ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy and xenophobia, embracing an idealized and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture normalizes and glamorizes warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is even portrayed as heroic.
The American people, like many facing such crises before them, stand on the precipice of an all important choice which will likely determine the future of American democracy. It is a choice between far right authoritarianism or social democracy as a way out of the crisis. Lessons from history about making the wrong choices out of fear and insecurity abound. Let the US never be counted among those tragic examples.