Homeland Fascism

Front matter

“It cant happen here.”

This has been the prevailing sentiment about the possible emergence of fascism in the United States since the rise of international fascism in the 1930s.

Yet there are signs that tt may already be happening, and at the highest

Part Six

REVIVING THE INQUISITION 16 | The New Inquisitors 17 | The Counter Reformation 18 | Behind the Scenes

PART SEVEN FASCISM OR DEMOCRACY 19 | Reassembling the Fasces 20 | Turning Points 21| Fighting Customary Repression 22 | Impeachment & Prosecution

PART EIGHT THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES 23 | Doing the Hokey-Pokey 24 | For Bread And Roses 25 | Inequality and Neo-Fascism

Bibliography About the Authors

401 403 433

453 455 475 499

525 527 551 583 607

631 633 663 683

705 725

A great

democracy is coming,

perhaps helped by a flicker of Reichstag fire, hint of Battleship Maine, whiff of Lusitania, scent of Gulf of Tonkin? Yes.

o yes a great democracy where tongues will be

cut out,

fingernails pulled out,

and fingers chopped

and rapes in dank

barracks.

All who love democracy will be treated equally. Like

the good old days, we will have open doors.

Gene Grabiner, 2002

Editor’s Preface

“Homeland Fascism Today: An Introduction”

Jeff Shantz

There is a certain complacency, perhaps arrogance, among commentators in the United States concerning the prospects for violent uprisings or mobilizations in the US. It is widely held that violent uprisings, coups, oppositional movements, will not, even cannot, emerge or take hold in the United States. America is viewed as a stable system with democratic checks and balances and a civil makeup mitigating against such dramatic eruptions in the body politic. Furthermore, truly oppositional movements are viewed as being too small, too marginal, or too trivial to pose a real challenge to the liberal democratic order of things in the United States.

There are some recurring factors that historically appear as what might be preconditions for dramatic social upheaval and change. These are: extreme economic inequality; significant, major economic or political crisis or shock, usually unexpected; a middle v | HomeLanp Fascism strata that feels threatened or is experiencing economic threats (Judson 2009, 174). Conflict can be triggered by a dramatic event such as a coup d tat, riots, a terrorist attack, etc. (Judson 2009, 174).

Responses to these issues are also important. Does the middle strata mobilize against specific scapegoats (migrants, minorities, unionists, etc.) or focus anger at a ruling elite? Does the government lose legitimacy or offer a believable remedy to the problems? Does it maintain legalistic means or resort to force and violence?

Conditions typically giving rise to upheaval are present throughout US society. Millions have lost jobs and others the prospect of finding jobs that pay a sustainable living wage and/or offer some financial security. Millions have seen savings vanish or pensions, deferred wages, decline or evaporate. Millions have lost their homes and more are facing foreclosure or eviction. Large sections of the population are desperately in debt.

Numerous writers and commentators have sensed that growing inequality in the United States raises an existential challenge to the future of America and its social and political systems. Inequality in the United States has reached levels that have historically preceded political upheaval and rupture.

America has long been a plutocracy ruled by those one percent in whom wealth and power are concentrated. The group sees its incomes rise regardless of which of the two parties of capital runs Washington at any given time. In 2005 the top one percent of Americans (those with incomes over $348,000) received their largest portion of national income since 1928 (Tritch 2006). From 2003 to 2004 the real average in-

Epitor’s Prerace | v come for the top one percent of households (those with income over $315,000) grew by almost 17 percent. That top one percent enjoyed 36 percent of all income gains in that period (after enjoying 30 percent in 2003) (Tritch 2006).

The current context in the US is one of extreme economic inequality coupled with a middle strata (middle class) that is increasingly impoverished and increasingly feels imperiled. In 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported that upward mobility had remained stagnant for the past two decades (2008). Debts are equal to or more than annual income for the average family in the United States. In the New York Times David Brooks suggested that the economic decline was producing a new social layer—the formerly middle class. Brooks suggested that the alienation and political reaction associated with the development of this new strata would produce the next major social movement (Brooks 2008). This movement could be progressive or regressive and reactionary. The form moved depending on social circumstances.

