MAGA is fascism

Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump (Photo credit: David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images)

Outrage sells — or at least it does around some conference tables somewhere likely between New York City and Washington DC.

The American media is as lost as it is unethical and bewildered. The ethics of the Watergate era are dead. They were killed by media executives, mergers, opportunity, cynicism and money. Looking back through the years on a straight line, what changed? During my lifetime, it was perhaps the OJ Simpson trial — more than anything else — that birthed the new era of idiocracy. In this regard, Greta Van Susteren may be the greatest explorer in MAGA history. She is like a latter day astronaut returned to Earth from Mars to help guide America through our troubled times and sort it all out from her Newsmax perch.

The reaction to President Biden’s speech clarified perfectly the role that the ubiquitous American political media plays as a collective force in imposing the vision — or in this case, the delusions of a few on the whole nation. The political media has come to be the magnet under our great national compass that has distorted the bearings necessary to navigate forward on our collective national journey. The result is a world in which we are perpetually lost and gaslit. This is the world in which the fascists cry in that piercing way with which the lambs kept Clarice awake at night.

Before continuing, it is an obvious imperative in this era of great and unrivaled grievances that I am not referring to journalists like Dexter Filkins, Clarissa Ward, Christiane Amanpour, Richard Engel and thousands more, whether they carry a camera or a pen, who tell humanity’s story in the Earth’s most wretched and evil hell holes at great risk to their lives. Nor am I talking about the journalists who reveal, explain or protect the world by writing about science, technology or medicine. I’m not talking about the local news, community papers or investigative reporters who are trying to tell the truth, often against very powerful interests.

I’m talking about a transactionalist political media that is in business with Donald Trump. They have a symbiotic relationship that has been monetized for billions of dollars by media companies, while creating the most noxious waste product in American history, which is the MAGA movement. Truthfully, will a fair telling of Trump’s rise be possible without lengthy early chapters about the roles played by a political media that got onboard every bit as much as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley did? All of it is equally contemptible, and it is through this great fog that President Biden said some things that need to be said.

The word “fascism” has long been abused in American politics by ideological and journalistic hustlers looking to provoke or spice up the dreck on the political book shelf. Trump’s fascistic fancies have been on display for seven long years. They have helped create a legitimate fascist movement that seeks control over every facet of society, and seeks to routinely subordinate the dignity of the human being beneath the power of the state and the men and women who run it.

Let’s look at a couple of examples from this current moment to help evaluate the situation at present:

1. There was a violent conspiracy to overthrow the government on January 6, headed by Donald Trump and many elected leaders.

2. There are coordinated campaigns that seek to restrict voting and give politicians the power to nullify votes after the fact.

3. There are coordinated campaigns to ban books and impose control on school curriculums from pre-K to graduate school.

4. There are constant political coercions being made by governors like Abbott and DeSantis against private sector businesses that do not follow their political direction. This is thuggery.

5. Women are being specifically targeted with laws that restrict their agency and personhood, and include the first stripping of granted rights in American history.

6. There is a movement of Americans that has turned against democracy. They reject the will of the American people and have the arrogance to believe they have a right to rule.

7. There is a violent paramilitary extremism that has attached itself to the MAGA movement and Republican Party. The Proud Boys are fascist storm troopers. They also routinely protect GOP events for MAGA fascists like Matt Gaetz.

8. There is a religious extremism that has attached itself to the MAGA movement.

9. Many MAGA leaders and propagandists like Tucker Carlson have espoused an embrace of “racial purity” as part of their political dogma, and have attached it to what was once Trump’s venomous, yet still empty MAGA marketing slogan.

10. The former President of the United States is illegally in procession of the nation’s most secret information. The FBI served a lawful search warrant. As a result of this, there has been a spasm of threats, including calls for civil war, assassination, mass violence and targeted killing. Every single instance of violent threat is attached to the MAGA movement.

MAGA is a fascist movement. America First was a fascist moment, and it remains so. Fascist movements are filled with a sordid collection of opportunists, marginalized weirdos and hangers on. Let’s examine a few of the leading lights from America’s fascist movement who are looking for the power of life and death in 2022:

1. JD Vance: JD used to run a fake opiod charity, bringing corrupt doctors to the people with whom he grew up, and told them that OxyContin wasn’t addictive and wouldn’t hurt them. He also believes a woman who is beaten should stay married to her abuser to strengthen family values. He wants to be a US Senator so he can make that the law.

2. Mehmet Oz: This New Jersey fraud and TV hustler is a Turkish citizen losing the Pennsylvania US Senate race.

3. Herschel Walker: Herschel Walker used to have 12 personalities until he was cured by a specialist in demonic possession. He likes to play Russian roulette in his spare time, and has repeatedly held guns to the heads of his partners. He calls it love.

4. Blake Masters: Blake Masters is the Peter Thiel pet and extremist who just recently scrubbed all of his promises to make abortion completely illegal off of his website. He wanted to make abortion murder, and define it as such in the US Constitution.

There are dozens more candidates who are as equally extreme and dishonest who are all running under the MAGA banner at all levels of government. It is a coordinated campaign, and it is crystal clear about its aims. Its aims are the destruction of the US government so that freedom may be preserved.

All of this is a sick and twisted philosophy that has been reimagined for a new century. A few weeks back, Viktor Orban, the fascistic prime minister of Hungary, came to Dallas at the invitation of Matt Schlapp. He delivered a war speech. He was speaking to his fellow travelers, and they cheered when he talked about the coming assaults on pluralism, decency and democracy. The Associated Press compared the fascist confab to Woodstock in just the billionth example over the last seven years of media fails that has blinded America to danger — by failing to see reality and understand the connections between promises and actions, and the past and tomorrow.

Yet, defining the fascists as such and telling the truth about them will not be enough. President Biden must push further. He must talk about what unites us, and lead from the front on this point. Donald Trump does not command a movement of 74 million anything. His MAGA movement of activists is relatively small. He controls the institutions of one of the two political parties with a crew that, at most numbers, in the thousands. They seek control, and when they achieve power, they will have enough to amplify those small numbers into a force that threatens all 330 million of us who want peace, prosperity and justice for our time and our children’s time.

Truth is the best disinfectant. The President hit the mark. This would have been a lot easier to deal with seven years ago. Americans did not choose that path. The good news is that the American people will get another choice. The bad news is that, if they make the wrong one, they will give power to people who want to make sure it is the last choice they ever get.

Fascists hate democracy, but they usually kill it by successfully using it. The American media should remember that the next time they redefine the plain meaning of a plain word. The word is “fascist.” Here is what the man who invented it said about it.