Some thoughts on fascism

Vice President Henry Wallace

To some people, what the Republican Party has become constitutes some form of fascist or something approaching that. Naturally, Republicans and most conservatives generally strongly dispute that. They consider the GOP and themselves to be democratic patriots valiantly fighting against the Democratic Party and liberal efforts to destroy America, outlaw Christianity and impose some form of evil socialist or communist tyranny. 

A short post at Free Thought Blogs considered what fascism is in a post entitled The different forms of fascism:

The specter of fascism in the US has been raised with the presidency of Donald Trump. While he has openly flirted with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, his defenders have said that his behavior does not imply fascist sympathies.

The problem is that fascism does not take a single form. In an article in the April/May 2020 issue of The Progressive, John Nichols looks back at the warnings that Henry Wallace, a progressive who in 1944 was vice-president to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, gave about the danger of fascism emerging in the US then and what were some of its signs.

“The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way,” argued Wallace in his essay. He charged that those who sought to divide the United States along lines of race, religion, and class could be “encountered in Wall Street, Main Street, or Tobacco Road.”

“Some even suspect,” Wallace wrote, “that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac.”

Wallace did not limit his critique of American fascism to the overt racists and anti-Semites that at least some of the mainstream politicians of his day decried. He was determined to go deeper, to talk about the enablers of the racists and anti-Semites.

“The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others,” Wallace wrote. “The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis.” Rather, he warned of “a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information and those who stand for the KKK type of demagoguery.”

This was a definition of fascism that brought the issues of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, of media manipulation and political machination, home to America. Wallace even saw the prospects of an American fascism in the predictable machinations of big business.

“Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise,” he wrote. “In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”

…

Even today, there are debates about how to define fascism, but we recognize now that it cannot be identified by a single rigid set of characteristics. Fascism “takes on the colors and practices of each nation it infects,” author Adam Gopnik observed in 2016. “In Italy, it is bombastic and neo-classical in form. In Spain, Catholic and religious. In Germany, violent and romantic.” He added: “It is no surprise that the American face of fascism would take on the forms of celebrity television.” 

And Henry Giroux, a cultural critic who has written extensively on authoritarianism, says: “Fascism looks different in different cultures, depending on that culture. In fact, it is the essence of fascism to have no single, fixed form.”

 

Wallace’s strong critiques of the enablers of American fascism earned him the ire of the ruling classes and the supporters of big business including, of course, establishment media like the New York Times. Their opposition led to him being denied the re-nomination as vice-president in 1944, replaced by FDR with Harry Truman.

The Nichols essay in The Progressive Magazine includes this: 

Wallace did not limit his critique of American fascism to the overt racists and anti-Semites that at least some of the mainstream politicians of his day decried. He was determined to go deeper, to talk about the enablers of the racists and anti-Semites.

“The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others,” Wallace wrote. “The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis.” Rather, he warned of “a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information and those who stand for the KKK type of demagoguery.”

This was a definition of fascism that brought the issues of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, of media manipulation and political machination, home to America. Wallace even saw the prospects of an American fascism in the predictable machinations of big business.

“Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise,” he wrote. “In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”

This was all too much for the editorial page of The Times, which took the extraordinary step of denouncing Wallace’s essay on the very Sunday it was published in the newspaper’s magazine. Decrying what it referred to as the “shrill cries of ‘Fascist’ ” that foster “an atmosphere charged with emotion, suspicion, and bitterness,” the Times editorial accused Wallace of going too far in his denunciations of monopolies and cartels.

“It is astonishing that Mr. Wallace cannot see that in going to such lengths he approaches the very intolerance that he condemns,” the editorial said. The Times was effectively arguing that “it can’t happen here.”  

Wallace initially ignored The Times editorials demanding that he explain what he meant when he spoke of the “American fascist.” But he eventually wrote his famous reply, which filled three pages of its Sunday magazine on April 9, 1944.

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact,” Wallace wrote. “Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy . . . . They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.”

The fight against American fascism would not be waged by pointing fingers of blame at this industrialist or that editor, Wallace wrote, but rather by remaining on “guard against intolerance, bigotry, and the pretension of invidious distinction.”

That was the 1940s. Is it true that, as the New York Times wrote that fascism can't happen here, and simply condemning it in blunt terms amounts to something that approaches the intolerance that actual fascism usually evinces? Does what Wallace tried to warn about in the 1940s look a lot like the Republican Party of 2021?

How Joe Manchin and his family makes his money and betrays West Virginia

This 8 minute video goes into some detail about Manchin and his family and how Manchin serves the people of West Virginia. I have argued here before that both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are corrupt. This gives a hint at how deeply corrupt Manchin really is. This is more evidence that ethics in the federal government is a toothless norm that has been blown to smithereens. Ethics in government is now mostly extinct in view of how corrupt a US Senator can be and not be prosecuted. 