Economic inequality is recognized as the greatest predictor or precedent of social rupture or revolution. Economic inequality and the social divisions that accompany it render societies vulnerable to the effects of disruptive social forces such as militant right wing movements. In the present day United States, economic inequality has reached disastrous levels.

The activities of organized extremists could render flammable tensions explosive. The social pressures could be further sparked by a flashpoint event such as terrorist attack or state action, such as a clampdown on a popular oppositional group or vi | HomeLanp Fascism movement.

Some point, with amnesia, to a supposed lack of domestic terrorist violence and terrorist groups in the US enacting street level violence as a possible counter to the possible emergence of fascism. Yet, as the great US historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, this is a matter of repression in the national consciousness (quoted in Rappaport 2008, 167—168). Examples of domestic terrorism range from the Sons of Liberty, through the Klan, night riders, up through the Michigan Militia to the Minutemen and Patriots today. The examples in the US context have historically been rightist in character.

Increasing anger and misery in the present period can create a climate more sympathetic to terroristic reactionary violence—to fascism. As in some Republican campaign events in 2015 and 2016, groups may feel emboldened to act aggressively or violently toward representatives of scapegoated groups. If popular support for such aggression increases, the opportunity for larger expressions of fascist aggression may develop. For some time now, commentators have noted a “populist rage coursing through America” (Rich 2009).

The consumerist desire for immediate or instant gratification can further prepare a ground for receptivity to the appeals of a demagogue. A consumerist ethos is conditioned to look for short term, easy answers or satisfactions. These are the ready-made offerings of the demagogic leader. And this clarifies why pundits and political campaign opponents miss the point when they clamor for specific answers during debates or bemoan the lack of clear or consistent policy statements.

Epitor’s Preface | vii

Thus one might reflect on the quickly mobilized support for a blustering opportunist claiming to “Make America Great Again” by getting tough on a spectrum of scapegoats while standing up to political elites (and erstwhile friends and golfing partners).

Factors FavorinG FASCISM

From a reading of the vast historical and social science literature on social change, Bruce Judson identifies five significant risk factors for dramatic social change. The first is the distribution of wealth and the gap between rich and poor in the society. The second is the impact of political or economic shocks. Third is the failure to meet rising expectations or hopes. Fourth is a broad perception of social unfairness. And finally the fifth factor involves the history and effectiveness of prominent social institutions.

Historians and philosophers from Plutarch and Aristotle have noted the part played by inequality in political rupture. Plutarch is said to have asserted, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” For Aristotle, as for sociologists like Durkheim and Tonnies, economic disparities or divisions break apart relations of cohesion and connection in society.

Even a conservative figure like former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich concludes:

After a point, as inequality widened, the bonds that kept our society together would snap. Every decision we tried to arrive at together— about trade, immigration, education, taxes and social insurance (health, welfare, retirement)— vill | HomMELAND Fascism would be harder to make because it would have such different consequences for the relatively rich than for the relatively poor. We could no longer draw upon a common reservoir of trust and agreed-upon norms to deal with such differences. We would begin to lose our capacity for democratic governance. (2002, 19—20)

This from someone who was part of a regime, that of Bill Clinton, that imposed neoliberal austerity policies, including massive cuts to social assistance programs, a dismantling of welfare really, and which brought in the anti-working class, pro-capital, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as well as fundamentally deregulating Wall Street. All of these have played significant parts in the expansion of wealth inequality in the United States.

One outcome of income disparity is the active garrisoning of the elites in insulated and secured enclaves (social and geographical) separate from the rest of society. The wealthy seclude themselves in gated neighborhoods (not communities) with all of the amenities denied to the majority of the society’s population. Private schools, top universities, excellent health care, clean and safe drinking water. Clean environments. These garrison spaces are physically sealed off from the rest of society by private (and often public) security and surveillance.

This positions them as less connected to others not like them and without regard for public services that they do not need but which others depend on (public health care, public schools, public transit, public postsecondary education, public parks, unemployment insurance, social assistance, social housing, etc.). This plays out in opposition to taxation for public services (apart from support for public money for police and

Epitor’s Preface | 1x military expenditures which they view as essential for their own security and thus as the main aspects of governance). Their wealth is put to fund neoliberal, tax-cutting, deregulating, social austerity pushing politicians who cut programs of the working class and poor and impose restrictions and controls on the poorest in society.

