Friday, August 16, 2024

Editor: Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins - Did It Happen Here?

Readings classical and contemporary on Fascism.  Perspective on Fascism in America.

Good introduction introducing the essays.

REINHOLD NIEBUHR - "Pawns for Fascism."  P. 3 Popular liberal Protestant theologian from yrs gone by.  Influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.  Need to read him and  more about him.  His essay here you would think would have been written by sociologist.  Seems to say that fascism comes from lower middle class types. 

LEON TROTSKY - "Bonapartism, Fascism, and War" P. 11  I skim thru this one written by the famous Marxist in 1940.  Never had any interest in Trotsky.

Raymond Aron - "The Future of Secular Religions."  French liberal intellectual of the 20th Century.  This written in 1944.  Idea is that fascism is a secular substitute for traditional religious beliefs and practices.

Hannah Arendt - "The Seeds of a Fascisst International."  Arendt is identified as the leading authority on Fascism in the 20th Century.  I didn't pick up anything of note from this essay.

Angela Davis - "Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation."  Written in 1971 but a still vibrant and reachable Marxist interpretation of American 2024.  I did not realize Davis was such an eloquent intellectual.

UMBERTO ECO - "UR-Fascism."  Eco was one of the world's great intellectuals of our time.  His personal library is a thing of rare beauty.  He could understand the philosophy behind a personal library.  At the age of 10 he was a fascist in his native Italy.  How many people can talk about fascism from perHe learned to dodge bullets.  It was good exercise.  This essay, written in 1995, explains his firsthand experience with fascism and provides an account of what he sees as the typical features of fascism.

"Thus it is worth asking why not only the Resistance (in Spain) was generally defined throughout the world as  struggle against fascism.  If you reread Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls you will discover that Robert Jordan identifies his enemies with Fascists, even when he things of the Spanish Falangists.  And for FDR, the victory of the American people and their allies will be a victory against fascism and the dead hand of despotism it represents."  P. 38

Eco is important because he understands the importance, significance and impact of language on the unwashed masses.

Mein Kamph is a manifesto of a complete political program.

A government can be fascist without being totalitarian.  P.39

Italian fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship to took over a European country.  P. 39

"Fascism" became a synecdoche.  P. 39

It seems to me that Mussolini fascism first defined the concept.  P. 40

Eco lists features of Ur-Fascism which he calls Eternal Fascism.  P. 43

1.  The cult of tradition.  P. 43

2.  The rejection of modernism.  P. 44

3.  Action for action's sake.  Irrationalism.  P. 44

4.  Disagreement is treason.  In modern culture disagreement is a way to improve knowledge, but not for fascism.  P. 45

5.  Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.  Fascism is fear of difference.  Against intruders.  Thus, Ur-Fascism is racist by definition. P. 45

6.   Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.  Typically, a frustrated middle class.  Feeling of political  humiliation, frightened from below.  This factor could give fascists a new majority.  P. 45

7.  Obsession with a plot.  Followers can feel besieged.  Leads to xenophobia.  Jews are typically the historical target.  P. 45

8.  Perceived enemies can be too weak or too strong.  Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.  P. 46

9.   There is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.  Permanent warfare as in Orwell.  P. 46

10.  Cruelty towards the weak.  Cult members are the elite.  Society is hierarchically organized.  Everybody fascist needs some group to despise.  P. 47

11.  In a fascist world everybody is educated to become a hero.  A hero is an exceptional being.  Heroism is the norm.  The cult of heroism is linked to the cult of death.  Death is unpleasant and must be faced with dignity in the real world.  Believers can believe that death is the painful but necessary way to reach a supernatural eternal happiness.  In contract fascists crave a heroic death advertised as the best reward for a heroic life.  The Ur-Fascist is impatient to die.  In his impatience he frequently sends other people to an early death.  P. 47

12.   Sexual machismo.  P. 47

13.   Selective populism.

14    Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak invented by Orwell in 1984 as the official language of Ingsoc, English socialism.  Like all dictatorships an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.  But other forms like popular talk show.

Ur-Fascism is always around us, ready to spring out anytime.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat  "What is Fascism?"

Identified today with "white Christian civilization.  P. 56

It's time to accept that the GOP, which was complicit with Trump's January 6 attempted authoritarian take-over, has become a party that furthers fascist values and practices.  That means the hate crimes that have skyrocketed in America since 2016 will likely continue to expand.  Remembering the essence of fascism is more important now than ever.  P. 57.

Jan Werner-Muller - "Is It Fascism?"  This person says Trumpism is best not described as fascism.  Okay, Big deal.  Whatever.  I am not sure it matters what we call Trumpism except  to say that it is dangerous.  P. 59

Complete social domination.  P. 64

Antipluralism.  P. 65

Use of "un-American."  P. 65

Jason Stanley: us vs. them.  P. 65

Robert O. Paxton "I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist.  Until Now."

