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Yes, you should be scared: The Rise of Fascism in America
By Spencer Merritt
Note: I throw the word fascism around a lot in this article, so if you want more context as to why I’m using it here, read this! – What even is fascism? And why you need to know.
A specter is haunting America, a specter of fascism. In 2016, I would have found a statement like that to be silly and over the top, but today, I write it with complete sincerity and dire urgency. I never liked Donald Trump, but when he was first elected and liberals on Twitter were calling themselves “The Resistance,” and CNN was decrying him as a threat to the free press, I considered it all overly dramatic. But that was all before thousands of Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol with the intent to assassinate the Vice President of the United States and prevent Joe Biden, who was legitimately elected by the American people, from becoming president. Those who stormed the Capitol on behalf of Donald Trump were affiliated with right-wing hate groups and/or terrorist organizations such as the Oath Keepers, QAnon, the Atomwaffen Division, the Proud Boys, the Patriot Movement, the Neo-Confederates and Holocaust deniers.
Make no mistake, this was one of the single most pivotal and darkest moments in American history. It should be remembered with the same infamy as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. And yet it has not had the same impact as either of these events. September 11th brought the nation to a halt and Pearl Harbor sprung Americans into action; January 6th has not. This is not to say there has been no impact, since more than 1,000 insurrectionists have been charged, the DOJ has launched an investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, and, most importantly, Trump-backed election-denying candidates performed very poorly in the 2022 midterm elections. It seems Trumpism has left a bitter taste in the mouths of most Americans. But frankly, this is not nearly enough. I know we, as a nation, have grown desensitized to chaos and tragedy. We have spent the last 3 years in a pandemic and we have spent the last decade with multiple mass shootings a year, but we must not allow ourselves to ignore this threat. Despite everything we have been through, most Americans, thankfully, do not know how bad things can get, but if we do not exorcize this specter of fascism soon, we will learn just how bad bad can really be.
Yes, these people are a danger to your physical safety.
The same terrorists who tried to overthrow our government have not been idle since January 6th. If the lights in your house suddenly went off while you were reading this, would you start preparing for a race war? As absurd as this sounds, that is exactly what many right-wing terrorists in this country hope you will do, and they may be planning to attack your city right now to make that happen.
Earlier this year the FBI warned utility providers of imminent attacks against energy infrastructure by white supremacists. Since then there have been 9 attacks against power stations across three different states which have left thousands without power. Last month the FBI arrested Brandon Russel, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen (one of the groups present on January 6th), and his girlfriend Sarah Clendaniel for attempting to destroy five power stations in Baltimore Maryland. Clendaniel even said she hoped the attack would “destroy the whole city.” According to the FBI, power grid attacks like those planned by these fascist lovebirds are to accelerate the coming race war. The idea that turning people’s lights off will lead to a race war may be the type of idea so stupid that only a Nazi could think of it, but its ridiculousness should not make it less frightening. Anyone who has spent winter in Michigan or Wisconsin knows how dangerous losing electricity can be. Anyone who works with hospital patients on life support knows that losing power is a matter of life and death.
But in case having your lights go off is not scary enough, let’s not forget about all the deaths and injuries directly caused by right-wing terrorism in this country. Only a few weeks before January 6th, several people were injured when armed members of the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, and QAnon breached the Oregon state capitol after they were led inside by Republican state representative Mike Nearman. Some of those involved in the attack were allowed to go free and went on to participate in the January 6th insurrection. In May and June of 2020 two police officers were killed in Oakland and Ben Lomond California by extremists affiliated with the right-wing Boogaloo group, which is preparing for a second civil war. In March of 2020, the FBI prevented the attempted bombing of a hospital by a white supremacist affiliated once again with Atomwaffen in Belton, Missouri. These are just a few of the hundreds of cases that fly under the radar of national media because the casualties are relatively light. Less than five months ago, five people were killed and 25 injured at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs by a man who followed a virulent anti-LGBTQ TikTok account called ‘Libs of TikTok’. A few months before that, a self-described ethnonationalist murdered ten Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York in order to (according to him) “prevent the elimination of the white race.”