The result is a further redistribution of wealth upwards—taking supports from the working class and poor and investing in social spending that further benefits capital and the wealthy (tax cuts, corporate grants, deregulation, policing. This increases social inequality further and sharpens tensions in society. Typically it renders the deprived more deprived.

The rising expectations associated with the Obama elections have given way to a sustained period of disappointment and dashed hopes. This can play into a broadening of dissatisfactions and support for a demagogue claiming to help America “win again” or make America “great again.”

The American Dream in the US is a myth that has successfully worked to secure middle strata loyalty and allegiance to an unequal system of broad maldistribution of wealth and resources. Yet upward mobility in the United States is much lower than it is in most European countries and Canada (Blanden, Gregg, and Machin 2005). If a larger proportion of middle strata believers comes to see this reality and the American Dream as a false myth, despair, frustration, and a sense of betrayal can contribute to aGothic desire for political change of a vengeful character.

Relative deprivation and status frustration theories in sociology and criminology have long pointed x | Homevanp Fascism to the role of perceptions of economic injustice or status inequality combined with economic inequality or poverty in contributing to anger and resentment within stratified societies that claim to be democratic or meritocratic. These approaches suggest that it is not absolute poverty or misery that is key. Rather it is the level of dissatisfaction or frustration one feels relative to others in their social environment or relative to social expectations (or promised social rewards).

Perceptions and contexts can matter as much as or more than specific experiences. Someone in the middle strata may become frustrated and perceive themselves as being deprived even though they are materially better off than many in their society or globally. Their frame of comparison is members of their own strata or those doing better, not those doing worse. These feelings of frustration can be manipulated where political actors make unfair and opportunistic comparisons to members of specific groups (migrants, religious minorities, welfare recipients) who are portrayed as doing better as a group or as being unworthily or unfairly benefiting from perceived social privileges (through social programs, migratory “queue jumping,” affirmative action policies etc.).

Political repression by ruling governments plays a regular role in periods of dramatic change. Recent attention to police violence, including the killings of civilians, shows that repression and use of armed force by the state is a regular feature readily available within liberal democracies. For the most part this violence is deployed against minorities and political opponents. Should such violence be deployed against more privileged sectors—white, middle strata, conservative males—it could contribute to the growth of armed defense movements such as militias or so-

Epitor’s Preface | xı called patriot groups which could revive broader support than usual.

In this context, a US Army War College report in 2008 suggested that an economic crisis in the United States could lead to mass civil unrest which would require military intervention to restore order (Washington Valdez 2008). 2008 marked the first time in which the United States has come to deploy an active duty regular Army combat unit in full-time use to deal with civil unrest inside the country (National Terror Alert Response Center 2008). The use of state violence against unarmed minorities while restraint is shown by police facing armed right wing groups sends the message that such groups have legitimate grievances around which they are organizing in legitimate or at least tolerated ways.

Domestic regimes are frequently imperiled by unpopular foreign military adventures. This is particularly true when the domestic public become resentful over expenditures in such adventures at a time when they are experiencing economic insecurity or risk.

The question of government competence could be quickly raised in the event of a larger scale terrorist attack. One can point to the rise in racist anger in response to even smaller assaults. A dramatic shock, whether economic or political is often a precursor to dramatic social change. This could well be a terrorist attack in the context of a national government seen to be soft or conciliatory in the popular imagination. A shock in the context of a lack of trust in the existing government (entirely justifiable), and in the absence of effective progressive mobilization, can provide an opening for a demagogue promising security, vengeance, or setting things “right” (against a liberal democracy seen to be impotent, or passive, or xi | HomMELAND Fascism gridlocked, or “politically correct.”)

INEQUALITY

Based on the percent of income gained by the top ten percent of US families, the United States is now at the highest level of economic inequality in the nation’s history. The United States has moved beyond the levels of economic inequality that a society can typically sustain. Earlier this century the United States reached a signal, infamous moment. In 2006, the top earning ten percent of US families received 49.3% of all US household income, including capital gains. This compared with the much lower 34.2% of the nation’s total income received by the top ten percent in 1979 (Saez 2008). In 2006, economic inequality in the United States reached the highest levels since systematic accurate records became available in 1913 (Judson 2009, 51). These stark realities show the potent impacts of decades of neoliberal social and economic policies and capitalist restructuring.

