Lots of people like to toss around the word Fascism as an epithet for anything they disapprove of. It may be emotionally satisfying and politically convenient but it's a mistake that can have catastrophic consequences.
"the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist" - George Orwell, 1944
"fascism.....most misused, and over-used word, of our times" - Richard Griffiths, 2005
The first thing to understand about
Fascism is that it's a term of relatively recent coinage. It first entered the political lexicon during the latter days of WWI as an outgrowth of a
National Syndicalism. It came into being as a descriptive for an emerging political force that combined mass based politics with eclectic mix of ideological tropes lifted from both the Left and Right. As such it defies easy definition.
Fascists themselves recognized this and responded by denigrating ideological/theoretical coherence and describing Fascism as an "action" doctrine that repudiated the rationalist values of the enlightenment and embraced ostensibly innate, instinctive and primal motivations. This attitude has been famously encapsulated as "Thinking with the blood."
Consequently, Fascism is a hodgepodge of attitudes rather than a consistently thought out analysis or system. It contains both thoroughly reactionary and violently radical elements. Because of this, it isn't comprehensible as an intellectual doctrine so much as a historical phenomenon. Embracing both the "individualism" of the "heroic" hierarchy and the "collectivism" of the State, Fascism's significance lies in its historic capacity to mobilize mass movements in a paradoxical rejection of democratic values in favor of an authoritarianism based on Nationalist, ethnological and atavistic tribal values, the repudiation of egalitarianism and "bourgeois" norms of legality and the embrace of inequality and forced suppression of opposition in politics and social life. To the extent that the Fascist impulse is identifiable as a distinct social/political force, it is by the convergence of these elements to form an autonomous movement.
So when we address the question of Fascism in contemporary US political life, we should be looking at where its necessary constituent elements converge as a popular force. That turns our attention to the Tea Party and its present role in the GOP.
The current issue of The Public Eye, the newsletter of Political Research Associates is a good place to start.
The lead article in the current Winter issue: Nullification, Neo-Confederates,and the Revenge of the Old Right by Rachel Tabachnick and Frank L. Cocozzelli gives a trenchant, thoroughly researched overview of the current ferment and conflict on the Right, in particular the resuscitation of Nullification as a strategy forwarding an extreme Right agenda, placing it within a historical context.
Nullification is once again a strategic weapon in the battle for states’ rights. Since 2010, state legislators have introduced nearly 200 bills—on 11 issues alone—challenging federal laws that they deem unconstitutional.
The resurgence of the nullification movement predates Barack Obama’s presidency and the emergence of the Tea Party. Indeed, the current tension is half a century in the making and has emerged from a struggle between the Old Right and the New Right, also known as “paleoconservatives” and “neoconservatives,” respectively.
The article also turns a searching eye on Ron Paul's role in the revival of Nullification and effectively exposes the fraudulence of his "Libertarian" posturing.
Paul’s agenda has included the rejuvenation of paleoconservatism through his youth outreach and a strong emphasis on his “libertarian” credentials, despite his record as the most conservative legislator in the modern history of the U.S. Congress. The libertarian elements of Paul’s political agenda derive primarily from his allegiance to states’ rights, which is often mistaken as support for civil liberties.
He also told an enthusiastic audience at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University in 2008 that “you don’t have to wait till the courts are changed” to outlaw abortion, pointing out that his plan for removing jurisdiction from the federal courts would allow South Carolina to enact laws against abortion. And he sponsored the “We the People Act,” which proposed stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction in cases related to religion and privacy, freeing state legislatures to regulate sexual acts, birth control, and religious matters.
Apparently, Paul only opposes authoritarianism when it emanates from Federal authority. Authoritarianism on the State level is just fine. The essence of Paul's pseudo-Libertarianism isn't the abolition of authoritarian power but its transfer from the Federal Government to State Governments.
Unsurprisingly, this approach is a welcoming one for both white supremacists and Dominionist Theocrats. It goes a long way towards explaining the bizarre alliance between themselves and Paul's brand of "Libertarian individualism" that constitutes the ideological back bone of the Tea Party. Tabachnick and Cocozzelli meticulously document the web of connections, political, personal and organizational that comprise this alliance.
A consistent theme of the states’ rights and nullification movement is the sacralization of the Old South’s “lost cause.” In this interpretation of what is called the “War of Northern Aggression,” Abraham Lincoln is the great villain of American history—sometimes portrayed as a Marxist—whose intent was to establish an imperialistic federal government. Racism in America is described as a product of Reconstruction, rather than of slavery, which is defined as a benign and biblical institution.
The sacralized “lost cause” of the South is often undergirded by Christian Reconstructionism—that is, the belief that the United States and other nations must be reconstructed and governed according to biblical law. Reconstructionism merges theocracy with laissez-faire capitalism, or “biblical economics,” to arrive at a vision of government that promotes biblically aligned law at the local level and a radically limited federal government.
Tabachnick and Cocozzelli's article provides an excellent resource and is necessary reading for anyone seeking to understand the current conflicts roiling the Right as well as the threat posed by the Fascist impulse in US politics.
Also in the current issue is an informative piece by Frederick Clarkson surveying the role played by two networks of conservative, state-level think tanks over the past three decades in shaping US politics: EXPOSED: How the Right’s State-Based Think Tanks Are Transforming U.S. Politics.
Additionally, there is “Klansville USA”: An Interview With David Cunningham, author of Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan, "which analyzes the reasons for the rapid rise—and demise—of the Klan in North Carolina."
Both of these will reward reading.
Full disclosure: a commentary by myself; Into the Whirlwind also appears in the issue. Likewise an interview: Confronting the Right Across Generations concerning my own efforts at countering Fascist agitation and organizing appears on the Political Research Associates website.
Tue Dec 17, 2013 at 12:16 PM PT: I want to thank everyone for their comments. I'd also like to apologize for being AWOL for most of the discussion. I work the night shift and this is our busy season with lots of overtime. Consequently, I wasn't able to come back to the diary until I'd gotten some sleep. I didn't really expect the diary to draw that much attention and certainly wasn't expecting to make the rec list. Thanks to you all.
