THE DUOPOLY WATCH |
Steven
Jonas, MD, MPH
As I said in beginning the first column
in this series, “fascism” is a term we hear from all sorts of folk these days,
ranging from some of those on the Left over occasionally to some on the
Right. I then presented a “classical” definition of the term (and there
surely are a number of useful ones):
“A
politico-economic system in which there is: total executive branch control of
both the legislative and administrative powers of government; no independent judiciary;
no Constitution that embodies a Rule of Law standing above the people who run
the government and the executive, legislative and judicial bodies through which
they do so; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a single national
ideology that first demonizes and then criminalizes all political, religious,
and ideological opposition to it; the massive and regular use of hate, fear,
racial and religious prejudice, the Big Lie technique, mob psychology, mob
actions and ultimately individual and collective violence to achieve political
and economic ends; a capitalist/corporate economy; with the ruling economic
class’ domination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.”
Fascism has almost always appeared in
advanced or moderately-advanced capitalist countries which were hitherto ruled
by some sort of “parliamentary democracy.” Fascism has always been
imposed upon a country by the dominant sectors of its capitalist ruling class
when that class has come to the conclusion that it can no longer retain control
of the political economy through “parliamentary” means. Note that in the
definition above I did not include as part of it the ultimate control of state
power by one person, usually known as the “dictator” or “leader”.
Of course it happened that in the two principal 20th century
examples of fascist states, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, there was one such
person. As noted in the first column in this series:
“Because
of the roles that Hitler and Mussolini played in leading and ruling their respective
countries it is often thought that fascism requires such a singular leader/dictator and the
cult-of-personality that was built around each. In fact Hitler and
Mussolini both adopted the term ‘leader’ to describe themselves, ‘führer’ in
German and ‘Duce’ in Italian.”
Very strong cults of personality were
carefully built around the two men by their respective propaganda apparatuses.
For example, after 1938 or so, in Nazi Germany if one did not substitute “Heil
Hitler” for the usual “Good Morning,” etc. throughout the day, one
might be looked upon with suspicion. Furthermore, a singular
characteristic of 20th fascism was that its institutionalization in
a given country was accomplished by the use of violence, of one form or
another.
When we are looking at 21st
century fascism, in the context of what is happening in certain of the
capitalist states, at the present particularly in the United States, it should
be noted that it is entirely possible that wholesale violence will not be
required for its introduction. Nor will a maximum leader necessarily
be required. Like the fog in the famous, ultra-short poem by the U.S. person
Carl Sandburg, it may well come in “on little cat feet.”
As the history of the last 150 years or
so shows us, in most capitalist countries the ruling class would much rather
retain its private ownership of the means of production and control of the
State apparatus through the aforementioned form of “parliamentary democracy”
(as long as it can control it). There are a variety of reasons for this,
one being that it maintains the fiction that the non-owning classes have some
real say in the governance of the economy as well as of the State.
But the principal contradictions of
capitalism eventually begin to settle in, as is happening right before our very
eyes in the United States: the export of capital and the resulting
de-industrialization; the declining rate of profit, the necessity of the
creation and expansion into unorthodox profit centers like prisons and the
educational system; increasing numbers of workers languishing outside of the
labor market, and so on and so forth. Under such conditions—all inherent
in capitalism’s dynamics—it becomes less-and-less easy for the ruling class to
maintain control. At that point, some sort of fascism starts to become
ever more attractive. But how to get from A to B? In a nation like
the United States, with Constitutionally-split government authority, that’s
easy: through the Constitution. And so, in the 21st century,
in the United States at least, I believe we will eventually arrive at what can
be called Constitutional Fascism.
Using the increasingly corrupt electoral
system, which the Republicans have been deliberately undermining by
gerrymandering, voter suppression, and outright vote-count cheating, they have
been taking total control of an increasing
number of state governments, upwards of 2 dozen after the 2015
elections. For the same reasons they will control the House of
Representatives for the indefinite future. If they retain their Senate
majority in 2016, they will very likely do away with the filibuster on Jan. 3,
2017. For a variety of reasons, if they somehow manage to choose the
right candidate, they could very well win the Presidency in 2016, for they have
managed the very clever trick of forcing President Obama to accept many of
their economic/fiscal policies and then getting to blame him for the negative
outcomes of same. Finally, the other side of the Duopoly plays right into
this because the Democrats—the other face of the deep corporate state and
international imperialism— rarely fight back on the real issues, the issues
that matter from a class perspective.
“In the 21st century, in the
United States at least…wholesale violence may not be required. Gradually, step
by unnoticed step, I believe we will eventually arrive at what can be called
Constitutional Fascism.”
So, as we have seen, in this cynical
Kabuki, it is the Repubs. who take the lead toward the slaughterhouse, while
the Democrats simply follow, by passively eventually assenting to most policies
proposed by the “party of business.” Thus, in a systematic way, more and more,
the Repubs. are running on and/or intent on implanting most of the central
elements of the definition of fascism offered above, through the use of the
electoral system, which they can do because A) as mentioned earlier, the limp
opposition of the Democratic Party, and B) the non-existence of any sort of
mass labor union movement, following the Repubs.’ successful campaign to
destroy it, a process that has been going on since the passage
of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. (Again a bipartisan project).
None of this would be so outrageously
easy in the presence of a functioning, autonomous media that took its duties
seriously. That, however, does not exist in the US anymore, if it ever did. The
American media, conceits aside, in the complete hands of the corporate
plutocracy, are simply one more propaganda platform—perhaps the most
effective—to bolster and disseminate the prevailing capitalist ideology.
The true left, minuscule in its media presence, forever fragmented and
improvident in strategic regards, has nothing to respond with, no instruments
with which to access the public debate.
Combining that with the virtually
non-existent labor movement and political parties of labor, is why the fascism
mongers may well be able achieve their goals “constitutionally.” What
they will do to the Constitution by amendments (that they are already talking
about) once they get full control of the Supreme Court, 40 state governments,
2/3’s of the Congress, and the Presidency will then play itself out. And
the nation will have become fully fascist functionally, without violence,
without a maximum leader, with, on paper two political parties offering
“choice.” A perfect Orwellian democracy.
If you would like to see how this may
well play out, please see my book, The 15% Solution: How the
Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022
(Punto Press Publishing, 2013). The original edition was published in
1996, and believe me I didn’t make up any of it. “The 15% Solution” in
the title comes from a voter-suppression program designed by an organization
called the “Christian Coalition” in the late 1980s. I just looked at what
the Republicans and their soul-mates in the Religious Right were telling us, back
into the 1980s, what they would do if they ever got significant control
over the levers of government. And they are doing it. Indeed, as
the overall economic conditions continue to worsen, and as racism, homophobia,
and misogyny, all underlain by religious determinism, continue to expand in
their domination of Republican politics, fascism will creep in like Sandburg’s
fog, on little cat feet. But it will be a highly poisonous fog.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Senior Editor, Politics, Steven Jonas,
MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook
University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books.
In addition to being Senior Editor, Politics, for The Greanville Post, he is: a Contributor
for American Politics to The Planetary Movement;
a “Trusted Author” for Op-Ed News.com;
a contributor to the “Writing for Godot” section of Reader
Supported News; and a contributor to From The G-Man. He is the
Editorial Director and a Contributing Author for TPJmagazine.us.
Further, he is an occasional Contributor to TheHarderStuff newsletter, BuzzFlash Commentary,
and Dandelion Salad.
Dr. Jonas’ latest book is The 15%
Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S.,
1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013,
and available on Amazon.