The January 6th invasion removed the hesitation to call him a Fascist.  P. 69

Victoria De Grazia "What We Don't Understand About Fascism"

Sloppy language about fascism is inevitable.  P. 71

The crumbling of post WWII liberalism across the globe is the political story of our time.  Here we go again with the regular rise of fascism.  P. 78

RICHARD J EVANS - "Why Trump Isn't a Fascist" P. 79

I have concluded that whether or not Trump is a Fascist does not matter.  Recognize him for who he is and call him what he is whether you consider him a Fascist or not.  But as a historically minded person I do wish to connect him to his American predecessors if possible.

PETER E. GORDON - "Why Historical Analogy Matters"  P. 86

It does matter.

The study of history involves analysis not just the popular notion of reconstructing "what really happened."  P. 96

Daniel Bessner and Ben Burgis - "What's in a Word?"We need to be careful in using the word "coup" in regards to Jan 6

Should Trump be considered a "Fascist?" 

Either of these words can cause problems according to these writers.

These authors tend away from these words in reference to Trump.

"Is Trump a fascist?  And what does that matter?"  P. 124

In WWII terms, I would say no.

Though he certainly has fascist-like tendencies.

Snyder, Albright, & Stanley have said that Trump's administration was either fascist itself or embodied elements of fascist philosophy.  P. 125

His rhetoric, his authoritarian style, and policies like the grotesque "Muslim Ban" justify fascist elements. P. 125

"Nothing in the recent American experience approaches what happened in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, although there certainly are precedents in slavery and Jim Crow.  P. 126

The author refers to "leftists" so you know what that means.  P. 127

George W. Bush inflicted more damage on the world than Trump.  P. 127

Genuine Fascists support Trump as do thugs like Putin.  P. 128

Neo-Fascists and Antifa are very fine people according to Herr Trump.  P. 128

The author downplays words like "fascist," "coup," and "overthrowing the government."

Words do mean something, but this author overdoes it.

SARAH CHURCHILL - "American Fascism It Has Happened Here" P. 115

If Fascism comes to America it will come with Americanized content not with European specifics. But the author did not say this.   P. 136

Churchill is a good historian.

I suppose she is going to say that Fascism has roots in this country. P. 136

Fascism can be native and still be Fascist.  P. 136

Is Fascism fuzzy as said by Umberto Eco?  Is there a list for "Fascist Minimum?"  P. 137

Colonialism?  Genocide?  Anti-Semitism?  P. 137

Paxton argues that Fascism is as Fascism does.  A pure mythic past often rural.  Tradition.  Paramilitary groups.  Degrading political opponents.  Demonization of critics.  Some groups authentic citizens, others not.  Anti-intellectual.  Attacks on the press.  Patriarchal.  Exaggerated masculinity.  Sense of victimhood. Fear of racial and cultural contamination.  Collective grievance.  Favoring some bloodlines over others.  P. 137

All Fascism is homegrown, indigenous.  P. 137

It cannot be imported.  P137

Lynching and Jim Crow are Fascism.  P. 138  Not sure about this.

Hitler drew from American Jim Crow.  Du Bois said that Jim Crow/white supremacy could be regarded as Fascist.   P. 139

Paxton says that the first KKK could be regarded as Fascist.  P. 140

Fascism has already been here with the KKK.  P.140

Trump's thundering ignorance.  P. 147

Trump is neither aberrant nor original.  Native reactionary populism is nothing new in America; it just never made it to the White House before.  In the end, it matters very little if Trump is a fascist in his heart if he's fascist in his actions.  It's the sickness he generates out of every pore in his body that matters.  P. 148

ROBIN D.G. KELLY - "U.S. FASCISM V. ANGELO HERNDON"

I skim thru this one.

JASON STANLEY - "One Hundred Years of Fascism"  P. 154

Mussolini became Prime Minister in October of 1922 at the just the right time with the government in turmoil.  Mussolini had been normalized, the first step, and it proceeded from there.   P. 154

The first KKK in the United States preceded Mussolini.  P. 154

The common denominator between European and American fascism started with Madison Grant with his replacement theory recently revived in its current context by Republicans.  P. 155

Grant championed scientific racism---that Nordic Americans were the real Americans and superior to people of color (as we would say today).  P. 155

Nordic whites, the only real Americans, were in danger of being replaced by other races, according to Grant.   P. 155

So fascism started here.

Hitler took inspiration from the US with our genocide against natives and our Jim Crow.  P. 156

Explaining CRT.  P. 157

Nazi ideology borrowed directly from Jim Crow laws.  P. 157

Lindberg was certainly a full-blown racist Nazi.  P. 158

Christianity has always animated American Fascism.  P. 159

European Fascists came to power thru normal democratic processes.  P. 159

Fascists came come to power needing the support of people who do not claim to support their policies.  P. 160

Fascism is still with us today.  P. 160





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