this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
38 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
22768 readers
408 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
American fascism is unique from its European manifestations in that it has firmly consolidated itself in the bourgeois state apparatus and civil society. When European fascism seized power it needed a paramilitary force, dictatorial strongman, and violent purges of "undesirables" because the regime had not consolidated power.
In US society that consolidation happened long ago though. The US regime keeps its "undesirables" in a constant state of precarity, ghettoization, and incarceration and only occasionally ramps up the genocide to mass killings. It's paramilitary base has been incorporated into the state as it's police force. The US regime allows a carefully controlled facade of Democracy because it does not need a strongman. The US regime allows limited leftist ideas to proliferate and act as long as they do not constitute a threat.
Many leftists who claim to worry about the "threat of fascism" are actually worried about the existing fascism burning hotter than it currently does - and they're not necessarily wrong to do so - but any analysis that worries about some incoming fascism on the horizon without realizing the disease is already here will be fatally flawed.