stanley2_Jessica RinaldiThe Boston Globe via Getty Images_trump maga rally

Politics

Vil fascismen vinne i USA?

Oct 30, 2020 Jason Stanley , Federico Finchelstein, and Pablo Piccato

NEW YORK – Mange amerikanere innser at dersom de stemmer på Donald Trump støtter de opp om nasjonalisme, i tillegg til den type ønsketenkning — og konspiratorisk tenkning — som fornekter reelle farer som pandemien og klimaendringene. Og dersom de ikke stemmer imot Trump, bidrar de til et angrep på det amerikanske demokratiet — et angrep som allerede er i gang.

Amerika er ikke bare truet av autoritære krefter, men også av fascisme — i form av en antidemokratisk kult sentrert rundt en leder som lover gjenopprettelse av «nasjonens ære» etter at landet har blitt «nedverdiget» av minoriteter, liberalere og marxister. Fascismen forherliger vold og fremmer en militarisering av politikken. Det er derfor illevarslende at Trump ikke vil forplikte seg til en fredelig overføring av makt. Mye av hans antidemokratiske retorikk er en taktikk for å lede oppmerksomheten bort fra den dårlige håndteringen av koronapandemien. Likevel er slik språkbruk fra en valgt politisk leder svært farlig og bør sjokkere innbyggerne i ethvert demokratisk land.

Men mange amerikanere lar seg ikke sjokkere. Ved å normalisere antidemokratiske ytringer og autoritær ideologi, har Trump normalisert et autoritært styresett i stadig større grad. Derfor må dette valget forstås som en kamp for at det amerikanske demokratiet skal bestå. Trump undergraver demokratiske normer og legitimiteten ved valget. Dette minner illevarslende om ødeleggelsen av latinamerikanske demokratier på 60- og 70-tallet. Den gang skapte autokrater omstendigheter som normaliserte handlinger tidligere ansett som ulovlige.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 24 Comments on this article

Robert REYNOLDS Nov 5, 2020

Thank you Jason, Federico and Pablo for this essay. It is what is needed to wake people up in these desperate times.

In my humble view, the three greatest scourges of humanity, (in no particular order), are capitalism, nationalism and religion. Agent Orange Trump personifies the first two of these and he certainly embraces the third in the way that he projects himself as some kind of infallible messiah.

I also see the current situation in America as further proof of the fact that the capitalist system will allow 'democracy' to flourish as long as the plutocrat class are free to ruthlessly exploit and manipulate the masses, we are allowed to vote and express our opinion. But once the privileged position of the plutocrats is threatened in any meaningful way, well, as we can see from what is going now in "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave", the gloves will come well and truly off!

In just one example of how the American capitalist class 'defends' democracy we only need to go back to September 11. No, not September 11, 2001, but 28 year earlier to September 11, 1973 when the war criminals Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger organized the blood-drenched coup against the democratically elected Chilean leader Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile. What followed that coup was a viscous and bloody repression of the forces of democracy. Remember the proclamation that followed the coup, that Chile was now, "open for business"? What matters to the capitalist class is profit - nothing else.

It seems that the true nature of the American system and it's crude and blatant hypocrisy is now on open display for all to see. And what an ugly sight it is!
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Frans Withofs Nov 5, 2020

I am from Europe( Belgium) and when I was young I admired the USA. They were a beacon of democracy and liberalism. In the previous century they intervened twice in Europe for the good of democracy.
I cannot understand that now half of population can vote for a man as Trump. He has lots of manners similar to Benito Mussolini. We cannot grasp that anyone who is right in his mind could vote for this person, even women vote for him....! I would invite universities to investigate this phenomenon. I would like to say to the american citizens remember the enlightment of your founding fathers, it is more than time!
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Jose Oyola Nov 5, 2020

Unlike Hitler, Trump doesn’t have efective military means to impose a fascist regime in US. Rightist militias are dispersed, lack a central command and will be defeated by security forces that monitor them. In the White House there is no Pretorian Guard, SS elite guard or Black Shirts. Trump only has the US Supreme Court, which could nullify electoral results as it did in 2000.
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P. Kamath Nov 1, 2020

