Fascism vs. Liberal Democracy: round two
The Trump administration is openly declaring what it is.
Here are two statements:
1) “We live in a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
2) “He who would live must fight. He who doesn’t wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.”
One of those statements was made by Adolf Hitler. You can read it in Mein Kampf. The other statement was spoken yesterday on CNN. The speaker is Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s ideologue-in-chief. He is explaining why the US has a right to betray an ally and seize Greenland by military force.
Can you tell which is which?
Yes, it’s hard because there’s really nothing to distinguish them. Both use the pompous language of the semi-educated ideologue with delusions of grandeur. Both express precisely the same sentiment: Life is a constant struggle and if you lose, or you won’t fight, you will be swept aside, and rightly so. Only the strong deserve to thrive.
Generously, one can say this is the ultra-realist brutalism of Thucydides, quoting the Athenians to the Melians: “The strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must.” But the fact that it matches the core theme of Mein Kampf suggests that such ancient and academic talk is insufficient. In the modern world, this idea is the core animating force of fascism and Naziism and their rejection of democracy and equality. The strong should be masters; the rest slaves. That is fascism.
The second statement is Hitler’s, by the way. The first, Miller’s.
Not that it makes any difference.
This year is the 250th anniversary of America’s birth, as measured from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Needless to say, the Declaration of Independence does not express the sentiment Miller and Hitler express. Indeed, it contradicts that sentiment quite bluntly. And that has always been true of America at its best.
After the United States entered the war against fascism in 1941, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall commissioned Frank Capra to produce a series of films to explain to ordinary Americans why the United States was at war, why they should sign up, and what was at stake. The result was Why We Fight. It’s worth watching at any time. But particularly now.
You will see that the argument in Why We Fight could not be clearer: Fascism adores brutality and hierarchy. It is contemptuous of law. It is an ideology of masters and slaves, of rule by force, of war. America rejects all that and stands for the equality of citizens, respect between nations, and peace. As a liberal democracy, America is antithetical to fascism and must join with its allies — what the films call “the free world” — and wipe fascism from the face of the earth.
Why We Fight got it exactly right. Nothing could be more hostile to everything America believed in and stood for than fascism.
The same is true of Stephen Miller and the regime he represents.
I would be remiss if I didn’t conclude with a little side note: After demanding submission, and having their demand rejected, the Athenians fought and beat the Melians. They killed all the men. They sold the women and children into slavery. They won.
But even in that brutal time, when butchery and slavery was far more accepted than today, what the Athenians did shocked the Greek world. Athens’ neighbours and allies lost trust in Athens. They drew away. And, when the time came, they rose up against Athens.
Athens was defeated and stripped of its empire. It never returned to its previous imperial power and, in time, slowly faded from history.
It is part of the predictable schtick for fascists to promise minions what they'll do, and then to do it. It's one part narcissism, one part chauvinism, and one part boosterism - screaming to the peanut gallery about intentions and the better life sure to come. It is the myopia, and the sheer, repetitive arrogance, of liberals and democrats (an inbred superiority bias) never to believe, or conceive of, what evil spews, which allows evil regularly to steal a march on democracy. Sometimes, as in the 1930s, more than one. This is helped by a constant and deliberate, unrepentant resort to lies, misdirection, and faux egalitarianism on evil's part, which seizes on and transmogrifies every instance of inequality, every failure of imagination, and every slippage of morality to pummel the presumed upholders of a failed, mendacious status quo with glibly rendered, self-evident truths and quick-fixes.
The road to madness is likewise paved in part by intellectual Quislings and flagrant opportunists, viz the shrill Western separatist crowd, who promise that a little sugar here, a little compromise there will stave off the imaginary wolf while, coincidentally, stuffing their own pockets and placating their own self-interested base. Every threatened polity has seen such internal cowardice and greed; every surviving one has had to make terrible choices and long-term investments of mind and matter to see them off. It isn't, in the end, the ignorant that float MAGA's boat, though dumbness and the hollowing out of civil society certainly helps. It is, rather, the acquisitive, the amoral, the rapacious, the grotesquely wealthy, the unimaginatively thuggish and violent. The comparison of Miller to Hitler is apt, perfect, and thunderous. You are not misreading the moment. Nor am I. Canadians need to think, act, and plan accordingly. And really, really quickly.
As always, Dan, so on point! If only we could live long enough to see the “slow fade away” of the current fascists in power to the south of us. I fear the erosion and descent into law of the jungle/rule of the strong over the weak has only just started. At this early juncture, all we can do is name the evil that is now dominating: fascism, as you have continually done. After having served as a Canadian foreign service officer in Cuba, I know only too well that fascists can come in all political stripes - communist, libertarian or anarchist - controlling the weak is a reflex common to all rogue regimes. We have a rogue regime now on our doorstep. Appreciate you reminding readers about Thucydides and Athens.