Monthly Archives: April 2022
While there may never be a neo-fascist party in America within 10 years there will be a one-party rule that is neo-fascist in all but name. The new nation will arrive not as one momentous event. It will not be one massive sledgehammer blow that shatters the old order but the continual and pervasive chipping away of the structures of governance by many tiny mallets of malice.
History illuminates that a minority of devoted and ruthless political operatives are often far more successful in achieving their goals than majority parties. Even in a republic being in the majority doesn’t assure a nation will move in the direction desired by the majority. Some political systems are structured to protect against majority “tyranny” and that is how the U.S. constitution was crated, to protect minority interests. Not minority in the sense of race or religion but in the sense of a few vested interests like owners and their enforcers.
All it takes is a desire to use the natural structure of a system against itself. Be it the post Tsarist Duma or the Weimar Republic, systems carry the seeds of their own destruction. We know how this works across time and geography and now we will have a few years to watch it playout here. Knowing that it will come doesn’t mean we will know exactly how it will look when it gets here. What I think we all know is that it is a struggle that is weighted on the side of a new state rising from an old one, but what will that new state look like?
Perhaps it might be best to start with an outline of what it will not be.
It will not be a loose federation of peoples dancing the jig of state’s rights. “State’s Rights” was a rally cry only to avoid following other people’s rules, once you make the rules, everyone must dance to your tune. Making rules for people is what government does so the only change under neo-fascist state will be what the rules ask of us.
It will not be a nation at peace with its neighbors. Peace breeds compassion and tolerance and these emotions are an antipathy to devotion to the state and the leader. While unlike the Orwellian prophesy the war may not be global, although it most certainly will be unending. More akin to the serial wars of the beginning of the nation than the apocalyptic war of the end of everything. A nation on the rise engages in nearly continuous warfare, as did America. One on the decline does the same; the neo-fascist state will be one in decline and the panoply of colorful autocracy will be used to disguise that fact.
It will not be a nation of universal laws. There will be law and order. However, the law will benefit the owners, and the rulers who will be one and the same. Under such regimes crimes against property move up the scale to an equal footing with crimes against the state. No distinction between the needs of the country and the needs of the owners will be seen in law or governance.
It will not be a nation of diversity. There will be one type of patriotism, one type of loyalty, once folk, and one God. The nail that sticks up will be hammered down. The folk will rejoice that they are the all special and all the same. All others are not the true folk. While race will surely inform the definition of true folk, it will not be the only measurement.
It will not be bad for everyone. There is a quote from an online game. When asked why a player was trying to ruin the game the reply was, “I don’t want to ruin the game I just want to ruin your game.” There will be many losers but there will also be many winners. The winners will be those who want to divest their busy life by offloading thought and introspection to a trusted leader. The winners will be those who have wealth and power to protect. The winners will be those who can’t understand their own intellectual limitations and blame others for their failings. The winners might be you or I, but it won’t be them and after all that is the very basis of Neo-fascism.