National Citizens Conferences Part Two

 

Last post I mentioned one author who says that Trump's followers are fascists.  I then took some time to describe what 20th Century fascists believed in.  I pointed out that a lot of the fascist agenda was agreeable to "conservative" elites.  Fascism itself came to prominence as a result of the political-economic chaos in Italy and (moreso) Germany.  (Italian fascists were initially more excited about their country obtaining the extra territories they thought it was due for having fought on the winning side of World War I.  Italy had sacrificed 650,000 soldiers lives ... primarily due to the incompetence of its generals ... and fascists felt betrayed.)  Extreme times produce extremist political movements.  Germany would not have produced a Hitler were it not for the immense misery and dislocation caused by defeat in the war, a series of economic depressions and hyper-inflation, and the rise in socialism (that frightened many conservatives).

All I was trying to say is that the fascist mentality is always with us and it tends to come to the forefront as a result of political frustration and economic hardship.  Which is what we're dealing with today.  Since the elites stopped pretending to care about the welfare state in the 1980's and began to shovel more and more of the wealth produced towards the richest (initially justifying this with "trickle-down" nonsense) the quality of life for the majority has steadily declined. Jobs are increasingly precarious.  Wages have stagnated or declined. Inequality has soared.  The cost-of-living (especially for housing) has skyrocketed.  People are hurting.

Now, as I've said, the fascist mentality is ever-present.  It comes primarily from people who self-identify as "conservative."  And I continue to believe that there is a lot of explanatory power in the notion that conservative people tend to have larger amygdalae which makes them more fearful and more prone to fight or flight.  These people tend to be conservative because they don't like change.  They want things to stay the way they are.  Many of them need for there to be a God who is watching out for them and regulating the way things have to be.  This is a condition that applies to all sorts of people.  A white male working-class Canadian can hate queers and fret about being swamped by immigrants who simultaneously steal his job whilst collecting welfare, and a brown-skinned immigrant woman can lament the godless immorality of the new society she finds herself in and they both like right-wing politicians.  This isn't necessarily about overall intelligence.  But stupidity is another factor in producing right-wing people.  Modern conservatives rail against "liberal elites" and "corruption" and certain individual oligarchs and corporations.  But then they loyally follow politicians and political parties that do nothing for them, like Trump or stephen harper.  (One reason is that these right-wing parties attack the welfare state and all the lazy single-mothers and other dead-beats that enrage them so.)

These people believe in ridiculous conspiracies.  The House of Rothschilds secretly rules the world.  Godless socialist transexuals all got degrees in climate science as part of a long-term plan to steal wealth and power through the hoax of global warming.  Other GST's became virologists to work on the COVID-19 hoax that has been aided and abetted by every hospital worker in the world.  "Wealth and power."  [Meanwhile, the GBWT with its surveillance-state and shredding of civil rights is generally supported by these dumb-fucks as it involves the abuse of Arabs.]

Next post I'll talk about how the Shit-libs cluelessly insist on poking these people and getting them angry.