Republican Facism?

Are the Republicans and the far Right leaning toward fascism? That sounds like a radical question, and certainly not all Republicans are fascists, but let’s consider past and current historical events.

We need to start with a little history. Benito Mussolini is recognized as the father of fascism. When asked how he would describe his movement Mussolini responded, “Fascism should more appropriately be called “Corporatism” because it is a merger of state and corporate power”. Political scientists have long described fascism as a blend of state and corporate power propped up by authoritarian nationalism. Given Mussolini’s other comments on authoritarianism and nationalism, it is doubtful he would have objected to this characterization.

Without a doubt, Adolf Hitler was inspired by and replicated in his own early rise many aspects of the fascist movement.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting the Republican Party has a master plan in which they are plotting to build gas chambers to kill all the Muslims, socialists, and gays. However, Republicans have been behaving much like the Fascists and Nazis movements during their early rise to power. Essentially, I am suggesting the Republicans and far Right-wing are taking the first few pages out of the Fascist Party playbook.

Consider for example the famous poem by German theologian Martin Niemoller. Niemoller was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp Dachau. After the war, Niemoller spoke frequently of Germany's collective responsibility for Nazi atrocities. As a pastor, he persuasively preached about the need for the German Protestant Church's "Confession of Guilt." Niemoller wrote several books over the course of his life. However, his untitled poem is by far his most memorable writing:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

In another version of the poem, Niemoller added schools and the press to the list of people the Nazis went after before going after the questioning theologians, like Niemoller. It is no coincidence that the Nazi Party took the same course Benito Mussolini took the Fascist Party to power. At first, Hitler nearly idolized Mussolini and went about replicated him.

Mussolini was the son of a school teacher and devout socialist. As a young adult, he first followed in his father’s footsteps and even became an editor to a socialist newspaper. However, after Mussolini enlisted as a junior officer in the Italian Army, during the World War I, Mussolini came home to build a political party that embraced the rich industrialists and eventually brutalized the very same socialists he once knew as friends and allies.

Once again, I’m not saying that the Republicans are like the Nazi’s or the Fascists in their grand plan toward a “final solution”. However, what I am arguing is that they are embracing some of the same ideological beliefs and tactics that two of the most dangerous political movements the world has ever seen. What I am saying is the Republicans, Tea Party, and other elements of the far Right are creeping toward fascism. What I am also saying is that American’s need to seriously look back history in order to avoid repeating it.

Fox News, radical Right-wing radio, and extremist’s blogs have been purposefully misleading their sheeple. They are have been propagandizing the flock to believe liberals and liberalism is related to fascism. A recent revisionist history book titled “Liberal Fascism” became a best seller amongst Right-wing ideologues. All the while Fox News stars and talk radio hosts like Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck, along with a host of Tea Party speakers, have been sinisterly misquoting Niemoller’s profound poem with absurd quotes like, “First they came for the rich, and I did not speak out because I was not rich, Then they confiscated the property owners, Then they took away our right to bear arms, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't armed.”

I don’t know what is more perverse, the fact that the extremist Right-wingers are flipping history and Niemoller’s poem on its head, or the fact that the very folks misquoting history are all rich, property owners stockpiling guns?

Clearly demonstrated, and contrary to what the crazy Right-wing has been saying, Fascism is simply another word for “corporatism.” It is the empowerment of militant, rich property owners over minority groups like Socialists, unionists, teachers, and press. It is a movement that demonizes liberals and religious minorities, while propping up ardent militant nationalism.

So I ask you, does this sound anything like what we are seeing in America today? To repeat myself, I’m not saying Republicans are plotting out sites for mass graves. However, Republicans and the far Right-wing in America have been involved in an onslaught of verbal and violent attacks on socialists, unions, and minorities. The radicals on the Right have attempted to paint our school teachers and the press as simple pawns of “Chairman” Obama.

All the while, the malicious Republicans have been cozying up to Adolf Coors and the Koch brother billionaires. In return for political power and personal wealth, the Right-wing showers favors on their benefactors by providing them with massive tax cuts, corporate welfare, and revisionist history telling. All the while, the Right has been recently engaged in an overt attack on the middle class, school teachers, trade unionist, and are now holding hearings in Congress on Muslims. It should come as no surprise, since Barack Obama became president, the nation is experienced a dramatic uptick in hate groups like the Aryan Nation and other Christian White supremacy movements, including the Ku Klux Klan.