Not surprisingly perhaps the great increases ratcheting up social inequality in the United States have developed over the last 35 years, in the period initiated with the election of Ronald Reagan as President and the imposition of Reaganomics, the voodoo economics of neoliberalism which has become something of an article of faith for politicians of various stripes. In 1979 the economic top one percent of Americans received ten percent of total income for the nation. By 2006 this number had jumped to more than 22.8 percent (Saez 2008). Even more the top one percent of families in the US take home one-quarter to one-fifth of all household income (Judson 2009, 52). Judson

Epitor’s Preface | xm concludes that already the US has turned into an economic oligopoly (2009, 53).

In the United States economic inequality had peaked in the 1928-1929 period before the Crash then declined through the low points reached between the late 1950s and late 1970s. The decline in inequality reached the low point at which the top one percent received 8.9 percent of the nation’s income in 1976 (down from 23.9 percent in 1928 and 11.3 in 1944). The upward thrust began, notably, under Reagan starting in 1980. It reached the point in 2006 at which the top one percent had risen to over 22.8 percent of all household income (Judson 2009, 53). That is a percentage only surpassed, again, in that precipice year of 1928 when the top one percent received about 24 percent.

Bruce Judson notes that the peaks of inequality in 1929 and 2008 preceded the stunning economic crashes that shook the system in the US. Broad economic inequality goes hand in hand with political instability and disruption. Conflict is a consistently appearing outcome in historical examples. Current conditions of economic inequality have resulted in a range of crises including the Crash of 2008. The effects of that crash are not yet played out.

Between 1952 and 1975, pre-Reagan, the top one percent received around nine to eleven percent of total household income in the United States (Judson 2009, 109). Incredibly, the figures show even more concentration if one looks at the top 0.1 percent of American households. In that case the top 0.1 percent gained 11.6 percent of total income for all US households in 2006. That compares with 2.7 percent in 1978, right before Reagan (Judson 2009, 110).

xiv | Hometanp Fascism

Numerous studies pinpoint 1979 as the fundamental turning point. Before Reagan, the United States was significantly more equal. Even more, there has emerged a strong rift between economic growth and productivity and workers’ incomes. Productivity is the value in income produced by each worker (after adjustment for inflation).

Increases in productivity are not leading to growth in wages and living standards for workers. Between the 1940s and the late 1970s income shares among different groups in the United States increased at closer rates. With the 1980s income gains occurred mostly for the highest earning Americans (Judson 2009, 113). While productivity of the average worker in the United States has increased by almost 50 percent since 1973, it seems clear that workers have gained virtually nothing over this period (Krugman 2007, 24).

Wealth is the most significant means of inequality. It provides a bulwark against crisis. It also provides a basis for influencing political activity in liberal democracies. The distribution of wealth in the United States is even more divergent than the distribution of income. In 2004, Edward Wolff of New York University reported that the top 20 percent in the United States owned around 85 percent of the nation’s wealth. The top ten percent held 70 percent of all of the nation’s wealth. Even more the top one percent of all households held more total wealth than the bottom 90 percent of households (Wolff 2007, 2). A 2008 study by the OECD reported that of 24 countries examined, the United States had the highest income inequality outside of Mexico and Turkey (BBC News 2008). The 2007 Census Bureau report put the Gini coefficient for the US at .463, over the international warning line.

Epitor’s Preface | xv

This put the US Gini scale in the neighborhood of Sri Lanka and Mali (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith 2008, 7).

Between 1978 and 2006 the top 0.1 percent enjoyed real income gains of more than 235 percent. For the top one percent the gain was 90 percent. For the United States the median real income only increased by 13 percent.

The UN-Habitat State of the World Cities Report 2008/2009 notes that US cities like Atlanta, Washington, Miami, and New York have levels of inequality similar to Abidjan, Nairobi, and Santiago (2008, 51). These levels of inequality lead to social separation and a disintegration of broader social bonds.

