Will The Public Turn The U.S. To Fascism?

Back in July, PragerU had a video of a woman named Karlyn Borysenko telling her story about how going to a Trump rally made her more sympathetic towards Trump voters. While there’s nothing wrong with that, understanding the ideology of your enemies is how you start to convince them otherwise, however, the way she described the Trump was jarring:

Inside, the atmosphere was electric — more like a rock concert than a political event. People were dancing and having a fantastic time. They were actually enjoying themselves.

I had this paragraph ringing in my head when I watched Pink Floyd: The Wall over the weekend. For those who have not seen it, it’s about a rock star named Pink who, due to his troubled past and present, isolates himself from the world around him. In one scene, Pink, while hyped up on drugs, does just what this woman praised the Trump rally for being. He holds a political rally in the style of a rock concert — that rally, however, is for a group called the hammers, which are a metaphor for fascism.

Although, calling it a metaphor seems to be putting it lightly. In everything but name, down to the gang that follows Pink being real British skinheads, these men are clearly meant to be fascists similar to the ones Pink’s father died fighting just three and a half decades earlier. The lyrics to the song playing over this scene, a rendition of In The Flesh, make this even more clear:

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There’s one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me,
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks Jewish!
And that one’s a coon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There’s one smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I’d have all of you shot!

Now, your average Trump rally is not going to look like that. In fact, I promise you no Trump rally — average or not — is going to look like the video playing over In The Flesh. And I have long argued that Donald Trump is not a fascist, even if the amount of similarities he has to one (read: any) are disturbing enough to make me not want him to be in charge.

One thing I should note is that the In The Flesh rally is much closer to a fascist rally than most other forms of anti-authoritarian media. It’s common, as was done in 1984, to just show fascist political rallies as hatred of a common enemy, but they are so much more than that. Commonly. it’s a leader liked by the general population who manages to show signs of energy against those enemies. While the people of Germany hated the Jews long before Hitler came around, it was Hitler’s unmatched energy that unified them around him specifically, and not the dime a dozen other anti-Semitic politicians of his era.

Ever since the era of John F. Kennedy for Democrats and Ronald Reagan for Republicans, more and more politicians have entered the national stage only on their speaking skills and had cults formed around them. Our two most recent Presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, whatever you might think of them, were able to form a cult of personality around them the likes of which many dictators would wish to have. George W. Bush, the third to last President, also had many authoritarian tendencies.

What I am worried about is a President who is much more interested in fascism than Donald Trump is. One who can speak like Barack Obama or Donald Trump, and one who is what these people want. Remember at the RNC when Trump supporters were chanting “twelve more years”? Recently, Kaitlin Bennett started selling shirts that read “Trump Is My King,” it’s clear to me these people are most interested in fascism than the President is — and that’s really dangerous.

Over the past couple of months, I have become more and more concerned that fascism will not be established through a coup, but through a Democratic election. In 2004, running on the idea that safety was more important than freedom was the strategy Karl Rove had George W. Bush run on. Mind you, a quick backlash lead by Katarina, Social Security Privatization, Iraq failing, and Tom Delay made it so anything Bush did by that point was heavily unpopular. However, if Bush had just been a little bit better at optics, I have no doubt the United States would be much closer to fascism today than we currently are.

As of right now, rather it be people begging Trump to declare war with China, declare a mostly peaceful group terrorists, or use the Insurrection Act locally I have become concerned the American public wants fascism. Obviously, holding one or even all of these positions doesn’t make you a fascist, however, it’s undeniable that a fascist would hold all three of these positions. At the fascists are fond of Trump, just listen to how Andrew Anglin, runner of The Daily Stormer, described him after the first debate:

The takeaway from the debate is this: Donald Trump is the greatest person on earth. He shouldn’t be president, he should be king. If he were king, he wouldn’t have to deal with all of the scum in Congress, the scum that runs his government, and he could deal directly with the needs of the people. Several times during the event, Joe Biden would say, “his own government disagrees with him.” And that is of course the key problem. His own government, with scumbags like William Barr, Chad Wolf, Mike Pompeo, Anthony Fauci — they are preventing him from doing the will of the people. The Trump we saw on stage in Cleveland was a true leader of the people, who would crush the enemies of the people if he did not have this filth swarming him.

I do not think it is possible for anyone to watch this debate and believe that Joe Biden is a better leader than Donald Trump. There are a lot of things about the Trump presidency that I’m not happy with, and though the majority of that can and should be blamed on his government and not him, there are probably things he could do better. But we are now entering into the most troubled time in human history, and in fact we’re already in it, and anyone can see that this is the man who needs to be in charge.

Although on Biden he says:

This guy is saying that if Trump gets reelected, the whole world will be destroyed. So what’s he chuckling about?

Donald Trump likes to say he speaks for the silent majority, a phrase used by Richard Nixon which basically meant “racist white people.” I remain worried that majority might grow some authoritarian tendencies, and not become so silent.