Ask any good psychiatrist' He/she will tell you that all most all Facists are psychopaths partly born out of personal life experiences, feeling of national humiliation and the rest. It is mind boggling to observe that Martin Heidegger, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century Western World, was a card carrying members of Nazi Party.
- Michael Public Nov 2, 2020
  
  Psychopaths are a very small minority of people. The Stanford Prison experiment gives a much more convincing answer to the problem of where the Nazi's came from - turns out that most regular folks have a Nazi inside them when the situation demands it from them.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
  - P. Kamath Nov 2, 2020
    
    Would you be happy if I change the word psychopath to sociopath? Perhaps it is much more acceptable in normal discourse 🤗!
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alex Finch Nov 1, 2020

There is one more thing that happens when Socialists take over, like in Austria from 1970 to 1983 under Kreisky/Androsch: Namely, you can ONLY get a decent job or promotion, if you know “the right people”. Cronyism blossoms very quickly and job appointments become political, not based on merit. Years later, Androsch (now a multi millionaire) still managed to help block a UK-based takeover of publicly traded Voestalpine in 2007, to protect union jobs, but not though tariffs, but at the expense of Voest-shareholders. Once that Socialist-power is established, the damage lasts decades. Once Biden/Harris/AOC take over, follow the advice an Austrian Socialist politician gave my Parents back in 1985: “Join the Party if you want to get somewhere, and doors will open up”.
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眼光 Canadian / China Oct 30, 2020

I'm Canadian if the USA votes to make this rich man president of the USA . Then I believe someone fixed this election . I would look to the white supremacy group and the gun association in USA as big supporters of Trump the war lord .
- Annette Kralendijk Oct 30, 2020
  
  The alternative is Joe Biden. Does that not enter into for you? Every election anywhere is a contest between one or more flawed human beings. What’s your rationale for Biden?
  - ferdinand van Dieten Nov 5, 2020
    
    No not every election anywhere. Here in The Netherlands we have a very different en more robust system of democracy without any "winner takes all" voting.
    - Charlie Hardy Nov 6, 2020
      
      The emerging shambles in US exacerbated mainly by a system of governance that is over 200 years old and serves only 200 year plus objectives Surely this must change radically? The racial and related urban rural divide extreme in different regions make me believe this is the start of a process of the breakup of USA into 3/5 different entities over the course of the next 20 years or so.1. West Coast 2. East Coast, 3. Sunbelt 4. Rest of 'Dixie' (ie. -3), 5. Cowboys and Corn. The bomb is the reason this may not happen I expect. What would the military/industrial complex say? Consult 'the squad'!
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Jonathan Engel Oct 30, 2020

Who said this:
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Not Donald Trump I think you guys (the authors of this highly partisan article) will agree.... perhaps Bernie ? (Answer tomorrow)
- Bernhard Kopp Oct 30, 2020
  
  It is obvious that the authors are partisan, but this does not make wrong what they write. Trump has told to the Washington Post that real power is the ability to inspire fear. The fear that the opponent (who is not an opponent but the enemy) will destroy the suburbs, the American way of life. That the Democrats will turn the US into a Venezuela. Attacking everything and everybody under the sun, degrading and de-legitimizing everybody and every institution of the country, the military, the courts, all blue states, the election commissions. Attack on all media that do not praise him. Lenin called it decomposition. Trump is the most corrosive de-composer the Western world has ever seen since the totalitarian European fascism and communism that started some 100 years ago. Trump is a neo-fascist to his bone-marrow, and William Barr is his chief-ideologue - he is suggesting POTUS where " the executive branch ", that all federal institutions do not first and foremost serve the American people in accordance with the constitution and the laws, but the chief executive officer, who is unaccountable, above the law and has " total power". The federal institutions are " his " and if they do nothing but their job than even the Governor of Michigan should be grateful to the White House and the POTUS that " their" forces came to help. In the minds of Trump/Barr the POTUS is an absolute ruler. In a second term in office they would, undoubtedly, implement more of it.
  - Annette Kralendijk Oct 30, 2020
    