Large and small, this incomplete list of right-wing terrorism is only from the 2020s, a decade that is only three years old. Between 2010 and 2019, more than 75% of terrorism-related killings in the United States were carried out by right-wing extremists. In 2019, the FBI told Congress that a “significant majority” of the terrorism cases they were pursuing were related to white supremacist extremists. If I were to include all the incidents of right-wing terrorism in the 2010s this article would be 40 pages long. I will, however, remind you of the 9 Black churchgoers who were murdered by Dylan Roof in 2015, and of the peaceful protestors who were run over in Charlottesville in 2017. Charlottesville was made even more egregious by the fact that instead of condemning the terrorists, the President of the United States chose to say there were “very fine people on both sides.” And that brings us to the second reason why you should be scared.
Yes, the Republican party is enabling terrorism
The photo above was taken at C-PAC, the largest annual convention of conservatives in the United States. This is not some fringe group of backwoods militia men or a couple of misfit Nazi lovers…this is C-PAC, a convention attended by thousands and sponsored by some of the top contributors to Republican campaigns. The speakers at C-PAC include Republican elected officials and media figures like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro who millions of people watch. I need you to think about all this when I tell you that at the first C-PAC convention after January 6th, when members of known neo-Nazi and other right-wing terrorist organizations tried to kill the Vice President and override the democratic will of the American people, the Republican organizers of C-PAC chose to put “we are all domestic terrorists” up on stage for the whole world to see. And the Republican party has done more than offer lip service to right-wing terrorists in this country, the GOP has offered them protection from the law and is actively passing laws that are in line with the ideology of these terrorists.
By protection, I refer to when conservative officials either legitimize extremists through normalizing rhetoric, such as when Donald Trump referred to Neo-Nazis as good people, or, more disturbingly, when Republican officials shield extremist actions from legal consequences. The lie of the 2020 election being stolen led to several instances of voter intimidation during the 2022 midterm elections. Under the auspices of “protecting” the election several visibly armed Trump supporters positioned themselves outside of early voting drop boxes in Arizona. Several voters reported being followed and harassed by these men. Let us be clear, no matter what they thought they were doing, these men were armed thugs infringing on the right of Americans to cast their vote. But despite this obvious truth, a Trump-appointed federal judge, Michael Liburdi, protected the thugs by ruling that their harassment of voters was an exercise of free speech.
The most high-profile extremist to be protected by the Republican Party is former president Trump himself. Though Trump’s lawyers no doubt advised him not to directly call for an attack on the US capitol, we all know he was ultimately responsible. While the mob was chanting “hang Mike Pence,” Donald Trump tweeted “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” Even before the January 6th Committee had established how close Trump was to the planning of the insurrection, it was clear from months of election denial and inflammatory statements that Trump had laid the groundwork for the attack. Despite this, 43 Republican senators voted to acquit Trump during his second impeachment trial, and, as a result, a man who tried to overthrow the U.S. government will be allowed to run for president of the United States again. With powerful figures like Senators and Federal judges willing to protect acts of violence and extremism, it’s no wonder why fascist agitators are becoming bolder and more active.
The second way the Republican Party enables fascism is through the promotion of authoritarian ideas. In a previous article, I explained that fascism is openly hostile to facts; well, it’s hard to get less factual than the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Later this month, some of the biggest names in right-wing so-called news like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are set to testify in court because of the lies they told to their millions of viewers. Fox News has long been criticized for spreading false information, but in 2020 they jumped the shark with wall-to-wall coverage supporting Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him, a claim which was the direct cause of the January 6th insurrection. This propaganda campaign got so out of hand that Fox News is now facing a 1.6 billion dollar lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. With the possible exception of Tucker Carlson I don’t believe the hosts of Fox News are fascists, they’re just rich hacks who profit from spreading ideas that push people toward fascism.
As if having a $16 billion media company and an endless clown car of chauvinist podcasters spreading misinformation to millions of people weren’t bad enough, we also have fascists and fascist enablers in elected office stripping away rights from Americans every day. Ever since the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Republican state legislatures have been restricting voting rights, predominantly from people of color and low income people. But in the wake of Donald Trump’s big lie about the election, 56 new voting restrictions have been passed by Republican-controlled legislatures in 20 different states. Most of it is all old hat: closing polling stations in areas less likely to vote Republican, voter ID laws, making it harder to vote by mail and such. But there are some new and vile additions this time, such as voter purges where people are un-registered to vote without their knowledge, or the 291 election deniers who ran for secretary of state in various states who indicated that they would invalidate election results if Democrats won. But lest you think that Americans will only be oppressed on election day, think again.
