American Fascism

by Bob Randall

Guest Blogger

(Editor's Note:   This is the third in the current series of guest postings by good friend, Ranger Bob.  It deals with fascism in America and imparts useful knowledge both as to what the word means and how it is used and misused.  As always, Bob strives to deliver a balanced view on the topic.  His final entry in this series is entitled "American Left," and it will run in this space in a couple of days.  Thanks again to the Ranger for sharing his time and thoughts with us. - Pa Rock)

I hear a lot of complaining from the far right that they are being called fascists. They're probably right about that. I know I've certainly thought it and I guess I've said it out loud, too. The word is freely thrown around by leftists as a slur. It's almost gotten to the point where you can't even consider whether it's true or not because it is discarded as trash talk. It is name calling. That’s a shame because the word can be perfectly good if used as a description of behavior. 

Even before this trend. I  had given some thought to what fascism is and whether we are on the edge of sliding into it. My buddy who goes by the initials A.I. says, “Fascism is a far-right, ultranationalist political ideology characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, suppression of opposition, militarism, and the subordination of individual interests to the state or nation.”  That's a quickie definition.  I was surprised that it said nothing about scapegoating to blame others.   So I asked the question in a different way and got this clarification from another guy with the same initials,: “Fascism blames society's complex problems on a specific group, using propaganda to demonize and dehumanize them.”  If you put those two definitions together, it matches my understanding of the word in question.

I don't think everybody who's on the right or maybe I should say who is a supporter of MAGA is a fascist. They're supporting fascist ideas. They just never give it any thought that the outcome will be a form of fascism. I have a buddy out in Colorado whose initials are not A.I. who is strongly right wing. I think he has a red cap. He probably supports what's getting done. For instance, the border is more secure. He doesn’t care how it happens and whether someone gets hurt because of it, like being a refugee who has to go back to a violent country.  He probably likes it when money already earmarked and even distributed is clawed back by the administration. It’s not the President’s job to claw back money designated by law to go for a certain purpose just because he doesn’t like something. It doesn’t matter to my Colorado buddy. He just likes the idea of saving money almost as much as he likes the idea of tweaking someone he doesn’t like because of their politics. Those things by themselves don't make us a fascist Nation. 

What about the president firing people from commissions that are supposed to be independent of politics? We should be able to count on the Supreme Court to slap that stuff down. That hope doesn't seem to be working. Instead they give him the legal cover to violate any law he wants to as long as it’s part of his presidential responsibility. Tariffs are clearly and constitutionally the responsibility of Congress. They should be screaming to high heaven that the president has exceeded his authority. They're not. The Justice Department is supposed to be politically independent. Now there's nothing in the Constitution that says that, but it seems to be a clear article of a republic that their job is not retribution. It is not their responsibility to make sure the President’s agenda is followed. It is their responsibility to make sure the law is followed. 

I don’t need to go into too much more detail in order to show that we're drifting into authoritarianism. I could but it seems to me that if someone supports what's going on there's nothing I could say to push their opinion over the line. I’ll leave it here as I think I’ve covered enough to pronounce it clearly authoritarianism. Let me be fair here by saying that the left does not support political ideologies that are not squarely in agreement with their own either.  So we’re plowing headlong into the authoritarian  portion of fascism. Let’s talk about a twist that I don’t see as terribly important. It’s not exactly a centralized authoritarianism as a lot of decisions have ostensibly been given to the states. Abortion is an example. However, many of the states are in the hip pockets of DJT so it functions in a centralized manner.

Are we nationalistic?  Well I think some of us are. I stand for the national anthem but I don’t feel the need to tell someone else that they have to. The ones who scare me the most are the Christian Nationalists. They strike me as “Jihadists Light”.  Most Christians aren’t radical about nationalism but they will go along with the trend because they don’t give any thought to the result. Either that or they’re afraid their skygod will be judgmental. The Helpfulprofessor whose last name seems to be .com, describes nationalism this way, “It’s generally believed that nationalism is a bad thing because it leads to discrimination and prejudice, whereas patriotism is positive because it represents love of nation without the sense of superiority that nationalists have.” When do we drift into ultra-nationalism? Its difference may be only in the eye of the beholder. So I guess I’m patriotic, not nationalistic. I have to admit that my pride is not as strong now as it has been in the past. 

So let's see, let’s visit militarism. My MAGA buddy in Colorado probably is jubilant that crime has gone down some more in Washington DC and probably LA.  He just doesn't give any thought to the idea about a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, using the military to enforce civilian law.  To my  knowledge the Marines only protected Federal buildings in LA. Nationalizing the National Guard makes them federal troops, too. Just like the Marines they didn't enforce state and local laws, they just picked up trash and asked each other why they were there. So maybe that's not necessarily illegal but it dances right up to the edge of being illegal. It puts us in the position of getting used to having troops on our streets. We're clearly at a point where it won't seem so out of line in the near future for the military to occupy and exert control over cities that the authoritarians don’t like.  It’s a small step from going over that edge. Last week, the US Navy destroyed a boat full of people and whatever was in the boat at the president’s direction. It is not the navy’s job to blow up a boat that was not engaged in warfare against us. It is not our way of enforcing the law. At most, they could have boarded the vessel and turned it over to the Coast Guard for processing and prosecution. I’m convinced it was DJT’s way of intimidating Venezuela which  he doesn’t like. And in Brazil: A.I. (I wonder if his name is Albert) says, “On September 10, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt threatened Brazil with "military might" if the country followed through with the expected conviction of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Three days later, on September 13, Bolsonaro was convicted of attempting a coup.” Does the military like the idea of presidents being convicted of an attempted coup? The older military leaders who might see a coup as wrong have been replaced with others and I don’t know what they think about it. It’s for sure that DJT doesn’t like the idea of presidents being convicted of an attempted coup so we threatened military might against Brazil.

Subordination of individual rights and interests seems to be in the form of subordination to the rights and interests of the president and whichever of his cronies pledge their loyalty to him. Just today I read that the Supreme Court has given the OK for ICE to use race as a reason to make a traffic stop. Don't brown people have the individual right to be brown? Don’t wear a sombrero while you’re driving to a costume party. It works the other way, too. You may have your rights taken away from you if you’re going against the flow, but you may have extra benefits if you go with that flow. That round table tech boss ass kissing event that took place not long ago will yield positive benefits for the ass kissers at someone else’s detriment. I’m not quite ready to leave the ass kissers alone. One of the unlisted descriptions of Fascism is that it’s not against capitalism. Not so much free capitalism because capitalists aren’t free to operate without kissing the ring of the boss. That’s one of the big differences between Fascism and Communism and that’s probably the reason the far right doesn’t really object to Fascism, they just don’t want to be called Fascists. They deny that the description fits.

Blame Game: Rounding up legal residents, even citizens, who look wrong; threatening to remove Afghan folk who helped us during our 20+ year war over there; sending refugees to some country in central Africa, all of that is just wrong. Blaming violence on the lunatic Left is what-aboutism. There are some loons over there and some are violent but that’s another post. So I now have two important questions: did I use those semi-colons correctly, and do I need to go on?

Take another look at the definition of fascism and answer the question for yourself.  “Fascism is a far-right, ultranationalist political ideology characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, suppression of opposition, militarism, and the subordination of individual interests to the state or nation.” “Fascism blames society's complex problems on a specific group, using propaganda to demonize and dehumanize them.” Are we headed towards the American version of fascism? Is it our destiny? Is it an existential threat to democracy? Maybe. Probably.