American History 🐂

Regardless of how close of off the polling is, it shows that a great many Americans embrace fascism. https://t.co/IKnVjDvLbD

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) March 3, 2024

Americans have always embraced fascism when it suited them. Slavery; Jim Crow; Trail of Tears; Wounded Knee; turning ”Indian Territory” into Oklahoma. The Tulsa Massacre. Postcards of lynchings in the 20th century. Eugenics laws, until that was synonymous with “Nazis.” The Tuskegee Experiments. I’m just going off the top of my head at this point. The Kent State Massacre, where it was decided the Guard did nothing wrong shooting innocent students because a handful of students were rowdy. Isn’t fascism about imposing power in the name of the state? Of order? Of compliance?

I mean, it’s not like Trump has made the fasces the symbol of MAGA, is it? Still, we call him a fascist.

There are lots of examples of violence in the name of order in American history. Waco and Koresh. Bull Connor. Selma, Alabama. The Edmund Pettis Bridge. We don’t call all those “fascism.” But now we see fascism because Trump?

I’m just saying, we have been down this road once or twice before. It all depends on whose ox, doesn’t it? And how vicious we want to be. Definitions matter. But when the boot is on your throat, or the gun is firing at you, do they matter that much?