Enough with the pearl-clutching
To the editor:
Benito Mussolini coined the word fascism to describe his political philosophy: Per Webster’s dictionary fascism “… stands for centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader.” Nationally jingoistic to distraction, racist, homophobic and macho; fascism centralizes national power and commerce “in a single leader.” It requires severe forceful conformity to social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition; even to the point of using force in policing thought and banning books. Disdaining democracy, demeaning of cultural minorities, anti-intellectual. Fascism is marked by a nostalgia for a mythical bygone era of white racial hegemony. It demands little imagination and even less empathy. Corruption and graft mark the regimes beguiled into this system. Fear is used to dictate what is acceptable in discourse; which ironically mythologize as decadent those who diverge from their narrow mean.
Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were not confronted by the anti-Semitic press. Prematurely anti-fascists were disparaged for traffic disruption and (gasp) graffiti! before 22 million were slaughtered in World War II. Kid gloves are used for the bully, much as today we are told Bolsonaro, Trump and Orban, are “right wing,” or “autocratic leaders” who are perhaps “personally” flawed. The press describes in tippy-toe euphemism this political and moral decay as “strong men” taking a “firm hand” consolidating the societal powers of politics and commerce.
Now that President Biden has called out the tiny wing of Republicans’ Make America Great Again as “semi-fascist” there are Senators pearl clutching at the use of the other f word. As if the biggest problem here is being potty-mouthed. I will concede that the label of fascism, semi or not, is bold and confrontational. I celebrate any individual MAGA who wishes not to be called semi-fascist. But the tiny wing MAGAs suffer from the duck test standard. (If it waddles, quacks and acts like a duck — perhaps it is a duck). The fascist hallmarks of voter suppression, minority attack, distain for elections and bizarre refusal to notice lost elections and MAGA extremists, in their anti-intellectual distain for democracy, sadly match the description. The good news is that each such thinker can quit being on the losing side of the moral arch of history.
Ellen Starbird
Cape Coral