American Fascism- Ideological Chaos

 The Republican Party adoption of the Trumpian version of fascism mirrors the mental chaos of Trump and his enablers.  This strain of fascism finds its roots in the ideological work of  Republicans like Wm. F. Buckley Jr., Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich.  As a former and recovering Catholic, I cannot help but be struck by the influence of hyper orthodox  Catholicism with these three as well as the Republican party.

The ideological strains to which I refer in Republicanism include libertarianism, authoritarianism, Catholicism and evangelism. The coalition that is Republicanism has created a dysfunctional merging of these very dissimilar value systems that explains the chaotic nature of this party and its destruction of our attempt at advancing our form of democracy for the past 250 years.

Libertarianism finds its American roots in our esteem for rugged individualism as a part of our national character.   It is highly incompatible with authoritarianism found both the Evangelical and Catholic traditions espoused by many Republicans.  What they have in common with libertarian political thought is a certainty of their rectitude and the undermining of individualism by community responsibility espoused by liberalism.

Magical thinking is a characteristic of libertarianism in common with Evangelism and  Catholicism and their embrace of fantastical ideas such as those found in theology such as miracles, divine intervention and salvation. I attribute the Republican/Trumpite  embrace of conspiracy theories and rejection of critical thinking and the scientific method to this magical thinking to these influences.

This dysfunctional coalition of conflicting ideas and values explains the chaos we experience today in American political life and the inability of people grounded in rationality and logic to find common ground with the American fascist right.  Cynicism found in liberal suspicion of hero worship and myth further accounts for the challenge of unity with Trumpite Republicans.  This explains the challenges for any kind of national reconciliation.

Traditional Republican favor states rights over federal governance has given way to a full blow fascist effort to destroy our federal system.  They fail to embrace the positive contributions federal legislation has made to enhanced citizen rights often neglected or undermined by local governance.

This sabotage of the system envisioned by the founders, combined with American propensity toward myth driven religion largely abandoned in Europe has set the stage for much of our populace embracing authoritarian rule seeking faster, easier, less citizen engagement in government democracy requires. 

The propensity toward faith rather than reason and critical thinking has led to hero worship and acceptance of wild, unverified distortion of truth and unverified, fantastical thinking. The presence now of social media relied upon by many for information has undermined validation, verification and fact based analysis by much of our population.

Some of this chaos can be diminished with regulation of communications outlets and the restoration of the equal time clause to both our conventional and social media outlets.  Enhancement of our civil laws governing harm caused by distortion of  truth and disinformation, holding communicators responsible for harmful speech and go a long way toward restraining  society harming speech and communications. 

The chaos is well understood by our foreign allies and rivals as well.  They observe a country rife with Americans killing one another, including children and a shadow post Trump administration challenging the very basic elements of democracy operative within our country, including our very electoral process.  This week, in the wake of international meetings, we are something of a laughing stock lecturing other countries on how to conduct a democracy in the wake of our own very visible chaos.

 Defenders of democracy embrace critical thinking and the scientific method, not method to madness. We will not convince these autocrats in our midst with logic and rationality embodied in critical thinking and the scientific method.  It appears our only recourse to preserve democracy is to use our legal system to shut down insurrection and punish leaders advocating it with the legal system which must be much more timely and real time, not letting the insurrectionists run out the clock or delay justice.  The passive supporters of this insurrectionist movement at the grassroots, including within our own families must be called out for the betrayal and shunned.  

Fascism wins when the people passively ignore it and fail to engage in the restoration and improvement of our governing system or challenge its betrayal. 

America Needs To Stop Trying To Export Democracy And Import It

The Trump era, and particularly January 6, 2021 urgently suggest that we have absolutely no business getting into other countries' business regarding governing with democracy.  Our own malpractice of it strongly suggests we have little to teach and much to learn about it. 

A significant portion of our own citizenry have a major deficit in their understanding of the workings of our democracy and neglect to hold our lawmakers accountable for protecting our rights as voters and the necessary focus primarily on our needs, wants and rights of us all.  This has led to corporate domination of our lawmaking and neglect of us as citizens.  It has also led to a crisis in the adoption of authoritarian ruling ideas by the Republican party whose abandonment of principled advocacy of policy  ideas to contrast with the Democratic party in favor of manipulation of the system to retain power without majority public support of their ideas on governance. 

I do not need to remind my readers of the myriad of Republican actions in recent decades and currently which have badly damaged our Constitutionally guaranteed rights to vote and have our economic and social needs and problems addressed.  The Trumpian takeover of the Republican party has resulted in many actions historically attributed to authoritarian fascist regimes, past and present.  

Our use of military force as a key instrument in our foreign policy designed to enhance our global economic domination has taught a significant minority of our citizenry that the exercise of force, physical power and intimidation is a preferred way to secure their domination over women, citizens of color, immigrants and those of lesser financial means rather than political bargaining and the refined art of political compromise with the competing party.  

Thus the loss of the core method to function in a democracy.  Republicans have adopted the practice of blockage of the competing party's programs, legislative proposals and election of those presenting themselves as candidates and officeholders rather than democratically competing for public favor with better ideas, legislation, candidates and officeholders.  The latter development is largely a result of Republicans currying favor with corporations and obscenely wealthy citizens and not doing the hard work as public citizens striving for improvement of the common good.

Our historic federal emphasis on military might and foreign military intervention has led to neglect and decay in our commons and common good.  Our clearly wasted investment of billions in our failed interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, causing huge dislocations of people from foreign lands have contributed to world instability and resentment of immigrants and neglect of our immigration policies. It has led our citizenry to adopt similar practices of the tools of warfare such as firearms and the use of violence in our policing and settlement of disputes among our citizens, in my opinion.  

Yet, we seem to not have learned the lessons of our failure in the use of intimidation, violence and armament might in addressing foreign problems and perceived threats.  Our military in the early years of our country was intended to defend our people and land from foreign attack.  Early on it was converted to a tool of empire building and our own colonization of foreign entities, the very reason we engaged in our own successful revolution. 

America chose military intervention over skillful diplomacy in our foreign affairs post WWII and it has failed miserably.  

Now Republicans and fascist Trumpites are choosing intimidation, domination and violence and threats of violence over skillful exercises of democracy and it is doomed to failure, the failure of idealism and our own democracy unless the majority rises up to defend our very important though often flawed pursuit of a more perfect democracy and union. 

I want to thank personal and Facebook friend Donna Hackemack Bryant for my use of her American Flag graphic.