The Fascists Are Coming

“My four year study into totalitarianism generally, and fascism specifically, has taught me two valuable lessons. The first is that the common thread among democracies that collapse into dictatorship is that no one panicked until the threat was already in power and it was too late. That is why I have continued to pound my Paul Revere-style “the fascists are coming!” campaign. The second thing I learned is that the constitution/law can only protect you if all parties agree to adhere to it.“ ~ Rachel Bitecofer – The Cycle

On the same Sunday afternoon that MAGA movement zealots packed New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) for the final mass Trump rally before November 5, I was among the audience at Playmakers Theater on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill to witness Heidi Schreck’s critically acclaimed play, What the Constitution Means to Me. Of the play, dramaturg Lexi Silva says, “With the 2024 Presidential election approaching, the play prompts audiences to consider how the value of a foundational government document measures up in our current political climate. After all, the Constitution is fragile and enormous; a shield and a sword depending on who wields it.”

The juxtaposition of these two profoundly contrasting events occurring at the same time is not lost on me. Indeed, it serves as the catalyst for this preelection post, an election that will determine the fate of what is left of American democracy, a government built on the foundation of the Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, and the world’s longest surviving written charter of government.

The New York Times under the heading, ‘Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism,’ described the gathering as “a release of rage” and “a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement.” Steve Benen, author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past,” describes the MSG rally thusly: “The Republican’s Madison Square Garden event was ugly. It was offensive. It was vulgar. It was hateful. It drew obvious parallels to the 1939 event.”

The 1939 event that Mr. Benen refers to occurred on the evening of February 20, the date of George Washington’s birthday. 20,000 American Nazi zealots (the German American Bund) packed MSG where a giant portrait of Washington was flanked by American flags and a banner inscribed with the Nazi swastika. According to a February 20, 2019 NPR article,“the Bund was one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism.”

The similarity noted by mainstream media between the February 20, 1939 German American Bund rally and the October 27 MAGA rally at MSG, reinforces both “the fascists are coming” quote that began this post and the urgent public statements by non partisan US military generals who have been up close and personal with former President Trump. They warn the public to beware of wannabe dictators who think and behave like a fascist.

Retired Marine General John Kelly stated in an interview with The Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist. After reading the definition aloud, including that fascism was “a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader,” Kelly concluded Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

At his retirement ceremony last year General Mark Milley referenced Trump’s fascist bent when he said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator … We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Indeed, it is such statements that place these military leaders on Trump’s ‘hit list’ should he regain the newly unfettered presidential powers granted by the SCOTUS majority. As a self proclaimed “dictator on day one” under the Project 2025authoritarian/theocratic playbook he would have the kind of generals that he wants. As Jeffrey Goldberg reports in The Atlantic (October 22, 2024)“’I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,’ Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. ‘People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.’”

In true fascist fashion, those orders would immediately turn the military into a ‘Storm Trooper’ force of retribution against any and all who Trump perceives as foes, those “enemies from within” that he fantasizes about wreaking vengeance upon. Among those enemies from within would be legit journalists and media outlets (a free press) that honor the freedom of the press to speak the truth and report the facts, even if it offends those in power. Indeed, in advance of this election in light of the Washington Post and LA Times declining to endorse a candidate, the following appeared as a courageous response from The Philadelphia Enquirer:
“Daniel Pearson
@DPearsonPHL
Unlike some newspaper Editorial Boards, we aren’t afraid to take a stand, and we don’t have to get permission from rich schmucks before we write.
inquirer.com
Kamala Harris for president | Endorsement
There has never been a more important presidential election in our lifetime. The road to the White House may well run through Pennsylvania and every vote matters.
12:45 PM · Oct 25, 2024”

The Enquirer’s Editorial Board’s brave statement is true and factual, this is (yet again) the most important presidential (and down ballot) election of our lifetime. Nothing less than the fate of our constitutional democracy is to be decided over the coming days, weeks and months. In the battle of democracy vs fascism, the stakes have never been higher. The fact that we have a stage full of anti-democratic actors to sow confusion and chaos only adds to the high anxiety that is felt not only at home but around the world.

As we began with a quote from Rachel Bitecofer urging us to see and feel the threat of fascism before it is too late, so shall we end. “All you need to end a democracy is a leader willing to suspend or end the Constitution and a supporting cast large enough to allow him to do it.” Today we have both.

And so, we pray for a majority of people with the discernment/wisdom of Solomon, the courage of David and the servant-hood of Jesus to call forth those better angels of our nature in order that government of the people, by the people, for the people may not perish from the earth.

May it be so!