The disappearing small family farm

Jeff Uhler in his 1980s vintage harvester that 

he cannot afford to replace so keeps repairing himself

The New York Times writes about the impossible economic situation that many small and medium sized farms face. The economics are just not there to support small or midscale farming. The NYT writes about a struggling farm family in Nebraska:

In his earliest memories of his family’s farm, Ethan Uhlir rides in an old truck with his grandfather Arden, feeding cattle and mending fences.

Before Arden’s death five years ago, he “reminded me that I was a good cattleman,” Ethan said, and “I have to keep it like that.”

Ethan, now 17, still notices his grandfather’s wiring technique in fence posts scattered across the farm in the rolling plains of northeast Nebraska, along the South Dakota border. He walks along the same paths as six generations of Uhlirs, but Ethan may be the last to work the land.

“There’s enough labor for four people but not enough income for one,” his father, Jeff, said.

Like most farmers, Jeff sells his cattle, corn and soybeans at prices set by a global commodities market, but only large farms can absorb the narrow profit margins.

Though the family’s small farm is valuable — its 880 acres [1.375 sq. mi.] are assessed at $1.3 million — property taxes eat up most of the money it does make.

Even in a good year when the farm grosses $60,000, Jeff feels lucky if he has money left over for savings. [what constitutes a bad year, ~$40,000?]

“I’ll have to work an hour before my funeral,” Jeff, 51, said. “I have no retirement.”

For families like the Uhlirs, farming is increasingly unsustainable, as drought and extreme weather, fluctuating commodity prices and rising costs alter the economics of running a small- to midsize operation. Hundreds of family farms file for bankruptcy each year in the United States, with the largest share routinely coming from the Midwest.

Nebraska’s high property taxes, which it collects from its 93 counties and reapportions, are compounded by Knox County’s shrinking population.

About 8,400 people live in the county, down 26.8 percent over the last 40 years. With fewer taxpayers, farmers who own hundreds of acres must shoulder the cost of schools, roads and other public services. After paying for necessities like fertilizer, seed and pesticides, Jeff must cover a $15,965.68 property tax bill.

Nebraska’s agricultural land property taxes are 46 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2019 report by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and most farmers pay 50 to 60 percent of their net income in taxes [that seems too high].

Sixty percent of Nebraska property taxes pay for schools.

Next fall, Ethan hopes to pursue an associate degree in nursing. “I don’t think that I would be able to financially support myself just living off the farm,” he said.

On a crisp, bright afternoon in early October, Ethan watched his father weld their broken 1980s combine harvester head, which cuts and threshes corn.

Most of “the equipment we have, my grandfather bought,” Ethan said.

Ethan had once hoped to be named the Future Farmers of America’s “Star Farmer,” just like his grandfather Arden in 1960.

During the 1980s farm crisis, Arden nearly lost the farm. He took on debt and worked to pay it off up until the last few years of his life. His wife, Karen, worked for 16 years in an Alzheimer’s unit at an assisted-living facility in Verdigre.

“They never went to the dentist. They couldn’t afford to,” Jeff said. “They never went on vacation. They never spent any money on each other.”

Seeing his parents struggle, Jeff has avoided debt.

“I’d love to be able to buy land close to me and expand what I do, but there ain’t no way at 51 years old,” he said. “I’d have to live to 160 to be able to pay it off.”

Jeff’s financial situation is worse than previous generations, he said. “Every year, the property valuations get higher and everything else don’t keep up.”

The family has farmed the land for 151 years, he said. “How do I sell it?”

Knox County classifies four soil types when taxing agricultural use of land, and much of Jeff’s soil received the highest rating and a higher tax rate, despite lower yields than farms in other counties with less sandy soil. “We're taxed based on sales and soil composition,” he said. “At no point does rainfall become a factor.” [F]or more than two months, “we didn’t get a drop” of rain. Drought yielded short ears of corn and tiny, pea-sized soybeans.

Farming becomes more challenging as he ages, Jeff says, and he wonders what it will be like without Ethan next year, when he’s at college. “As my helper goes away, things get tougher.”

“At some point, the people raising your food are going to be dead,” Jeff said. “Once we’re gone, we’re not coming back.”

Karen and Jeff Uhler

This story resonated because my dad worked on farms all over Eastern Nebraska years ago. He probably worked on the Uhlir farm at some time or another. I might have worked there with him. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the farm economy was better and small to medium sized farm operations generally did better. The little towns still had some life in them. Now many small towns are withering away. The economy is forcing many family farmers to sell, sometimes to agriculture giants like Cargill ($115 billion revenue in 2020) and ADM ($64 billion).

