I agree with much of this author's take:
This is all indicative of an incipient fascism, laying the cultural and political groundwork for a violent, extra-parliamentary mass movement of the right. It is a mistake to assume that fascism must take the form of dictatorship. Far-right movements today are shaped by the same factors: the decomposition of parliamentary legitimacy and their inherited organisational weaknesses. In that context, wielding the power of office is a pedagogical, formative experience. It allows movements with thin civic roots to project influence at a national level and try things out.
Fascism does not arrive on the scene with full uniform and programme. The Jewish socialist Arthur Rosenberg traced the origins of fascism as a mass movement to the period before the first world war, when millions were already infected by volkisch, racial-nationalist ideology, and by contempt for democratic government. It consolidates through experimentation, learning the ropes through episodes that, at first, appear amateurish and thuggish, from the beer hall (Munich) putsch to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. First as farce, then as tragedy.
There has been, for some time, accumulating data suggestive of a political rupture on the right. The growing number of people, particularly among the rich, who favour some form of authoritarian government, is one sign. The string of popularly elected, and often re-elected, rightist governments militantly challenging liberal legal norms and institutions is another. The rise of lone-wolf murderers and conspiracist vigilantes is yet another. And there is the proliferation of militias and paramilitaries, often with close relationships to police and the military rank and file. As the contemporary historian Kathleen Belew’s work has demonstrated, many white-power and fascist currents were forged in the furnace of war.
In the United States, the rupture has been building since before the Tea Party movement. During the 2008 election, paranoid racists brought guns and nooses to town hall meetings and called Obama a Muslim, the birth of the “birther” myth. It points to either a split in the Republican party or its complete capture by middle-class enragés. This is a grievous problem for ruthless GOP establishment operators such as Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, who spent years defending the Trump administration, using him to consolidate their electoral base, strengthen a minoritarian grip on government and take over the courts. Their traditional allies, including the National Association of Manufacturers, are not prepared to countenance a party this out of control – but they can’t simply throw away half of the Republican vote.
As the author points out, 45% of Republican voters supported those who stormed the Capitol last week!
Recent Comments