#while I understand why those terms exist - their inherent meanings and origins have been skewed

[legalownerofufoemoji]

I'm so brave for not starting a problem on the Internet. I'm SO BRAVE

[michaelbrgmn-blog]

In Defense of Fashisom

The following is a rough draft of an essay I composed for my English Composition class. I’m in Comp 1, so go easy.

In Defense of Fashisom

It has been a long year. Half the country had spent months hard at work preparing for the worst. Just when impeachment law was all the rage, the fully set tables had suddenly turned. The other half of the country, give-or-take (give) an additional 2.9 million people, were thrown into a frenzy. The tolerant snowflakes, champions of progressivism who could not fathom a candidate not accepting the election results, took to the streets in a dazzling display of their hypocrisy and, of course, their brilliance. Joining his compatriots in this newfangled democratic duty was a young man who had a beef to settle. According his sign, he was petitioning the president-elect to deport Fashisom. The sign went viral. Poor Fashisom. In other news, our president-elect is constantly being labeled a fascist. He raises his fist, he is a fascist. He takes a radical position on an issue, he is a fascist. One must wonder why our president-elect is the first Republican to be labeled a fascist. In fact, many Conservative pundits maintain that his policies are more moderate than those of his Republican opponents. Then again, is moderacy the correct barometer for which to measure Fascism?  In order to formulate a definition of Fascism, we will take a look at its inception and the definition which it was given by its founders.

 The term “Fascism” was first used in 1915 by members of Benito Mussolini’s movement, the Fasci of Revolutionary Action . This movement was created to combat secular Socialism in Italy. Rather than opposing the ideology of Socialism, the fascists merely opposed the idea that the theme with which to mobilize the masses is materialism, instead maintaining that the focus should be faith (O’Brien. Mussolini in the First World War: The Journalist, the Soldier, the Fascist).  Within Fascism, there came to be what was known at the time as the Fascist Left and Fascist Right factions. There was only one significant difference in ideology between these two factions. The left believed that Fascism should closely emulate the then-popular Socialism, while incorporating some elements of Nationalism, namely that the barometer of equality was to be faith rather than materialism.  The original Fascists movement, Mussolini’s Fasci of Revolutionary Action, was part of the Fascist Left. The Fascist Right, also known as Monarchist Fascists, sought to establish a monarchy, albeit with the same core principles agreed upon by the Fascist Left (Payne, A History of Fascism). Both factions opposed free-market capitalism, preferring a neo-Socialist economy instead. The fascists opposed nearly all forms of contraception, the implementation of women into the workplace, and declared homosexuality a disease. Having been established upon the core principles of the two popular movements of its time, Fascism can hardly be defined as a movement. It would perhaps be better referred to as Religious Socialism. Fascism is neither inherently politically right or left. It is essentially comprised of the religious values of the right alongside the socialist values of the left, mixed together with Nationalism.  In the words of Benito Mussolini himself, Fascism was a movement that would strike “against the backwardness of the right and the destructiveness of the left”.

To better understand the definition of Fascism and how it can be practically applied, we will apply it to the claim that our president-elect is a fascist. On September 30 of last year, the New Republic published an article to determine, once and for all, the status of our president-elect vis-à-vis Fascism. The New Republic is a stellar publication run by the unemployed hippies you see typing away in Starbucks every morning. And afternoon. And evening. Their mission statement, according to their website, is to be a “voice of creative thinkers, united by a collective desire to challenge the status quo.” How creative are their thinkers, and by status quo, do they mean facts? Let us find out. The article, authored by Jeet Heer (pumpkin latte, stool at the back-left corner), begins with the following anecdote. (This essay will not glorify any of Heer’s assertions by attempting to refute them or their premises. The goal is to aid the definition of Fascism by determining whether it has been correctly applied to the president-elect.)

At a rally in Iowa on Wednesday, Donald Trump tried to whip up the crowd by asking anyone who was a Christian conservative to raise their hand. The crowd cheered. The Republican nominee then made a strange follow-up request: “Raise your hand if you’re not a Christian conservative. I want to see this, right? Oh there’s  a couple people, that’s all right,” the candidate said as he brusquely waived his right hand. “I think we’ll keep them, right? Should we keep them in the room, yes? I think so.” (Heer, Is Donald Trump a Fascist?)

Heer then asks the following question. “Trump habitually sees the world in stark “us versus them” terms, and makes wholesale denunciations of entire ethnic groups. Which inevitably raises the question, Is Donald Trump a fascist?” The premise of the question is that the president-elect sees the world in “us versus them terms”. Assuming that this premise is true, there would be a correlation between the president-elect’s behavior and Nationalism, a core element of Fascism, and not Fascism itself. The article proceeds to cite our president-elect’s “ethnic demagoguery, his scorn for and ignorance of the existing democratic system” and his “indulgence in conspiracy thinking” as evidence of his fascist beliefs. Again, assuming these assertions to be true, they are not indicative of fascist beliefs. Ethnic demagoguery is a nationalistic attribute. Scorn for, and ignorance of, the democratic system can mean a number of things. The scorner can be a Socialist, a Communist or a Monarchist. While these attributes may be incorporated by Fascism, they do not exclusively belong to it. Indulgence in conspiracy thinking is not an inherent attribute of Fascism either. An indulgence in conspiracy thinking can be perpetrated by members of any political denomination, such as columnists who assert that the president-elect of the United States does not believe in Liberal Democracy. The article then goes on to determine that while there may not be enough “evidence” to indicate that the president-elect is a fascist, there is sound reason to conclude that he is “fascistic”. This compromise, explains the author, must be arrived at due to the fact that the president-elect displays behavior which indicate his “differences with traditional Fascism.” The article lists two main examples of behavior inhibited by the president-elect that the author deems un-fascistic. Firstly, the president-elect has “no Trump Shirts beating up political enemies”. The torturing of political enemies, while generally practiced by Fascist regimes, is not an exclusively Fascist attribute. This behavior is exhibited by totalitarian governments of any political view, most commonly Communism. The second un-fascistic attribute is that “there is also a demographic difference between Trump and traditional fascism. Nazism” (?) “was a youth movement, dominated by an age cohort that shared the common experiences of the First World War and the economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s.” In contrast, he goes on to explain, voters of the president-elect “tend to skew old.” Apparently, age is an integral component in Fashisom. However, it plays no role if Fascism, or any other political movement for that matter.

Having defined Fascism, we can clearly determine that of all the unsavory characteristics portrayed by our president-elect, none of them are indicative of any fascistic beliefs. Opponents of our president-elect would be taken more seriously if they stuck to the substantive issues. Our president-elect emerged victorious from the Republican primaries without a concrete position on numerous issues. He has clearly demonstrated his dominance in the arena of rhetoric. For Liberals to think that they can beat him at his own game is absurd. If they would simply stick to the facts, they would stand a chance. If they decide to cast away their name-calling and labeling, they may succeed in moving the ball to their side of the court. If they could acquire the ability to define rhetoric, both their own and that of the president-elect, they may be able to determine which of his policies, if any, are more radical than those of any other Republican’s. Through mastering the art of definition, the Left can regain its ability to focus on the pertinent issues. If they continue to focus on the rhetoric, they will forever be battling a straw man. In the meantime, they would do well to pick labels that are easier to spell. Like bigot. Do not get me started.