Populism, Fascism, the “Resistance” and the Media

Populism, Fascism, the “Resistance” and the Media

The presidential election of 2016 is long over and the beltway and media circus reaches an unbelievable crescendo.  The Trump contingent are like “The Gang that couldn’t shoot straight”, spewing out poorly thought out executive orders and attempts to govern that don’t work, coupled with what seem to be out and out lies.  The democratic opposition or “resistance”, as they like to be called, have slowed meaningful government to a crawl in response to what only can be seen as inability to accept the losses that they projected and crowed about so loudly as winning in November.   In the meantime, thousands of important government jobs remain unfilled due to either executive inaction or democratic congressional “resist, obstruct, deny’ tactics.

The two political parties call themselves democrats and republicans.  Other epithets are “liberal weenies’, “snowflakes”, or “fascist pigs”, “misogynists”, etc.  But what are our two political parties truly?  They certainly are not democrats and republicans in the conventional sense.

It has become fashionable to throw words like “fascist” or “conservative” or “liberal”, or “democratic socialist” into our conversations and writings without knowing what these terms really mean, nor their derivation and history.  Only an actual look at the defunct “isms” fostered by the philosophies of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Mussolini, Hitler and others can adequately provide background.  Jonah Goldberg made an in depth study in his book “Liberal Fascism”.  Two quick points – fascism and communism both promote revolution and totalitarianism; both fascism and communism are basically socialist in nature.  German fascism was called “national socialism”.  It was only the degree of socialism that varied between fascism and communism.

Trump has co-opted the Republican Party to accept his populist, largely libertarian and yes, liberal, views.  He has sprinkled it with some conservative precepts like anti-abortion, pro second amendment, God and country rhetoric, but further examination shows him to be primarily a populist reflecting the views of his largely disenfranchised, non-elitist, middle country  constituency.  

The democrats, or other side, or resistance, can only be classified as liberal fascists.  They are fascists because they promote a form of corporatism that “knows” what is good and right for everybody, and allows no dissenting voices.  One just needs to look at the Italian and German movements of the early 20^th century to see the parallels.  These liberal fascists even use black shirted, violent rioters to break heads and quiet dissenting voices. Recent riots at Berkeley, Columbia and Middlebury attest.

David Brooks’ “Bobos in Paradise” takes a pretty thorough and sometimes humorous view of how our coastal elitists became elitists or “Bourgeois Bohemians”.  This is largely our liberal left resistance. While proclaiming that they are the party of equal rights and a kinder, gentler society, our current liberal left  in fact are the party of secularism and identity politics, proposing, among other things,  special rights for minority groups, including illegal (and criminal) non-citizens to ensure their absorption into the fold.  They twist true legal equal rights for all people into a perverted definition of bigotry and throw epithets like “fascist” at the Trump supporters, whose only sin seems to be populism and love of country (notwithstanding the ineptitude of the “Trumpists” thus far.  To these liberal fascists, the term “fascist” is applied to anyone who does not agree with them.

And the polarization continues.  From the congress to the media to the supermarket, we are

vituperatively divided.  Not as bad as times past.  Our Civil War division and our civil rights and anti-Vietnam 1960’s come to mind.  But our current division is pretty bad because these are not just debating points.  There is an actual hatred on opposing sides that eats at the fabric of our republic and results in stupid actions by our supposed leaders.  It also erodes our media to the point that rather than cable and local channel news, we have instead opinion, mostly from the left.

As an elderly “student” at a local college, I qualify for digital subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.  In addition I read Reuters, USA Today and other balanced, left and right news sources.  I also watch Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and local news.

I consider myself a fair and honest person, and as such, I cannot in good conscience, consider that any media outlets other than Reuters, USA today and Fox honestly report the news.  It is obvious after watching CNN and reading the New York Times that I am being exposed to left wing opinion rather than balanced news.  CNN is particularly egregious in this regard.  They are almost a full time running commercial for the obstructionist left wing.

Ray Gruszecki

May, 2017