Fascism by any other name
A high school friend was raised a good Southern Baptist. “We couldn’t cuss in the house,” he said. “Except you could say ‘damn yankee,’ because that’s just what they were.”
President Joe Biden will likely get a lot of blowback for branding “MAGA Republicans” a “threat to our very democracy” and “semi-fascism.” But, you know….
“Also, what exactly is ‘semi-fascism’?” asks Shadi Hamid of Brookings. “It’s not even a thing.”
Well, it’s sort of a thing. An Idaho native, Dave Neiwert has followed American neo-nazis and alt-right militias for a long, long time. He flagged pre-Trumpism as pseudo-fascist nearly two decades ago:
Call it Pseudo Fascism. Or, if you like, Fascism Lite. Happy-Face Fascism. Postmodern Fascism. But there is little doubt anymore why the shape of the “conservative movement” in the 21st century is so familiar and disturbing: Its architecture, its entire structure, has morphed into a not-so-faint hologram of 20th-century fascism.
It is not genuine fascism, even though it bears many of the basic traits of that movement.
Since 2004, those traits connecting militant conservatism to fascism have gelled.
Brownshirts in body armor
Neiwert writes at Daily Kos:
The arrests this week of five Florida militiamen who called themselves the “B Squad” for their violent actions on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol serve as a helpful reminder that the Justice Department is still in the process of bringing the insurrectionists who attacked American democracy that day—now over 860 and counting—to justice.
The details of their case, moreover, are chilling reminders of just how close the nation came to catastrophe that day, saved largely by the valor of police officers who defended the Capitol—and the deep implications of these unfolding arrests for the Republican Party, after NBC News identified the ringleader of the B Squad as a recently defeated GOP legislative candidate, a man who has not yet been charged.
The affidavit filed by prosecutors features a number of screenshots from videos of the B Squad undertaking paramilitary exercises to prepare for Jan. 6, including several of the man it identifies only as “B Leader,” who is not among the five men arrested Wednesday. NBC News’ Ryan J. Reilly identified B Leader as Jeremy Liggett, who ran for Congress this year in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, but dropped out in March and did not qualify for the August GOP primary.
Liggett and his men arrived in Washington, D.C. ahead of Jan. 6 prepared for combat. The affidavit states that “B Leader”:
1. Advised that the video was for “all of you Patriots out there that are going to Washington, D.C., […] to support Trump, to have your voices heard” and that “we are going to have four more years of Trump, we all know that”;
2. Warned that “we all know in D.C., once the sun goes down, things get a little bit violent and the reason why things get a little bit violent is because you have socialist, leftist, Marxist, communist agitators like Black Lives Matter and Antifa […]”;
3. Described so-called “defensive tools” to take to Washington, D.C., including “the strongest pepper spray commercially available to use,” an ASP baton (i.e., an expandable metal baton), knives with blades that were 3 inches or less, a walking cane, and a taser, all items that B Leader incorrectly claimed were legal in Washington, D.C.; and
4. Said that he was “super excited about DC on the 6th of January,” and he advised “patriots [to] keep up the fight.”
Semi-fascism? The American right claims to value blunt talk. Until it’s directed at them.
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