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America: It’s Not Your Grandparents’ Fascism
With flippant Nazi salutes by the Trump entourage, and high ranking US government officials openly supporting neo-Nazis in Germany, you may be thinking, “Welp, that’s it. A doltish version of Hitler is consolidating power. Get ready for World War Three.” But there are some differences between Donald Trump and fascist leaders of the past.
The foremost difference is that the richest person on Earth, mostly unfettered by law, now personally runs the United States government. He isn’t just Iago to Trump’s Othello, or Machiavelli to Trump’s Florentine Republic, or Darth Vader to Trump’s Emperor Palpatine, or Lady MacBeth to Trump’s MacBeth, or Sam to Trump’s iCarly. Elon Musk is the puppet master. He is Geppetto to Trump’s Pinocchio.
Many of us worked in the 1980s to bring down the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. Now, the human embodiment of that evil has oozed its way to America and is quickly taking over all levers of power, with Trump as a convenient, dull-witted avatar. Or, in computer programming terms, Trump is a weak reference proxy.
What can we expect from the new American fascism? Right-wing racist and sexist policies, of course, as those are ideological tools to prop up the ruling elite. But the main raison d’être of this brand of fascist plutocracy, or billionism, is increasing and safeguarding the…