Imagine an America where the Commander and Chief manufactures a crises, declares a state of emergency, and then replaces all the democratically elected officials with corporate shills that support his own personal ambitions. That is how soft-core fascism works. That is also what has now been permitted to happen in Michigan, thanks to the corporate shill Repugs. Are the Republicans and the far Right-wing leaning toward fascism? There is certainly reason to believe this might be true. Nonetheless, only history will tell us if the Republicans will ultimately abandon democracy for the absolute power a fascist/corporatocracy.

An Appeal to Disappointed Republicans

 

 

Please don’t be discouraged. Your presidential candidate lost, but he gave a gracious and meaningful concession speech, saying he prays that the President will be successful in leading our country. He also rightfully stated that we shouldn’t engage in partisan bickering and that both sides need to reach across the aisle work together on behalf of the country.

For those of us who support President Obama, this is not a time to be smug or to brag. The election of a president is a time when we all need to put the hostility of the presidential campaign behind us and pull together for the good of the country – as many of us wish had happened four years ago.

It is time, for our country’s sake, to stop being Democrats and Republicans for a little while and just be Americans.

Since you voted for Mitt Romney, I expect you to disagree with some things that President Obama will do over the next four years. I expect you to criticize him at times and express your differing opinions on the issues.

But I am hoping for our country’s sake that you don’t engage in the kind of hateful vitriol that we saw during the past four years. You accomplish nothing by calling the president a Nazi, a communist, or a terrorist sympathizer. You will not benefit your country by contriving false accusations about his religion, his origin of birth or by making vulgar insults about his wife.

President Obama is not bragging about a mandate or about having political capital to spend. He is, once again, humbly asking Republicans to work with him to help the country move forward.

Now is the time when Democrats and Republicans need to compromise and work together to benefit the country, not stubbornly try to make the country fail so they can blame the other side in order to win the next election.

Republicans now have a choice. You can continue the obstructionism of the past few years and bring about the same political consequences you saw on Tuesday, or you can work together with President Obama in good faith to benefit the country.

LIAR LIAR!

The Romney campaign continues to perpetuate a multitude of lies claiming that they are not going to allow their campaign to be dictated by fact checkers. There seems to be a hint of (we are above the truth) in Neil Newhouse’s comment.

I’m troubled that they’re using the phrase “fact-checker” in the same way they use “conspiracy theorist”. Basically, they’re saying that facts are a matter of perspective, and if you’re a fact-checker and the facts you present don’t match their talking points, you’re a liberal stooge. So actually they are saying they’re above the truth. Or, worse, they actually believe the lies they’re telling, making them far too intellectually challenged to be trusted with a leadership role in this country.


Many will say “well both sides do it so what’s the difference?”

Well, actually “both sides do it” doesn’t really work here. What the Republicans are doing is largely unprecedented in our history. Political spin has always been a part of partisan history but this is a first, where a major political party has been peddling outright lies, knowing full well that they’re lies and belittling and dismissing anyone who points out those lies. Just 10 years ago the mountain of lies that have been peddled by Romney and his surrogates would have seen someone run out of politics. It’s one thing to spin an issue to compliment your point of view (which both parties have certainly been guilty of). But it’s another thing to just make stuff up (which has thus far been the theme of the Republican Party).

They pelt us with misrepresentations and complete falsehoods because they know they can get away with it. Their supporters will believe anything they tell them. And the folks in the middle think “Well, both sides do it”. But in reality the breath-taking scope of the lies the Republicans have been telling us so far during this election is largely unprecedented. They’re lying. They know they’re lying. We know they’re lying. And they don’t care. Facts don’t matter.

They’re literally practicing cognitive dissonance, the Big Lie propaganda technique that was advocated by Adolf Hitler, which was summed up more succinctly by his Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels – “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

The best thing we could do politically would be to re-establish the Fairness Doctrine, strengthen the Equal-Time Rule section of the Communications Act of 1934, bar all corporate donations to political campaigns, abolish Super PACs and 527 groups, require candidates to accept a spending cap on how much can be spent on a campaign (in other words, ensure that all parties have only the same amount of funding to spend on the election) and require campaigns to publish full lists of all political donors. Full transparency and an equal financial footing for all campaigns, with unlimited corporate funding abolished and lobbyists and political donors required to put their name beside their endorsement, would keep campaigns honest.

 The problem with our political system is that it’s been turned into a reality show style popularity contest with unlimited marketing funds provided by corporations and special interest groups. Literally, the party with the most money can turn the propaganda hose upon the American people and simply drown out any ideas they disagree with. If everything else was equal, campaigns would be more about positions and ideas than propaganda and misinformation. Unfortunately, we would have to rely upon the people who benefit from the existing system to change it from within, and that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.