When the economy does not support something, it has to eventually cease operating or be independently supported somehow. What, if anything, should be done? 

American democracy gets downgraded as it drifts into right wing authoritarianism

American fascists exercising their right to

speech and assembly

“We need to make sure that we're getting to the bottom of some very abnormal, anomalistic, strange or irregular things that happened, so that we don't have a repeat of that. We've got to have confidence in our election.” --- Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), House Freedom Caucus, 2021

After the 2020 US presidential election Donald Trump refused to concede, alleging widespread and unparalleled voter fraud. Trump’s supporters deployed several statistical arguments in an attempt to cast doubt on the result. Reviewing the most prominent of these statistical claims, we conclude that none of them is even remotely convincing. The common logic behind these claims is that, if the election were fairly conducted, some feature of the observed 2020 election result would be unlikely or impossible. In each case, we find that the purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not anomalous. --- A.C. Eggers, H. Garro, and J. Grimmer, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nov. 9, 2021, 118 (45)  e2103619118;   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2103619118  

One group of democracy watchers has downgraded America's democracy to "backsliding" status as anti-democratic authoritarianism continues its relentless attacks on democracy. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance writes: 

Perhaps the greatest blow to democratic ideals was the fall of the people’s government in Afghanistan, which has seen war being waged for the sake of preserving democratic principles. Significantly, the United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale.

This is a story in which democracies are being weakened because the underlying polis—without which no set of democratic institutions is durable—is being rent asunder by different forces, from the polarization nurtured by social media and disinformation to grotesque levels of economic inequality. It is also a tale in which democracies are hollowed out by the citizens’ loss of faith in the ability of democratic institutions to respond to social demands and solve problems, as well as by the toxic disease of corruption, which demolishes any semblance of trust. Add to this the credibility-sapping blunders performed by leading democratic powers over the past two decades—from the invasion of Iraq to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and to the violently contested elections in the United States—and the simultaneous emergence of credible alternative models of governance, and we have the equivalent of a witches’ brew for the global health of democracy. The pandemic has simply made that brew thicker and more poisonous.

The Global State of Democracy 2021 shows that more countries than ever are suffering from ‘democratic erosion’ (decline in democratic quality), including in established democracies. The number of countries undergoing ‘democratic backsliding’ (a more severe and deliberate kind of democratic erosion) has never been as high as in the last decade, and includes regional geopolitical and economic powers such as Brazil, India and the United States. 

More than a quarter of the world’s population now live in democratically backsliding countries. Together with those living in outright non-democratic regimes, they make up more than two-thirds of the world’s population.

Electoral integrity is increasingly being questioned, often without evidence, even in established democracies. The former US President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations during the 2020 US presidential election have had spillover effects, including in Brazil, Mexico, Myanmar and Peru, among others.

Democratically elected governments, including established democracies, are increasingly adopting authoritarian tactics. This democratic backsliding has often enjoyed significant popular support.

Authoritarianism is deepening in non-democratic regimes (hybrid and authoritarian regimes). The year 2020 was the worst on record, in terms of the number of countries affected by deepening autocratization.

Disputes about electoral outcomes are on the rise, including in established democracies. A historic turning point came in 2020–2021 when former President Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States. Baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021.

Over the past two pandemic years, different groups’ varying levels of enjoyment of civil and political liberties have also become apparent. In many of these cases, these inequalities are longstanding; the context of the pandemic, however, has refocused attention on them. In the United States, for example, research indicates that some states’ voter registration and voting laws, either recently approved or currently under discussion, end up disproportionately affecting minorities in a negative way.

CBS News comments on the report:

The United States has joined an annual list of "backsliding" democracies for the first time, the International IDEA think-tank said on Monday, pointing to a "visible deterioration" that it said began in 2019. Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or "hybrid" regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

"This year we coded the United States as backsliding for the first time, but our data suggest that the backsliding episode began at least in 2019," it said in its report titled "Global State of Democracy 2021."

International IDEA bases its assessments on 50 years of democratic indicators in around 160 countries, assigning them to three categories: democracies (including those that are "backsliding"), "hybrid" governments and authoritarian regimes.

"The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States, as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarization... is one of the most concerning developments," said International IDEA secretary-general Kevin Casas-Zamora.

Questions: 

1. Although Republicans claim their new election laws are not intended to suppress votes or rig elections and instead just attack the massive vote fraud that made the 2020 election invalid, is their explanation credible based on facts available to the public and unbiased reasoning?

2. The think tank analysis claims that American democratic deterioration became visible in 2019, but were there earlier signs of decline such as how the Republican Party ignored political norms, e.g., with the Merrick Garland nomination, refusal to compromise and refusal to exercise power in good faith? Or, has the GOP been exercising power in good faith all along, including in its messaging?