National Citizens Conferences Part IV

 

Fascists and shit-libs!  What the fuck does any of this crap have to do with "National Citizens Conferences"?!?

My point is that fascists aren't visitors from outer-space.  They're often ordinary people with deep mental and emotional problems.  But, more importantly, ... not everyone who votes for a fascistic politician (like, say, Donald J. Trump) is a dyed-in-the-wool fascist.  Unlike CounterPunch's Paul Street I do not believe that the 70 million people who voted for Trump should be entirely written off.   As I've been saying throughout this series, fascism only comes to the fore during times of great economic distress, when extremist solutions start to look appealing in the face of the status-quo's failure.  And, furthermore, oligarchs support the rise of fascism because fascism appeals to many conservative values.  It's convenient for them too at first.  Fascists/conservatives call for "law and order" by which they mean the control of the poor and racialized minorities.  But the creation of a police state serves to make it easier to suppress everyone.  (Genuine fascists in Germany and Italy were able to avoid the worst aspects of the police state by becoming party members and functionaries who could wield some of this policing power themselves.)

We see how it's working today.  The oligarchy in the USA rules through both the Republicans and the Democrats.  And the leadership of both parties cannot deviate from what the oligarchy wants.  But the people themselves are dissatisfied with what they were being offered.  Lots of people are turning to the Left in the United States.  There's a rise union organizing.  There's elections of actual socialist politicians at the local level (most notably Kshama Sawant in Seattle).  There was the rise of Bernie Sanders' popularity.  There was the "Squad" of left-leaning congressional representatives.  But just look at how the Democratic leadership effectively crushed this opposition movement!  Just look at how they continue to represent the oligarchy and pay only the slightest lip-service to change.  Look at how Joe Biden hasn't done things that he promised to do and which could be accomplished with him sitting at his desk signing an executive order.  Look at the complete lack of a fight to raise the minimum wage.

Let's remember: Senile racist misogynist corrupt Joe Biden would never have been elected were it not for Trump's abrasiveness AND Trump's incompetence at handling the pandemic.  Without the pandemic and Trump's vulgarity Democratic voters would have done what they did in 2016, which was to stay home on election days in large enough numbers to allow Trump to eke out an Electoral College victory.

Again: Place in your mind the way that the Democratic leadership has striven mightily to denigrate and de-fang its Leftist opposition.

Now: Consider the phenomena of Donald Trump.  Trump ran for president as a publicity stunt.  Much of his fortune rested on his fame.  Running for the election was just a way to keep his name before the public.  As such he wasn't beholden to party insiders; donors (at first); or anyone from the apparatus that has helped implement the bipartisan "Washington Consensus."  He got some advisors around him and asked: "What are Republican voters angry about?"  And those advisors told him the truth, with two big complaints being "Illegal immigrants" and "offshoring jobs."  And then Trump went out and told the people what they wanted to hear.  And to his surprise he began decimating the gaggle of status-quo Republicans who could NOT speak out against greedy corporations shipping jobs to poorer countries.  Trump also condemned the forever wars that both parties seemed addicted to.  Right-wing voters are themselves tired of spending money for seemingly no good purpose on wars in the Middle East that have gotten their neighbours, friends and family members maimed or killed. 

Essentially, the mainstream Republicans lost to Trump because they could not offer ordinary voters anything.  And Trump was allowed to dominate because 1) the media could only see profit in non-stop coverage of him while at the same time they ignored the suprisingly strong primary showing of Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton because Sanders' message was dangerous to their interests, and 2) because Trump being a capitalist multi-millionaire meant he wasn't really a threat to the oligarchy.

Neither the traditional Republicans or Democrats can really do anything for their constituents.  But the Democratic leadership worked to successfully neuter their internal leftist challengers whereas the Republican Party has seen its ranks filled with loud, crude racist nutbars.  Like Trump they won't really do anything to confront power, but they can pander to their base's racist prejudices and their delusional worldviews.  Lest we forget, Hillary Clinton chose the anti-choice, pro-"right to work" law Tim Kaine as her running-mate in 2016.

We see the same things happening here in Canada with the NDP removing the word "socialist" from its constitution and, a few years later, we see Pierre Poilievre leading the Conservative leadership race by appealing to the crowd that says out loud that it wants to lynch Justin Trudeau because they're angry about provincial pandemic measures.  This "protest movement" claims that it isn't racist, and, indeed, many participants are racialized minorities.  The fascist mindset is a grab-bag of conservative delusions (or "traditions") that are not limited to people with white skin.  But the presence of racialized minorities and non-racist white people in this movement doesn't change the fact that a LOT of its leadership are racist grifters (Pat King for instance) and it is covered supportively by the racist grifter outlet "The Rebel."

The last thing that I want to say is that this quasi-fascist movement didn't arise spontaneously.  FOX News was set up by a right-wing billionaire specifically to propagandize the population.  The Koch brothers (and other activist billionaires) funded things like the Tea Party and Turning Point USA to inculcate their ideology.  Just as Hitler and Mussolini had their wealthy supporters in their time (though the Nazis main source of revenue was from ordinary Germans) this right-wing movement has an infrastructure funded by self-interested oligarchs.  As such, they cannot offer anything genuine to improve the living standards of the people they gull into supporting them.

I'm tired of typing.