Economic inequality affects social trust. As inequality increases so too do levels of mistrust. This can contribute to scapegoating as social mistrust attaches to specific groups who are constructed as symbols of mistrust. All levels of trust seem to be reaching 30 to 40 year lows in the United States (Judson 2009, 185). One level is generalized trust within society. Generalized trust has consistently decreased through the period of growing social inequality in the US. The General Social Survey which provides a biannual report of American social values and an overview of social trends concludes that between 1972 and 1980, the year of Reagan again, the percentage of people who agreed with the sentiment that “most people can be trusted” (as opposed to the statement that “you can’t be too careful in dealing with people”) remained relatively constant (Judson 2009, 185-186). This despite the experience of Watergate and the opportunistic and cynical pardoning of Richard Nixon by Gerald Ford in the intervening period. Between 1980 and 2006, however, the perxvi | Hometanb Fascism centage of people who generally trust others decreased from 44 percent to 32 percent. These were the lowest levels of trust recorded at any point in the history of the survey (Judson 2009, 186). According to commentator Eric Uslaner in The Moral Foundations of Trust, based on a study of a range of surveys done over several decades: “If you believe that things are going to get better—and that you have the capacity to control your life—trusting others isn’t so risky” (2002, 33). Economic crises can spark further drops in trust.

MIDDLE Strata FEAR AND LOATHING

In terms of a contemporary fascism it is likely, as in Germany in the 1930s, that the impetus will come, not from the industrial working class and poor, but from an increasingly disaffected, alienated, and imperiled middle strata. Uprisings emerge where these groups come to distrust the dominant system of governance.

The American Dream is a middle strata fiction. As more middle strata members feel that dream slipping away, the fiction crumbling, for their children, frustration can shift to resentment, a sense of having been lied to, anger, and violence. The middle strata anger can develop a dual sense of resentment. One is focused, rightly, on the ruling classes and economic and political elites who have accumulated increasing wealth, resources, and power while the middle strata has experienced a squeeze or decline. The other is focused, vengefully, on the poor and less fortunate who are viewed as unfairly benefiting from government largesse based on the labors (or taxes) of the middle strata rather than the fruits of their own labors.

Middle strata frustration can move to anger and ag-

Epitor’s Preface | xvii gression in a context of crises (financial, terrorist, etc.). This anger can be funneled toward cultural difference and scapegoats representing middle strata fears and, politically manipulated, social phobias— from undocumented migrants to religious difference (see Ramadan and Shantz 2016).

The period of Obama’s two terms in office has perhaps further prepared the ground for a fascist turn. Obama has campaigned on and held out the promise of hope for the middle strata. Yet his administrations have failed to deliver on this hope. The mix of rising expectations met with unmet gains may have contributed to the sense of a lack of alternatives and faith in the system that has found expression in the rise of, say, a Donald Trump, or the growth of militias and paramilitaries set to do it for themselves and prepared to take things into their own hands through force.

Economic crisis further plays into brooding fears which can seek and find ready scapegoats. Economic crisis can create or exacerbate social phobias which can be manipulated by governments and hard populist figureheads alike. The rise of the Donald Trump campaign for Republican Party leadership is an example of how this can be played and spread rather quickly in a mass social media environment.

Relatedly, anger can grow and explode beyond the usual safety valves of protests or demonstrations. Established government can quickly become a target (legitimately and rightly so) as a cause or contributor to crisis or because of mishandling of crisis that openly favors specific groups (like investors, state allies, etc.).

Years of economic crisis have taken a toll on the xvill | HomELAND Fascism supposed middle class in the United States. Some commentators suggest that the immiseration of the proletariat and division of the US into the two class society predicted by Marx are now realities. Even mainstream figures like Elizabeth Warren, the government head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, suggest that America is moving to a two class economy— an upper class and a large underclass (Parker 2009). This is the economic reality named by Occupy Wall Street as the division of society between the “1% and the 99%.”

While OWS has received much attention, the prospects for rightist extremism loom in relation to shifts in perceptions among the middle strata that large numbers of the middle strata feel they are losing ground or not realizing expectations (and see no resolution offered in the OWS manifestations).

