Sure it could. The same way fascism always happens. Not imposed, all of a sudden, from above, like a boot on your neck in the dead of night. It grows and festers in dark corners of society, feeding off the irrational fears and resentments and feelings of entitlement of an angry minority and growing ever stronger, with noone noticing it, until it bursts into pungent & infectious & malignant life, strangling its host. Fascism grows from the ground up and keeps growing uncontrolled until it stops – or is stopped.
Tim Wise at Redroom has written an eloquent and timely call-to-arms entitled “This Is How Fascism Comes: Reflections On The Cost Of Silence. [1]”
Before you read the whole thing, I present some snacks to whet the appetite:
If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.
If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said “grow good people,” and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.
If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.
My favourite:
…democracy isn’t what you have, it’s what you do.
Mr Wise makes a bunch of good points and what I think people need to realise is this: while it’s clear as day that McCain is a flip-flopping, flat-out dishonest & unashamedly cynical manipulator and Palin is dangerously underqualified and undereducated, they have successfully mobilised the support of a huge number of people and have a decent chance of winning the election. Comments & interjections on video from recent GOP rallies, calling Obama “terrorist”, “traitor”, “muslim”, “Arab” (the last two clearly meant in as derogatory a manner as the old McCarthyist standby, “Communist”) speak volumes about exactly who liberals have to contend with. Not just regular people with whom you may share political differences, this new breed of radical, closet (or not) racist Republican carries a Bible & bullets to back it up. They don’t just disagree with you, they want you deported or silenced. You may think they’re just a noisy minority, the 25% that currently approves of George W Bush. You may think they’re just a bunch of kooks! You might be right, but think about the 2000 and 2004 elections. Accusations of Diebolding aside, both elections were close enough that, even if such dodgy Diebolding was indeed carried out, it only took a little shove (and a stacked Supreme Court) to get the GOP over the line. This time around, Democrats have to make it impossible for anything but a massive, obvious TILT of the electoral pinball machine to clinch it for the other side.
Please do yourselves and the entire world a favour, all you intelligent, thoughtful Americans, be you liberal, conservative, religious, atheist, whatever: don’t just vote for change. Be the change. This planet depends on you. It’s not just America that can’t handle four or eight more years of “compassionate conservatives” pandering to theocrats and their medieval “God first & no questions” morality while they scoff themselves silly at the public trough. The world has suffered since 2001through two illegal, unnecessary & reprehensible wars & the subsequent widening of the terrorists’ scope. Iraq & Afghanistan of course have suffered worse from terror (local and imposed externally by Coalition forces) than all but also Madrid, Bali & London have felt the sting of extremist anti-Western violence. People from all over the world continue to rot in US prisons, designated “enemy combatants” but charged with nothing. The world suffers even now, as the Wall Street incompetence & greed-inspired recession makes its shockwaves felt globally. Eight years of a redux of Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics, accompanied by offshoring of staggering amounts of jobs and unprecedented greed & corruption have culminated in people across the world, not just the USA, being unsure of the security their hard-won savings, superannuation, investments and even their very livelihoods.
Old wounds with Russia & Iran have been re-opened by straight-talkin’, wide-legged cowboy rhetoric & open threats. Iraq festers (except for that shining beacon, the multi-billion dollar fortified citadel known as the Green Zone) and continues to provide more recruits to the bin Laden cause than the big O himself could ever have drummed up in the mountains of Afghanistan, which itself is collapsing, unnoticed by most of the world, back into a poppy-fuelled Taliban-warlord showdown.
Extremists from the worlds of Islam & Christianity increasingly believe a showdown is coming and some enthusiastically welcome it. One such person wishes to be Vice President of the United States. Many of these people believe the upcoming showdown is more than just flipping a switch to choose a leader for their country who wears a Red or Blue badge: it’s the beginning of a battle for hearts, minds and peoples’ very souls. Christian Extremists in America, yearning to bring about biblical End Times, wish to impose their own Taliban and wage their own jihads against those they hold responsible for the countries’ woes: gays, atheists, liberals, pro-choice proponents, Darwinists (whatever they are), all the while ignoring that it’s their very own ballots & ignorance that have landed America where it is. The sad thing is, they have a good chance so long as liberals continue to take it whilst politely lying down. America needs more pissed-off liberals to get up and take these blinded ignorant bastards to task.
The political game has been changed in the last eight years – by the Republicans and their pandering to extremists & lobby groups, their media monopoly & their underhanded, underworld Rovian tactics. Democrats & liberals in general need to respond appropriately – not by sinking to the same despicable levels but by simply growing a pair. By standing up to the bible bullies & liars for Jesus and taking down their lies & their standard-bearers one by one. By not just getting mad, but by getting busy. The old sporting cliche goes “Well, they won it because they wanted it more”. Well, right now, the Christian extremists want it more. Which is a bit of a worry.
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