By CJ Werleman
America is on the precipice of a fascist uprising. While liberals have consistently leveled the f-word against opponents on the right, much the same way conservatives have appropriated socialist or Marxist against those on the political left, there is now data showing that proto-fascist movements are on the rise.
The kindling for the fire of fascism has already been lit. While the Republican Party holds at least one branch of the federal government, America will never be able to deal intelligently and earnestly with the economic policies that have destroyed the working class and all but decimated the middle class. A GOP congress guarantees that Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage, reform the tax code and repair our crumbling infrastructure will be thwarted, all in the name of protecting the rich from paying their fair share.
Long-term unemployment promises to be the norm, as well stagnant and poverty-level wages, foreclosures, crippling personal debt and bankruptcies, the evaporation of savings and retirement funds, the outsourcing of jobs, the continued dilapidation of our schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and airports, and the regulations that safeguard our food, water, and clean air. All this comes courtesy of obscene profits, bonuses, taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and compensation being doled out to our corporate overlords.
“It [USA] is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” says Noam Chomsky. “The parallels are striking, and the United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen.”
With such profound structural economic malaise, and a reluctance of the Democratic Party to protect New Deal ideals, Chomsky warns, “If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest, this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger, and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says, ‘I have got just the answer, we have an enemy’? There [Germany] it was the Jews. Here it will be illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is a world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful protagonists. I don’t think this is all far away. If the polls are accurate, it is not the Republicans but the right-wing crazed Republicans who will sweep the November election.”
A recent New York Times op-ed titled “The Data of Hate” speaks to Chomsky’s warnings. Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, founded the online hate site Strormfront in 1995. Its most popular social groups are “Union of Nationalist Socialists” (aka Nazis) and “Fans and Supporters of Adolf Hitler” (more Nazis). According to Quantcast, the site had more than 400,000 visitors last month. A Southern Poverty Law Center report linked nearly 100 murders in the past five years to registered Stormfront members.
“The white nationalist posters on Stormfront have issues with many different groups. They often write about crimes committed by African-Americans against whites; they complain about an ‘invasion’ of Mexicans; and they love to mock gays and feminists. But their main problem appears to be with Jewish people,” writes Seth Stephens-Davidowtiz.
The day Barack Obama was elected president, Nov. 5, 2008, saw the biggest single increase in membership in the site’s history.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calculates there are 939 far-right-wing hate groups across the country today, including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, border vigilantes and others.
