I think that most political commentators have it
wrong when they seem to imply that Trump was the progenitor of the New American
Fascist Right, but that the Antifa Movement is somehow only the illegitimate
love child of the Left. My first
thinking on this was an idea derivative of Hegelian notions that Political Extremes
attract their Opposites . This seems to
be well supported in History where we can point time and again to instances
where Extremely Violent Political Movements were met by extremely violent
counter-movements.
But then I
remembered the original Campaign Populism of Trump – that he would take America
back from the Corrupt Swampy Elite Power Brokers and return It to the People in
the form of a virtual Workers Utopia, AND that immigrants would be run off,
that a Wall would be built to keep Greatness in and keep Foreigners out, along
with all the other subtle clues that Great Americans were understood to be
White Americans (which, by the way, has been the Tacit Position of the
Republican Party ever since Lyndon Johnson of the Democratic Party signed the
Civil Rights Bill in 1968, about which Johnson said that the Civil Rights Bill needed
to be enacted but that the Democratic Party would suffer the loss of the
Southern States for the next 40 years.
He underestimated). So Trump’s
Populist Rhetoric cut both ways. It was both
strongly Nationalist and strongly Leftist, and if not explicitly “Socialist” in
regards to its detailed description, well, we can recall that Trump never
details out anything, but that if the Power Elite were made to surrender their
hold on Economic Policies in favor of new policies that would favor full
employment and a doubling or even tripling of the current median wage, to keep
in line with what the Real Wages were for Industrial Workers back when America
was ‘Great’, well, I can’t see any other way than that of imposing a sweeping
Socialist Control over the Economy. Indeed, the implied Socialist elements in
Trump’s Populism probably actually got him More Votes than his Bigot Appeal. Hmmmm, does that remind you of
anything? Adolf Hitler’s original Populist vision was
also a mix of Nationalism and Socialism.
Yes, it is the very devil to search on line for what the letters
N.A.Z.I. stand for (I suspect that while you are doing that search, every
intelligence and counter-terrorism monitoring system in the World is clogging
up the lines trying to converge on your IP so it can scoop up your biography
and that of every one of your known associates) but they are roughly
translatable to National Socialist Party.
Of course History shows us that Hitler was only bowing to Socialist
interests for convenience sake, that is, to get enough votes in the 1933
elections to make him a serious contender within the German Parliamentary
System, but that his true love was for Nationalism and the idea of Aryan Supremacy.
And no I am not just saying that because
it sounds so much exactly like Trump. But that is where the similarity ends. You
see, Hitler was better organized. It seems to have been demonically clever how
Hitler dealt with his Socialist following once it outgrew its usefulness to him
personally. He allowed a Party
Lieutenant to consolidate all of the Socialists into one almost autonomous
Sub-Party, the Brown Shirts, while he organized the Nationalist Aryan Supremacy
enthusiasts into another Branch, the Black
Shirts or S.S. from with the Gestapo or
Secret Police emerged. The isolation
between the two groups was so complete that Hitler, with his favorites in the S.S.
Nationalist Branch, were able to draw up a detailed plan for purging out the
Socialist Brownshirts, and it seems almost miraculous that the plan for a sweeping
Raid and Round Up all across Germany remained a complete secret. We can imagine that dozens or even hundreds of
Nazis were in on the plan to arrest and even murder their fellow Nazis and that
not one of them made a phone call to tip off an old friend*. But, yes, Nazism soon rid itself of its
Socialist component – that raid happened in 1934, a year after Hitler was
elected into power. You can search it up
as ‘Night of the Long Knives’.
Well, Trump’s Populism, as I said, has the same two
components. But while Trump may also be
described as demonic, or that his confused mind is caught up in a swirl of
demonic ideas, he can certainly never be accused of being clever. So now the two factions that he conjured up
to get himself elected are brawling in the streets against each other. But just because Trump now, already elected
into Office, disclaims Paternity of the Leftist Antifa, doesn’t discount his
responsibility in arousing the Leftist Impulses for Economic and Social Justice
that served to stir them up. And then Trump’s
Self Righteous Anti-Establishment Stance seems to imply the Right of Violent
Opposition to that Establishment which is characterized as Evil (which is sort
of like the 2nd Amendment Argument for allowed each citizen to be
armed to the teeth so that they can assassinate politicians that they believe
to have become tyrannical). You know, you either work Within the System to
amend its problems or you work outside the System to destroy it and take
over. That implied message for really
Hostile Takeover is the Danger of Populism. And we can see that both sides of Trump’s
Populism have picked up this implied message condoning Political Violence.
Oh, and this brings us to contemplating exactly what
Fascism is. When I was a Student of
History decades ago, I found that people just tossed around the word Fascism without
really being able to define it. Most people
correlated Fascism with Dictatorial Government.
