When Fascism Comes To America

This Sunday, to bookend the week of midterm elections, I’d like to offer a second Sunday sermon. I want to share some considerations that expound on last Sunday’s message.

Running up to this past Tuesday’s election, the Party of Trump and FOX(R) did their best to portray Democrats and dissenting Americans as an angry mob.

It is pure projection, of course.

Nazi Tiki parades, Klansmen, and the thuggish Proud Boys show us the real angry mobs are Trumpist bigots.

White Nationalists have been even further radicalized and emboldened by the hateful rhetoric of Trump. Since 9-11, American right-wing terrorism and its body count has been keeping pace with violent Jihadists.

And it’s only getting worse. Anti-Semitic and other hate crimes are increasing in the Trump era.

Want to see another angry mob?

Trump rallies are not celebrations of tax cuts and deregulation. It's all about their resentment, anger and rage in an extended version of Orwell’s “Two minute hate”. Lately journalists and black women seem to be getting a special serving of ire.

So why are they so angry, even while holding most of the power of our government?

They are frightened. They believe in all their fear-mongering, scapegoating, conspiracies, and lies.

White Nationalism is in a frenzied panic. They still see themselves as the real oppressed “victims”, you know. They want to wield political power as a means to social and cultural dominance. As I said, it isn’t about tax cuts and deregulation. If it were, they would be happy now. No, they want to divide, conquer and rule. They will eventually fail in that goal, but their damage to truth, democracy, and decency will take decades to reverse.

And there is always the possibility that war can erupt at any time with nationalists in power, so there’s that.

The fact that corporate power is allied with, and abetted by, white nationalism will make it all the harder to uproot.

I'm not convinced the planet and civilization can emerge intact from the dire consequences of this plague of white nationalism. Global warming tells us time may not be on our side.

But I am convinced that not resisting will only allow them to double down on their destruction of our democratic republic and to get away with their rampage. So resist we must. This is our unending struggle for truth, democracy and decency.

We need to understand how creeping extremism insinuates itself into our society and subsumes large segments of our population.

The Trump Cult is loaded with fundamentalist Evangelicals, and it is proving religion is usually woven into the fabric of extremism and fascism.

These guys understood how it works:

On October 10, 1936 Heinrich Himmler created the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion, or Special Office (II S), a sub-department of Executive Department II of the Gestapo.

The inspiration?

"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life." - Adolph Hitler "My New World Order" - Proclamation to the German Nation, Berlin, February 1, 1933

(Just to note, “Nation and National” appear FIVE times in those three sentences. “Socialism”? Zero. Socialism only appears after “National”. So yes, Nazis are nationalists after all. Remember “First they came for the socialists”?)

We recall the Wehrmacht's belt buckles were stamped with "Gott Mitt Uns".

The reactionary intolerance and bigotry of violent Jihadism and White Nationalism are cut from the same cloth. They even share targeting of Jews. And they all hate liberals, dissent, and a free press. Fusing politics and religion is always destructive to life, truth, and democracy.

Godwin's Law has been revised by Godwin himself: "First, let me get this Donald Trump issue out of the way: If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician."

The Trump cult is proving to be the spawn of nationalism and fundamentalism. A match made in hell, I dare say. 

The very real and very deadly threat of the American Axis of Evil brings us to consider the theme often attributed to Sinclair Lewis, although no one can source the exact quote.

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

Whoever first said it was paying attention to the simmering undercurrent of far Right America.

Also attributed to Sinclair Lewis, without source:

“The worst Fascists were they who disowned the word “Fascism” and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”

Now we’re getting to the inner essence of the radical Right.

The following are more great statements on the merging of religion, corporatism, and nationalism into the roots of American neo-fascism.

“Every robber or oppressor in history has wrapped himself in a cloak of patriotism or religion, or both. I am not a patriot as defined in the lexicon of the house of Morgan. I’d not murder my fellow men of my own accord, and why should I do it at the behest of the master class?” - Eugene Debs

“No wonder Jackson said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels’. He had the Wall Street gentry in mind or their prototypes, at least; for in every age it has been the tyrant, who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both.” - Eugene Debs

“The Ku Klux Klan comes wrapped in the American flag, as it were, advocating the American principles openly, with a Bible in its hand, and the very next day they are passing their neighbors with a mask over their faces.” Lonnie Jackson, mayor of Central City, Kentucky and president of District No. 23 of the United Mine Workers of America, 1923

“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, Americanism.” - Professor Halford E. Luccock of the Divinity School of Yale University, September 1938.

“The truth is that Henry Wallace and former President Roosevelt have advocated supplementing our political Bill of Rights with an economic charter of rights, so that Fascism will not slip up on us wrapped in the flag and traveling in the name of free enterprise.” - Irving Johns letter published in the “Cleveland Plain Dealer 1945

And lest we forget America’s Last Prophet:

“When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts … Germany lost the Second World War. Fascism won it. Believe me, my friend.” – George Carlin

Now the American Axis of Evil comes into clear focus. That should just about cover it, but I would add this:

When Fascism comes to America, Americans will not recognize it.

When Fascism comes to America, Americans will want to be great again.

When Fascism comes to America, Americans will welcome it.

- Dave Dubya