By Finian Cunningham
November 21, 202:
Information Clearing House
-- The embrace of political
extremism by the Republican Party in the United
States has Constitutional historians worried about
the drift towards fascism. If that’s the case then
the hapless Biden administration may go down in
history as the imitation of the Weimar Republic
before the rise of American fascism.
This week saw two examples of how the Grand Old
Party of Abraham Lincoln has descended into
something of an extremist cult.
A Republican congressman, Paul Gosar (R-Arizona),
was formally
sanctioned for posting an edited cartoon video
depicting him murdering another lawmaker, Democrat
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York City). The
video also showed Gosar wielding swords in a bloody
attack on President Joe Biden.
The Republican politician remained unapologetic
about the incitement of violence. Most of his
congressional party members refused to vote for the
censure.
This is not simply about a silly video that can
be easily dismissed as a poor-taste joke.
There is an increasing endorsement of violence by
Republican members towards political opponents. That
is in line with GOP lawmakers openly taking public
positions in support of extreme far-right militia
groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Such
groups are best described as fascist, promoting
white supremacist ideology.
The other development this week was the formal
indictment of Steve Bannon in connection to his
alleged role in the January 6 insurrection at the
Capitol in Washington DC. Bannon is believed to have
coordinated with then-President Donald Trump in a
bid to overthrow the congressional certification of
Joe Biden’s election as the new president. On that
eventful day, Trump and his acolytes incited
thousands of supporters to violently assault the
Congress building. It was a coup attempt carried out
by far-right extremists fired up by spurious claims
of election fraud.
Trump is still lurking in the shadows of the U.S.
political process. Despite an impeachment over the
January 6 debacle, he has never been held to account
for what was an audacious fascist attack on the
democratic institutions. Trump continues to spout
the Big Lie about election fraud and being cheated
out of the White House. He rails against how Biden
is destroying America, accusing Biden with baseless
slogans of “radical socialism” and “cultural
Marxism”. Such labels are politically illiterate in
the narrow spectrum of America’s two-party system.
But they are handy for distracting voters from the
real class war that is being waged ruthlessly
against the majority of working Americans by the
oligarchic system, a system in which both parties
are loyal servants.
From the defiant, truculent demeanor of the
Republicans dismissing charges of political
violence, it is plausible to view the party as
gravitating towards fascism. Combined with that
drift is the espousal of racist enmity towards
ethnic minorities and immigrants who are denigrated
as “illegal aliens”. Republicans promote divisive
conspiracy theories such as “white replacement”
which claims that white Americans are deliberately
being marginalized by people of color.
The political language is becoming ever more
dogmatic and hateful whereby anyone not in agreement
with the Trump-dominated Republican Party is liable
to be vilified as a traitor and enemy. Among 13 GOP
lawmakers who voted for passing Biden’s $1 trillion
infrastructure bill, most of them were harassed by
party supporters whipped up by extremists like
Representative Majorie Taylor Greene. Some were even
sent death threats.
Here’s the rub: the crisis in American society
stems from capitalism and its oligarchy. Vast
inequality, poverty, unemployment, crumby social
welfare and healthcare, housing and education, and
so on, are all rooted in the historic failure of
U.S. capitalism. People like Trump and other GOP
grandees, as well as Democrats, are the
beneficiaries of the capitalist racket. Yet Trump
and his ilk, as well as clueless media pundits,
grossly mislead the public by telling them that
their problems all stem from the “radical socialism”
and “cultural Marxism” pushed by the Biden
administration.
Trump and the Republican Party are pushing
fascist politics as a panacea under the guise of
“Saving America”.
Biden and his effete Democrat administration are
aiding and abetting the rise of fascism in the U.S.
because they are too timid in challenging the
capitalist system and the entrenched oligarchy. The
Democrat Party is too busy pursuing superficial
“identify politics” rather than taking on the class
politics that really impact most Americans.
Biden and Democrats are merely tinkering with the
system in a vain attempt to make it softer. As the
old quip goes: what’s the difference between
Republicans and Democrats? The Dems use lube when
they are screwing you.
By this stage, however, the entire rapacious
system is destroying the fabric of U.S. society and
impoverishing tens of millions of Americans. What is
needed is a formidable, full-on socialist program
that transforms the system of private profit and
wealth for a tiny minority. The irony is that most
Americans, including ordinary Republicans and
Democrat voters, would probably support such a
radical policy.
But radical policy is not going to happen under
the Democrats. They will only prolong the system
that is crushing society under a false veneer of
“progressive reform”. In such futile circumstances,
the Trump fascists can prey on vulnerable people
looking for seeming quick fixes.
Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933) tinkered
with capitalist failure and in so doing thereby
created chaos and fomented extremism and fascism
which culminated in the Nazi Third Reich. The
soaring economic inflation and social woes under the
Biden administration, as well as increasing
disillusionment alongside the burgeoning of
extremist politics, point to a similarly disastrous
outcome awaiting the United States.
Finian Cunningham
has written extensively on international
affairs, with articles published in several
languages. He is a Master’s graduate in
Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of
Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a
musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news
media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish
Times and Independent.
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