    Have you looked around at democratic run states and cities? What percentage of Americans do you think would like to live in San Francisco? Homelessness, sky high taxes, unfunded public pension liabilities, riots and looting, business unfriendly, high crime, bad schools. And they’re bankrupt to boot. Doesn’t sound like paradise to many Americans. US cities are not following the path of San Francisco, Chicago, NY. No one is degrading and delegitimizing democratic cities other than their own leadership. Why would you think the rest of the country wants to live like that?
    - Bernhard Kopp Oct 31, 2020
      
      Well, I have looked around since 1966, I have lived and worked there for more than 10 years, and I have family there with American grandchildren. There are no quick fixes to any of the issues you mention. For 50-plus years I have watched the particular brand of American capitalism creating and expanding the social ills you mention. I still have the " repeal and replace Obamacare " in my ears from the 2015/16 election campaign and it should be quite evident by now that a " beautiful replacement " was never intended, which was obvious in 2016. People who believe that some kind of health coverage for all, personally and portable, is communism, are social-darwinists in the sense that they think it is compatible with the judo-christian ethical tradition that the poor have a statistical life expectancy of some 60 years, and the wealthy of some 90 years. These are statistical numbers from two districts on the north and the south sides of Chicago.
      - Annette Kralendijk Oct 31, 2020
        
        You may not mind living with the social disasters created by democratic mayors and governors but many of us do. And we vote with our feet. Most people aren’t willing to put up with the conditions democratic “government” produces. We want decent school, low crime. We don’t want homeless encampments all over the place. And the great thing is that in the US, you don’t HAVE to abide these things because there are so many cities and states you can live in that don’t force these conditions on their citizens. Americans move for a better quality of life all the time and the pandemic has made poorly managed cities even less attractive now. I have friends who could not deal with the riots in Portland any longer and moved to a city in a better managed state where riots and looting would not be permitted.
        
        But this may be coming to a head because not only do democrats produce poor living conditions, they also go bankrupt and expect everyone else to bail them out. There’s little incentive for well managed states and cities to do so. Gov Cuomo can beg all he wants, people likely won’t come back to the basket case his pal Bill has made on NYC.
        
        Bernhard Kopp Nov 1, 2020
        
        I cannot know what percentage of the electorate actually elects governors and majors in your neck of the woods. If they are as incompetent and bad as you suggest, there are elections. As Churchill said, democracy is a horrible system, but the best that was ever tried. We have all more than our fair share of incompetent and/or corrupt politicians, anywhere, but from time to time they do get replaced. Don't agonize, organize.
        
        Annette Kralendijk Nov 1, 2020
        
        Oh I don’t live in a poorly managed city, surely I made that clear. No one has to live in places like Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, etc. That’s the great thing about the US, you can choose to live in better managed cities and states. Why on earth would I put up with riots, looting, homelessness, crime, high taxes, bad schools? Nor would I bother to organize if I was in a blue city or state. I’d just do what ever growing numbers are doing, I’d move. But you seem to be saying, elections have consequences. If so, I totally agree.
        
        Charlie Hardy Nov 6, 2020
        
        Bizarre lack of awareness that nor everyone has the means to live as you seem to. Did you read the Tyranny of Merit by Sandel? As to bailouts do you remember TARP after Obama asked the Banks in and asked them 'what can I do for you?' instead if doing what FDR did. Look at the appalling infrastructure in rural USA in particular. Of course Democrats in their wood paneled hubris let this happen but lying tin pot dictators from gold lined high rise condos are not the answer. Fairness and genuine respect is the answer not dishonesty either bombastic or with honeyed disingenuous words and easy slogans. For this the system of governance and elections in particular has to change also taking the incredibly lax and I believe often corrupt financing of elections has to stop with European style financing rules enacting strongly to allow, encourage, enable ordinary people to easily put themselves up for election, participate and be heard without being pushed aside by big money and (deadliest of all now) the algorithm (see Social Dilemma documentary).
        
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