Attempts by the middle strata to cling to the American Dream are underwritten today by record levels of debt. Economic inequality, job loss, declining wages have been matched by rising levels of debt to family income. In 1979 debt was 74 percent of household income. In the first quarter of 2008 total household debt was at 132 percent of personal disposable income (Weller 2008). In 1981 personal spending was at 88 percent of disposable income. By 2008, it was about 100 percent (Kedrosky 2009).

High levels of debt along with economic crisis, declining income, unemployment, growing costs, rising home payments, and rents create an explosive context. Job loss or medical emergency can mean instant disaster for families. A 2006 study concluded that 78 percent of middle strata families lacked net assets (all assets except home equity and minus debt) to sustain three months with spending at three-quarters of cur-

Epitor’s Preface | xix rent expense levels if they lost their source of income (Wheary, Shapiro, and Draut 2007). They lack the financial security to sustain an economic crisis in other words.

Lack of assets leaves middle strata families vulnerable and feeling vulnerable. In April 2009 there were 5.4 employees seeking work for every available job opening (Shierholz 2009). Finding a job when unemployed is far from being a sure thing.

Social mobility is a myth for most Americans particularly the poorest. The myth of mobility has served to gain consent as well as an acceptance of inequality and lack of social programs. The middle class as an ideological support is quite potent. A study by the Pew Research Center in 2008 found that around 40 percent of people with incomes under $20,000 believed themselves to be middle class. The median household income in the United States is about $50,000 and in no city would an income under $20,000 be considered middle range (2008). But the perception of being, or having a decent chance at being middle class plays an important buffer role in maintaining American stratification systems.

UNEQUAL STRUCTURES AND FASCIST POSSIBILITIES

These are issues that cannot be easily resolved in the current social structure. But populists with easy answers and scapegoats at hand, particularly the less powerful, can find ready audiences for their messages. In this context liberal democracy is seen to distort or corrupt the better instincts of the people, xx | HomeLanp Fascism especially the frustrated middle strata. They express a dissatisfaction with the false virtues of the institutional status quo.

As revolutionary syndicalist theorist Georges Sorel has pointed out:

The masses who are led have a very vague and extremely simple idea of the means by which their lot can be improved; demagogues easily get them to believe that the best way is to utilize the power of the State to pester the rich. We pass thus from jealousy to vengeance, and it is well known that vengeance is a sentiment of extraordinary power, especially with the weak. (1950, 186)

It is not to be understated that the current context of fascist possibility did not spring up overnight. Like the case of fascism in Germany and Italy it emerges from decades of economic crisis and uncertainty, political economic change and social inequality. This is part of a process evolving over 30 years.

Underlying all of this have been the advance of political, economic, and cultural transformations associated with a market fundamentalism, the wholesale handing over of social relations to market logics and market supportive initiatives. The market fundamentalism asserts a morality of austerity and scarcity as public goods. The unequal distribution of wealth is viewed straightforwardly as a proper market outcome. There is no excess for the wealthy since the market only appropriately allocates resources according to the market fundamentalists. Inequality is posed as a natural and legitimate market outcome. Related to this is a sense of entitlement for the privileged and a sense that the poor are undeserving.

Epitor’s Preface | xx!

The current period of fascist possibility emerges from three decades of anti-labor, pro-capital policies instituted as part of mainstream social policy and mainstream cultural values promoted by the state since Reagan attacked the striking air traffic controllers in 1981. It is sometimes difficult to convey to younger people how much the social ethos of public policy and discourse has changed. All of this can prepare the ground for fascist poor bashing, union busting, and corporatism.

The great divide in social inequality has also sent a cultural message that some lives are worth more than others. In 2007, the average pay of CEO’s for S and P 500 companies sat at $10.8 million. This was roughly 270 times the average pay of full-time nonmanagement workers which was at $40,000 (Sahadi 2007). In 2015, CEO pay at the nation’s largest companies was 303 times that of the average pay of their employees, according to analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The average total compensation of CEOs at the 350 largest firms, including stock options and other bonuses, totaled $16.3 million in 2014, according to EPI. That compares with the relatively miniscule $50,000 in pay for their workers (Isidore 2015.)