I subscribe to several other Substack newsletters, and on one of them recently there appeared a discussion thread whose genesis was an article by former Secretary of the Labor Robert B. Reich, wherein he charged the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a fascist. Now of course Reich is a fool and an ignoramus whose views on just about any subject you care to name belong in the shredder bin. But as if to ratify the French proverb that a fool can always find bigger fools to admire him, the subscribers to this newsletter—a supermajority of whom are progressives—took up the cry. Yes, they agreed, Ron DeSantis is indeed a fascist.
Well, for anyone (like me) who knows something about the history of fascism, this was annoying—also disquieting. Aside from demonstrating once again that it’s possible nowadays to graduate from college without having learned much of anything, it supplied sad evidence of American political culture’s parlous condition. If people who claim to champion “our democracy” can say and believe such things, then “our democracy” is a dead letter. The forms may remain, but the animating spirit has fled.
It's true that fascist-shouting has long been a favorite pastime among liberals and progressives. Name me one recent American president with (R) behind his name who has not been equated with Hitler, Mussolini, et al. But now, alas, the practice has been adopted by the one American who represents us all, the President of the United States.
Joe Biden has taken to denouncing those Americans whom he is pleased to call “MAGA Republicans” as “semi-fascists” who pose an existential threat to “our democracy.” When you consider that in the 2020 presidential election some 74 million voters checked Donald Trump’s name, it becomes clear that Biden has declared war on quite a lot of his fellow citizens.
In so doing he shows himself, first, to be an ignorant boob. One can no more be a “semi-fascist” than a woman—pardon me, birthing person—can be just a little bit pregnant. But second, and far more ominously, he shows where the real threat to democracy resides: the Oval Office.
Donald Trump was denounced—rightly—for his malice and divisiveness. But even he did not go so far as to use the occasion of a televised presidential address to revile millions of his fellow citizens as enemies of America. But that’s exactly what Joe Biden is going to do tonight. He may try to qualify his words or claim that he is using “semi-fascist” as a figure of speech. What he won’t do is the only thing he could do to show that he is not after all a vile old man without principles or scruples: apologize to the American people for disgracing his office with this inflammatory rhetoric.
And since he won’t do that, and since progressives are likely to cheer him on or, at best, make up excuses for him, I can find no reason to mince my own words.
The real threat to American democracy comes from the incumbent president and his administration, the Democratic Party, and progressivism in the large. It is they who aspire to tear up the Constitution of the United States and turn this country into a one-party people’s democracy. It is they who aspire to suppress the civil rights and liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights. Since the American political system makes it hard for progressives to get their way, they propose to tear it down and build anew.
I mentioned above that I do know something about real, historical fascisms. When the National Socialist Party came to power in Germany (January 30, 1933), they embarked upon just such a campaign of destruction and rebuilding as described above. Every institution of government, every sector of civil society and the economy, was “coordinated” with the new regime. The constitution of the Weimar Republic was first disregarded, then consigned to oblivion. All impediments to the consolidation of the Nazi Party’s absolute power were swept aside. And this, in the guise of defending “our democracy” from “semi-fascists,” is the progressive plan for America.
As Ben Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, someone shouted a question: “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin replied. But can we keep it despite being cursed with a despicable president like Joe Biden and his equally despicable Democratic Party?
I have my doubts.