You have probably heard about Tennessee’s law that bans drag performances. Did you know that it says you can spend up to 6 years in prison for performing in a drag show? I am going to say that again, in Tennessee, you can go to prison for six years for being a man in heels singing in front of people. Now, this law has been blocked by a judge for being unconstitutional, but they will rewrite it and pass it again, and there are 14 other states working to pass similar laws. Then, there are all the efforts to censor teachers and deprive children of the truth.
There is a reason why literal Nazis are showing support for Florida governor Ron DeSantis: it is because he is doing things that they like. For example, forcing schools to rewrite textbooks so that no mention of race is made when teaching about the Civil Rights movement, forcing teachers to not teach about LGBTQ issues, or canceling history courses because they make students feel “discomfort.” Side note, does anyone remember when conservatives were calling liberals “snowflakes” for wanting safe spaces? Now it’s illegal to make a white kid feel uncomfortable in Florida. Anyway, laws like these are red meat for the sort of people who believe that liberals are conspiring to steal elections, indoctrinate their kids, and ruin America…the sort of people who attacked the U.S. Capitol, the sort of people who fly swastikas in front of passing families at Disney World.
Oh yeah, and then there is this gem:
This tweet is from Rebekah Jones. When she was working for the Florida Department of Health, she was ordered to manipulate data on COVID-19 cases; she refused to lie to the public and became a whistleblower. In response to this, state police raided Ms. Jones’ home at gunpoint. I’ll say that again, an American citizen had her house raided by police because she pissed off the governor. Oh, but it gets worse folks. Since her case was dismissed due to having absolutely no grounds, DeSantis decided to go after her family. At the time I am writing this Jones’ 13 year old son is being detained by Florida State Police for sharing this meme:
Yep. A 13-year-old boy is in police custody for a meme. But it’s not really for the meme, it’s because his mom is a whistleblower. This is the sort of story you see in Russia or China, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran…but it’s in Florida, in the United States of America.
This is bad. One of our two major parties is in league with Neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and a whole assortment of other terrorists. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Green and Ron DeSantis, are pretty clearly true believers in this new American fascism. Others, like Mitch McConnell and Rupert Murdoch, are just cynically using fascism for personal gain. But regardless of whether Republican lawmakers are supporting fascists because they agree with them or if they are just doing it to get votes, at the end of the day they are still supporting fascists. I could write a whole other article about how conservative German leaders who didn’t even really like the Nazis helped the Nazis come to power in the 1930s…and I will write that article, but you get the point. Fascists don’t need the undying support of a political establishment to win, they just need the establishment’s complicity…and right now they absolutely have it.
Martin Niemoller put it better than I could in his famous poem First They Came, so I encourage you to reread that. But for now, I will say that life will not be fun for anyone in America under the vision that these people are pushing. Even if you’re not trans, even if you’re not gay, even if you’re not black, even if you’re not Latino, even if you can’t imagine that you’ll be haunted by the specter of fascism, you can be and you will be.
So what do we do?
First thing is to vote like your life depends on it. If the Republican cynics see that supporting fascism is a losing strategy, they will back away from it. Second, we need federal legislation to protect voting rights, civil liberties, and academic freedom. Third, we need federal legislation to step up counter-terrorism efforts, including prohibiting anyone associated with extremist groups from running for office or holding a government job, especially in law enforcement. Fourth, we need to address the socioeconomic issues that led to this (I’ll have to get to that topic another time). Finally, in case all that fails, if you are from a marginalized group, I’d advise you to take steps to defend yourself and, if possible, make sure that your passport is up-to-date.
Benjamin Franklin was once asked what kind of government he had created for the American people; he answered: “A Republic if you can keep it.” The time is fast approaching when we will have to see if we can keep our republic.
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” — Abraham Lincoln
