“You don’t need anybody to keep you down because you got your own little inner fascist right there telling you what you can and cannot do. That’s how you let them win,” states a character in The Man in the High Castle TV series, based on Philip K. Dick’s brilliant 1962 novel presenting an alternative history in which the Axis powers won World War II, occupy North America and have imposed fascist rule. The point here, of course, is that tyranny usually requires the docility and collaboration of the populace to achieve and remain in power. Dick’s story profiles active American fascist collaborators, true believers who have bought into an oppressive, racist ideology.
Seventy-seven percent of Republican respondents approve of Donald Trump jumping into the 2024 race, according to a Pew Research poll. Almost half of all voters said they would support Trump running for president again in 2024, a Hill-HarrisX poll found. And a CNN poll reveals that nearly six in 10 GOP voters say it’s at least somewhat important for Republicans to continue believing that Trump won the 2020 election.
Too many Americans are letting their “own little inner fascist” selves succumb to creeping autocracy in the form of a Republican Party that is increasingly taking on the trappings of a neo-fascist movement rather than a democracy-anchored loyal opposition. Should the GOP succeed in re-taking both houses of Congress next year and the presidency in 2024 with Trump, a variation of Philip K. Dick’s nightmarish scenario may be realized. We are at a DEFCON-1 level threat to American democracy. If true patriots — not the radical right proto-storm troopers who’ve hijacked that term — don’t push back hard and soon, start practicing your stiff-arm salute.
David Frum, in an essay in The Atlantic shortly after Trump entered the White House, forecast increased voter suppression, a submissive Congress, pervasive corruption and distortions of truth. He foresaw the gradual snuffing out of liberty, “not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit.” The ensuing four years bore witness to his argument.
The Washington Post’s Brian Klaas lays this out succinctly in a commentary this week:
What has happened in the United States over the past five years is, in many ways, a classic of the autocratic genre. A populist leader rose to power, attacked the press, politicized rule of law, threatened to jail his opponents, demonized minorities, praised dictators abroad, spread conspiracy theories and lies, and then sought to seize power despite losing an election. When such despotic figures emerge in democracies, their political party has two options: push back against the would-be despot while reasserting democratic principles, or remake the party in his image. Republicans have quite clearly chosen the latter path.
A close examination of the current political state of play disturbingly shows the scales favoring Trumpist authoritarianism.
Trumpism has in its favor:
Charismatic autocratic leader.
Martyrs & heroes: Ashli Babbitt, Rittenhouse, Jan. 6 “political prisoners.”
Mass derangement-QAnon: akin to Germany’s Weimar period.
Victimhood, grievance and turning tables on the Democrats — “Stolen election!” “Antifa!” “Radical left!”
Purged and cowed Republican Party.
Creeping election subversion and voter suppression.
Weak opposition.
Powerful propaganda machine - Fox, OAN, Breitbart, et al.
Social fissures – inequality, white grievance, populism to exploit.
An attempted putsch portrayed as a peaceful protest by “patriots.”
Packed courts.
Covid frustrations leading to mass discontent that’s easily exploited.
Dark money.
Trumpists lack:
Even a semi-coherent ideology. Art of the Deal ain’t no Mein Kampf. The GOP relies primarily on white grievance and racism.
Unified paramilitary – though groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and militias as well as the proliferation of guns provides a foundation to build on.
Dire economic conditions and a breakdown in social order to exploit – though latter is under strain.
Majorities in Congress – though this will most likely change after the mid-terms.
Election law scholar Richard Hasen recommends some commendable measures to prevent an undemocratic GOP power grab, including: significantly raising the threshold for Congress to object to electors; revising rules to prevent “frivolous objections” to election outcomes; and specifying “failed” elections as only resulting from extraordinary events such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks. Finally, he advocates tightening up procedures for appointing electors.
Election experts also recommend that Congress be required to count a state’s lawfully chosen electors, and that the vice president have no role in adjudicating conflicts over the electoral count.
But none of this will come about as long as the filibuster remains. “The filibuster is the major impediment to Congress taking steps to avert a potential stolen election in 2024,” Hasen told The Washington Post. You can thank Senators Sinema and Manchin for that.
Yale historian Timothy Snyder, however, offers some non-legislative suggestions to prevent tyranny from taking root. They include passive resistance, defending institutions, contributing to good causes and exercising courage. You can read his complete 20-item list here.
Frankly, I find Snyder’s recommendations airy-fairy, lacking concreteness. His analyses, on the other hand, are spot on, inter alia: “Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.” And “Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
In an essay I wrote in Washington Monthly two years ago, I explored the parallels between the Gilded Age of Teddy Roosevelt’s era and today’s Second Gilded Age, both marked by yawning wealth inequality, bloated corporations and rampant corruption. I described the vigorous sets of policies that Republican president enacted to bust up monopolies, help workers and control corruption.
The measures needed to achieve similar goals today are essentially the same. Foremost, we must reduce income and wealth inequality as a means to dissipate right-wing populism, which underlies Trumpist authoritarianism. But Biden’s BBB and infrastructure legislation will take years to get into full swing – too late for 2022 and perhaps even 2024. A broad swath of Americans succumb to charlatan wannabe-strongmen like Trump and the toxic fabulism that is QAnon because many feel left behind in a society that unduly favors the rich and powerful over the working and middle classes.
Voter protection legislation is crucial to prevent a GOP steal of elections – but without filibuster removal, it won’t happen. Most importantly, strong and bold Democratic leadership is needed, ideally in a figure encompassing FDR’s fearlessness, charisma and dynamism.
I, for one, am not feeling optimistic. While Biden’s BBB and infrastructure legislation is an enormous positive for the nation, voter suppression and subversion are rolling ahead, and run-amok insanity has the Republican Party and millions of Americans in its grip. The steadily rising threats of violence and public vitriol are redolent of the period leading up to the Civil War. As next year’s election approaches, and the heat is turned up further, violence, I fear, is inevitable, perhaps on a large scale. And should the radicalized GOP win, or steal, the 2022 and 2024 elections, count on some form of creeping fascism displacing our democracy. And it will be because the American people allowed it.
As another character in The Man in the High Castle put it, “It takes a lot of effort not to be free, keeping your head down, holding your tongue.”