But there have been plenty of Dictatorial Governments, mostly on the
Left, which no one would dream of calling Fascist. So after thinking about it and looking at all
of the so called ‘fascist’ regimes, I decided that Fascism was not a strictly
Government phenomena at all, although a Government could use Fascism as a
support. Fascism, I believe, is the Rise of Mob or
Militia influence in Society to the point where it exercises significant
Political Influence. Look at both
Italian and German Fascism where formal or informal mobs and gangs of Fascists
were able to intimidate or quiet political opposition prior to elections by
either beating up or outright assassinating Opposition Leaders. And then AFTER the Elections in both Italy
and Germany, the Fascist Parties did not disband its Militias or informal Mobs
but treated them as semi-legitimate official entities. You see, Governments do not need to figure
out how to issue formal arrest warrants if it breaks all the rules to do so,
and then to conduct embarrassing trials which may not go their way, if they can
just make a few phone calls and have ‘problem people’ taken care of quietly by
people with no proven connection to Government.
So Fascism is not so much Rule by Dictatorial
Government as it is Rule by a Usurping Mob or Party whose claim to Power is
only by means of Force or Coercion that they exercise Over the legitimate Government,
but yes, of course, Fascist Party Members within the Government would certainly
make use of their Fascist connections to lube any of the Political Wheels that
remain stuck – such as Trump Twitting up an Army of supporters to harass and
make life miserable for anybody who gets in his way. So actually
Government may be seen as just as much a Victim of Fascism as its Perpetrator. I can’t imagine that the Republicans are
really happy with Trump’s populist base.
After all, they are the Party of the Rich, so what are they really
supposed to do to appease all those Poor People? In Asia they call it ‘trying to ride a tiger’.
Oh, and then there is Japanese fascism to
consider. While no expert on the
subject, I believe that Japanese Fascism was far less organized than the
European varieties. You see Japan at the
time was seething with notions of Nationalism and Ethnic Superiority but had no
clear and distinct Figurehead or Leader.
But what Japan had was a great many fanatical young military officers
who thought in those terms of Extreme Nationalism , and they would go out apparently
unbidden and assassinate whoever they though did not agree with such a
program. So effectively Japan went over
to the Far Nationalist Right simply by a kind of default. Everyone who would have been on the Other Side
had been killed off. It is sort of what
happened to the American Left during the Sixties and Seventies. In the Sixties there was a cluster of Political
Assassination all targeting the Left, and then the Media was used in the
Seventies and Eighties to politically assassinate many of the remaining politicians
from the Left. Yes, a Scandal is a
Scandal, but what people don’t realize nowadays is that prior to Watergate, the
Press exercised a strictly hands off policy in regards to the personal lives of
Politicians and even most ‘role model’ media stars and sports figures. But after toppling a President with Watergate
in the Seventies the press tasted blood
and all of the old tacit rules of engagement were swept away. But because Republicans are the Ownership
Class, they can largely control what comes out of their Newspapers and
Television Networks, and so the brunt of the new wave of Press Surveillance
landed on the Democrats. Like what
happened in Fascist Japan, America defaulted to the Right because no one was
left standing on the Left to offer any effective opposition.
So, long story short, the Antifa really needs to
think of a new name. I can’t see how
they can deny being Fascists themselves.
After all, they need only imagine what they would do if they Won. Would they disband and go home happy that
they saved America from Fascist White Supremacy or would they keep going with
their violence until they were able to dictate the Terms of National Policy themselves? Fascism may have two sides, but it is still the
Same Coin.
* Tipping Off Raids is a chronic problem in Law Enforcement,
especially at the local level. Police,
after all, have connections throughout the Community in terms of friendship and
extended family, and so when they become aware that a Raid is in the making,
well, not just one but a few policeman may be tempted to make phone calls
tipping off the Raid if it may have an impact on anybody that they know, even
casually – a call to the buddy they play poker with on Thursday nights. Of
course, corruption may be involved too, as it seems to have once been a common
practice among Policeman working a ‘Beat’ to control crime largely by
informally licensing it, that is, taking a small cut from criminals dealing in
some form of contraband product or service, while responding to the Complaints
from their Protected Criminals, that is “tips from informants” , by arresting
any new Criminal Enterprise that pops up on their ‘Beat’. Such corruption subsidized the low pay given
to for Police Service, and actually contributed to a good degree of “Order”, if
not Law and Order When it comes to
making a successful Raid, Federal Agents have more luck, but again they need to
consciously go over their Personnel Rosters to make sure all of their active
agents don’t live within 500 miles of their selected area of operations. Oh, and
they may keep in mind that when making
raids on White Supremacists that maybe it would be a good idea to use all Black
and Hispanic Task Forces… if they can manage to scrape together enough blacks
and Hispanics in what must largely be a Whites Dominated Enterprise. We all saw how the mostly White
Charlottesville Police responded to the White Supremacists, even when the
rioters grew violent. Who knows but that
many of those Police Officers would have been marching with torches in their
hands if it had been their night off. This is a good argument for a well-diversified
Police Force, from Command Levels on down.
City Officials need to know that Whatever Happens they can come up with
their Own Police Officers, from one demographic segment of their Force. If Charlottesville
had had a diversified Police Force then it
would not have been quite so easy for the Nazis to walk away with the Keys to
the City.
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