It's Time For America To Rehabilitate the Term "Fascism"

If the Bush administration should be credited with having perfectly succeeded in any way, it ought to be in having elevated the word "fascism" from the realms of hyperbole to the level of respectability in common usage.

In his farewell contribution to Salon, pundit Sidney Blumenthal offers a chilling statement of the enormity of just what exactly is at stake in the 2008 presidential election. You can read the entire article here*, and I recommend that you do. The following excerpts are from the section in which he describes the current Republican view of the presidency.

Despite the obvious shortcomings of his policies, [Bush] has startlingly succeeded in reshaping the executive into an unaccountable imperial presidency. And Bush's presidency is now accepted as the only acceptable version for major Republican candidates who aspire to succeed him. All of them have pledged to extend its arbitrary powers. Their embrace of the imperial presidency makes the 2008 election a turning point in constitutional government.

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Two models of the presidency are at odds, one whose founding father was George Washington, the other whose founding father was Richard Nixon.

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The imperial president must by definition be an infallible leader. Only he can determine what is a mistake because he is infallible. Stephen Bradbury, the acting director of OLC in the Justice Department who wrote secret memos justifying the torture policy in 2005, defined this Bush doctrine in congressional testimony in 2006: "The president is always right."

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Every executive policy does not exist on its own merit but as part of an overarching plan to establish an executive who rules by fiat. Enforcing these policies is intended to break down resistance to aggrandizing unaccountable power for the presidency. Warrantless domestic surveillance is a case in point.

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Torture is the linchpin of the new Republican argument on presidential power. Abuse of detainees is the metaphor for beguiling the public into supporting abuse of the presidency. The sadomasochistic ecstasy of torture and the thrill of vengeance are the ultimate appeal of the party of torture. . . . This novel form of government, never before installed in the U.S., despite precursors from Nixon's planned seizure of powers, is being cemented into place so that its penetrability and removal will become extraordinarily difficult. Those who undertake the task of rebuilding the structure will be vulnerable to harsh political attacks as unpatriotic and subversive.

There is a word for all this: Fascism. I kept waiting for it from Blumenthal, but alas . . . .

And that's the problem.

In America, there is an often unspoken taboo on its use, perhaps based on our belief that fascism is the antithesis of All Things American. In the history of the web, calling someone a fascist or accusing them of advocating fascism generally has meant the end of that thread of discussion -- it being clear that the discussion had degenerated into nothing more than hyperbolic name-calling.

I'm afraid that when many Americans think of fascism, they tend to think in terms only of actualized fascist states: Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, etc., not recognizing that fascism is first of all, a philosophy, from which a full blown fascist state will grow when a sufficient percentage of the populace become sufficiently scared.

The danger of allowing this taboo to prevail in the reality-based world of 2007-08 America is that it prevents Americans from discussing fascism when the real thing comes along. And it has come along. Just listen to the leading Republican candidates. They sound more like they're running for the post of Generalisimo of a fascist state than for President of the United States. Their presidential debates are reminiscent of the old Saturday Night Live skit "Quien es mas macho?" Unfortunately, in the real world, this kind of stuff is anything but funny.

Here in Europe, we use the word "fascism" freely . . . and - generally - responsibly and accurately. Fascism exists. Its practitioners and advocates are organized, use the term "fascist" shamelessly, and run candidates in local and national elections -- some of whom are actually elected.

My friends and neighbors here in Spain have clear memories of the Franco days, and any discussion with them of American politics today inevitably leads to frightening comparisons.

It's high time for Americans to start talking that way, too.

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