Creeping fascism in the U.S. and beyond. And what should concern us is so-called Christianity's role in this. Forewarned is forearmed. Thanks to Bruce Barrett Banner for sharing.
Angela
Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism
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Coverage
of the detention centre scandal in Texas is falling along partisan lines in the
US media with Fox News being sympathetic and CNN outraged. Video: CNN, MSNBC,
Fox News
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To grasp what is going on in the world
right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of
trial runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that
should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon.
Forget “post-fascist” – what we are living with is pre-fascism.
It is easy to dismiss Donald Trump as an ignoramus, not least
because he is. But he has an acute understanding of one thing: test marketing.
He created himself in the gossip pages of the New York tabloids, where
celebrity is manufactured by planting outrageous stories that you can later
confirm or deny depending on how they go down. And he recreated himself in
reality TV where the storylines can be adjusted according to the ratings. Put
something out there, pull it back, adjust, go again.
Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is
not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have
to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get
people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to
refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not
to see it
Moral boundaries
But when you’ve done all this, there
is a crucial next step, usually the trickiest of all. You have to undermine
moral boundaries, inure people to the acceptance of acts of extreme cruelty.
Like hounds, people have to be blooded. They have to be given the taste for
savagery. Fascism does this by building up the sense of threat from a despised
out-group. This allows the members of that group to be dehumanised. Once that
has been achieved, you can gradually up the ante, working through the stages
from breaking windows to extermination.
People
have to be given the taste for savagery. Fascism does this by building up the
sense of threat from a despised out-group
It is this next step that is being
test-marketed now. It is being done in Italy by the far-right leader and
minister for the interior Matteo Salvini. How would it go down if we
turn away boatloads of refugees? Let’s do a screening of the rough-cut of
registering all the Roma and see what buttons the audience will press. And it
has been trialled by Trump: let’s see how my fans feel about crying babies in
cages. I wonder how it will go down with Rupert Murdoch.
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| Children and workers at a tent encampment recently built in Tornillo, Texas: the blooding process has begun within the democratic world. Photograph: Joe Raedle |
To see, as
most commentary has done, the deliberate traumatisation of migrant children as
a “mistake” by Trump is culpable naivety. It is a trial run – and the trial has
been a huge success. Trump’s claim last week that immigrants “infest” the US is
a test-marketing of whether his fans are ready for the next step-up in
language, which is of course “vermin”. And the generation of images of toddlers
being dragged from their parents is a test of whether those words can be turned
into sounds and pictures. It was always an experiment – it ended (but only in
part) because the results were in.
‘Devious’
infants
And
the results are quite satisfactory. There is good news on two fronts. First,
Rupert Murdoch is happy with it – his Fox News mouthpieces outdid themselves in
barbaric crassness: making animal noises at the mention of a Down syndrome
child, describing crying children as actors. They went the whole swinish hog:
even the brown babies are liars. Those sobs of anguish are typical of the
manipulative behaviour of the strangers coming to infest us – should we not
fear a race whose very infants can be so devious? Second, the hardcore fans
loved it: 58 percent of Republicans are in favour of this brutality. Trump’s
overall approval ratings are up to 42.5 per cent.
Fox News
mouthpieces outdid themselves in barbaric crassness: making animal noises at
the mention of a Down syndrome child, describing crying children as actors.
This
is greatly encouraging for the pre-fascist agenda. The blooding process has
begun within the democratic world. The muscles that the propaganda machines
need for defending the indefensible are being toned up. Millions and millions
of Europeans and Americans are learning to think the unthinkable. So what if those
black people drown in the sea? So what if those brown toddlers are scarred for
life? They have already, in their minds, crossed the boundaries of morality.
They are, like Macbeth, “yet but young in deed”. But the tests will be refined,
the results analysed, the methods perfected, the messages sharpened. And then
the deeds can follow.
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