“Fascist States of America” Series: What’s wrong with this word?
[Note: This series will focus entirely on combatting fascism in America and around the world with my only weapon, words. (I’m not an NRA member.) It’s not anti-fa in the sense of that extreme left group; it’s pro democracy. If you consider that my words don’t agree with your political preferences here, you’re part of the problem! To the rest of you, don’t worry about me. The fascist plutocracy of the 0.1% doesn’t do their own dirty work; and their toadies who do, don’t read very much, like their lord and savior, Donald J. Trump. So I doubt these essays will even hurt my book sales, mostly because that same plutocracy has already determined they will be low!]
First, what is this word? Most definitions are too restrictive. Here’s part of Wikipedia’s: “Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy….” Why is this too restrictive? Because fascism in America isn’t yet completely authoritarian or completely ultra-nationalistic; the American plutocracy practices all the rest, just like the German one did before Hitler came to power. Hitler was the German plutocrats’ tool; Trump was the American plutocrats’; and there will be more, if not Il Duce himself.
Restriction of voting rights—that’s fascism. Doing everything to perpetuate white privilege—that’s fascism. Ignoring 90% of Americans, their complaints and wishes, to give the 0.1% in the fascist plutocracy the lion’s share of the wealth—that’s fascism. Trampling on people’s rights to adequate health care, control of their own bodies, worshipping as they wish, and freedom from gun violence, or any violence—that’s fascism.
As a writer, I spent a lot of time in every story I’ve written looking for the precise words. I know something about that, just by experience, so I know “fascism” is the precise word to describe what’s happening in America right now. It doesn’t matter that the emperor thinks he wears the clothes of democracy—this goes for Biden as well as Trump—because he (and invariably the toady is male, which might be part of the problem) is either doing the fascist plutocracy’s bidding (Trump), or he’s stymied by their control of other institutions (Biden), thus moving along that agenda of that fascist 0.1%: Not allowing anything to be done to help the 90% and ensuring the wealth gap between them and that 90% keeps increasing. Remember Hitler and Putin were both initially elected. Trump just completed that infamous trio of toadies working in behalf of America’s 0.1% fascists.
The US is now controlled by an evil mafia-like organization just like Russia; that fascist plutocracy, and these fascists, like the Nazis before them, use autocratic toadies like today’s Good Ole Piranhas as their battering ram to break down the walls of democracy. Like that forty-year-old condo in Florida, those walls suffered from shoddy construction practices from the very beginning: Those “Founding Fathers,” steeped in aristocratic privilege, kept slavery alive and created fascist institutions like the Senate and Electoral College to protect their privileged existence. Today those venerable chains of authoritarian thought mean that no matter who’s president, the fascist 0.1% always wins.
Phillip K. Dick saw this coming and wrote Man in a High Castle; Ray Bradbury saw it too and wrote Fahrenheit 451. Neither talked about communism or Communists, as in George Orwell’s 1984 (of course, Soviet Communism was just fascism dressed in debunked ideological trappings). Some people read these excellently constructed warnings and other books in the apocalyptic and dystopian literature, and others just saw what was going on in American democracy and lamented it—now a majority of Americans, in fact. But none of us can compete with the fascist plutocracy’s very large megaphone that the money from the 0.1% buys. They financed everything from Breitbart to fascist GOP candidates with their dark money, both social media far-right wonks and politicians who use every dirty tactic they can in politics to increase the plutocracy’s power and further the plutocracy’s fascist goal: The complete destruction of American democracy.
These are not conservatives! Conservatism is another often misused word. The fascist plutocrats of America are creating the same evil mutation of conservatism that occurred in 1930s Germany. Whereas true conservatism is (or should be) content to do the legitimate job of reining in progressive exuberance to prevent the often occurring negative consequences of policies that are sometimes not seen (like defunding the police and using social workers instead!), the mutated form is fascism. That mutation is deadly for democracies everywhere and is what led Germany to the Nazi takeover. We have been like 1930s Germany since Newt Gingrich took Congress by storm in a nightmarish American Kristallnacht.
Again, fascist America doesn’t need the presidency. If a candidate manages to work around the fascist tool of the Electoral College, the plutocrats can still use the Senate to put the brakes on anything the American majority wants—real progress in infrastructure, voting rights, climate control, gun legislation, etc.—so nothing gets done, which means that the 0.1% wins. That’s still fascism!
And the fascist plutocracy is smart because they’ve done this from the bottom up. Most red states form the foundation for this takeover. Texas, for example, is a completely fascist state, as much as Germany or Italy was in World War II. Both the governor and legislature are toadies of the fascist 0.1%.
So…what’s the solution? I fear there is none! Welcome to fascist America, folks. And it will only get worse. The American experiment has failed! We will soon be saluting the plutocrats and their toadies with right arm lifted. Fascist America and the 0.1% uber alles!
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Comments are welcome.
“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” Binge-reading plus a treasure hunt: What’s not to like? Esther Brookstone takes you around merry olde England, Europe, the Middle East, and South America in her five-book series that also travels through three publishers. You start with saucy Esther, an ex-MI6 spy and Scotland Yard inspector, and her paramour Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent; you move on to their exciting honeymoon cruise on the Danube; and you then return to Esther’s home turf where the old married couple’s adventures continue. The two sleuths are 21st-century versions of Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Esther’s novels can be found wherever quality ebooks are sold. (Palettes, Patriots, and Prats and Leonardo and the Quantum Code are recent additions to this series, and the last two are not on Amazon.)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
