Fascism in America

[arisbe]

The Left has been denouncing American Fascism, indeed, denouncing America as Fascist, for so many years that we are deaf to the din of it. Lately, though, the warnings of an emerging Fascist mentality have been repeated from what some describe as the fringes of the Right, both the traditionalist (paleoconservative) and individualist (libertarian) wings. The American Conservative is seen as more moderate and mainstream, sceptical of big government, critical of the war, but willing to give both Republicans and Democrats the benefit of the doubt when they seem honest. It is therefore a milestone that even they are now insisting that we ought to take the threat very seriously indeed. Scott McConnell, a student of Fritz Stern, Columbia's great historian of the European Right, makes a sobering case, with the essential qualifications, in Hunger for Dictatorship: War to export democracy may wreck our own.

It is, I think, essential reading.

Comments

I'll Tell You What I Think...

[publius-aelius.livejournal.com]

...I think that American society has a Messianic, millenialist tendency to fight "crusades" that will cause this nation to IMPLODE. I think that our Puritan past is at the root of it, and I think it weighs much more heavily upon the consciences of the vast majority--particularly in the "Red States" than anything inscribed in the Founders' documents. I also think American "fascism" will look, feel and tast very different from the European version but that it will be far more virulent because of its Protestant Fundamentalist "idealism." All of this is foretold in the deeply prophetic penultimate chapter of Harold Bloom's The American Religion. I'm going to make the best effort I can to get myself and those I love OUT of this debauched, heretical and perverted society as quickly as I can!

Re: I'll Tell You What I Think...

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

There may be some truth to that, but nothing all that new. I think of John Brown and the War between the States.