Fascism and today’s American fascists
Fascism is personality-driven authoritarian control of government under a despotic strongman and his hand-picked lackeys.
The Republican Trumpist hordes already manifest this trait. Their allegiance to Trump regardless of any and all evidence of his perfidy shows that they worship him above all else. The reasons for this are rooted in the deviant mental illness that infects "conservatism.” The exernal manifestation of it is the mean-spirited ecstasy that enthuses the crowd at Trump rallies.
Recent polls (AP-NORC, Quinnipiac) show that the majority is finally beginning to recognize the antidemocratic danger Trump poses to America. Nevertheless, (74 per cent of Republicans continue to support him.) Given the utterly unique threat that Donald Trump represents to nearly two and a half centuries of American democracy, the loyalty of Republicans to such a vile and contemptible creature can only be due to a fascistic cult of personality.
Decent America altogether too polite in the face of unprecedented danger
Republicans are fascists, all right, but they bristle at being called fascists. And criminals dislike being called criminals. Why? Because it alerts people to what they are up to.
Notice how Trump and Trumpists hate to be called racists? They vilify those who correctly identify their racist thoughts and actions. They even call their critics racist for calling them racist. (This shows that they use language as verbal weaponry rather than as rational discourse. Somebody calls them a bad name and they call it back. But there is no recognition that their actions and their speech accurately reflect their thoughts, which are what puts the racism in their actions and speech.)
It is the same thing with Republican fascism. They are indeed fascists, but they take the term applied to them not an a potentially accurate descriptor, but as a rock thrown in their direction. So they throw rocks back—sometimes the same word, sometimes other words they consider insulting. But this is all irrelevant to the facts, which reveal their actions and speech to be governed by fascistic attitudes.
Trumpists are racists and fascists (and white supremacists to boot) that hate having their attitudes to be called by their correct names.
Decent America needs to recalibrate its sensitivity to name-calling. Republicans show no such sensitivity at all, and are willing to use wholly inappropriate words to describe those they despise. Decent Americans don’t have to do that, which is despicable. But we do need to call “conservative” depravity by the proper descriptors. Many Republicans, and all Trumpists, are racists, fascists, and white supremacists—or spineless fellow travelers.
The majority is ready to hear the truth. So let's tell it.
Yes, using these correct names for Republican attitudes seems insulting. It would be insulting if they names were not accurate. But because they are accurate, they are not insults, but accurate diagnoses of psychological illness. It is irrelevant whether a patient hears the diagnosis as an insult. And just as irrelevant whether the patient hurls insults at the doctor in response. The patient is just as sick however he or she responds to hearing the truth.
The recent polls suggest that the majority is, at long last, ready to hear the diagnosis that we decent Americans have recognized from the beginning of this execrable chapter in American history—that Trump is a cancer on democracy and those who worship him are cancer vectors.
The recent receptivity of the majority should give us encouragement. Decent America needs to start calling Republicans and Trumpists by the names that fit their actions, their speech, and their thoughts. We can’t shy away from terms like “racist,” “fascist,” “white supremacist,” and “cancer on democracy” when Republicans do or say racist, fascist, or white supremacist things. And “cancer on democracy” is almost always appropriate.
The majority are now ready to hear our message. Two and half years after Trump and his minions attacked democracy, the delicate and tardy ears of Independents are finally becoming receptive to hearing the truth.
If we start telling the truth truthfully, using the proper terms to characterize the depraved condition of “conservatives.” The majority seems prepared to receive the actual truth rather than the fake truth vomited at them by Republicans.
Perhaps by speaking the harsh truth we can make the existential danger to democracy visible to them. And seeing the danger, perhaps they will join us in squashing the “conservative” threat once and for all.