A few interesting observations here:
As the Center for Working Class Politics found, her “democratic threat” message was resoundingly unpopular. Especially with working-class voters. That’s no doubt because the #Resistance philosophy behind it dripped with condescension. It reminded everyone that liberals think Trump voters are a bunch of irredeemable fascists.
Ganz might argue that Harris’s failure was in pushing her democracy-mongering without an attendant economic agenda. In this way he could try to rescue the utility of his thesis. This won’t do. The social challenge is much more basic: if you think the person you are trying to win over is an Untouchable, they will smell your hatred from a mile away. Even if you insist that you just want to give them healthcare.
"Fascism" is a handy epithet. It evokes the dangers of a relatively recent past without being quite as blatant about it as "Nazi." Leftists calling out things as fascist are the photo negative equivalent of rightists saying that everything they don't like is communism. And as has become increasingly clear, it's just about as useful in the long run.
2 comments:
That was a pretty good article. You know I'd already forgotten Kamala Harris had run for the presidency just a year ago. That alone makes me suspect the Democrats never intended win.
I just finished reading the Colin Cotterill 'Siri Paiboun' novels that ended with a description of the Japanese invasion of China and SE Asia. I'm not certain the Japanese were true fascists either (unlike Franco), but they certainly acted the part when the military engineered a Vietnamese famine in 1945 by forbidding people to grow rice. The underdeveloped countryside was inadequate to grow enough food to sustain the population causing 2 million people to lose their lives.
Now there are Westerners who energetically call every politician they disagree with 'fascist' this 'fascist' that making the word meaningless. I also find it extremely annoying. There is no true fascism in America, neither is there communism and socialism. Plus it's utterly disrespectful to the real victims of fascism to use it as a buzzword to describe anything you don't like.
They use the term because it sounds scary and provokes an emotional response, and as you say, that helps nobody.
It was a bizarre, unnatural process, even by the standards of 21st century politics. She was just suddenly the nominee without having run in any primaries. Did anyone want her as president? Did she want to be president? She didn't devote any time to persuasion.
Japan as commanded by Hideki Tojo could be called fascist or just imperialist. Certainly they were willing to work with fascists in order to advance their goals. That wound up involving a lot of innocent casualties as well. Thus far, Japan appears to have learned from their mistakes and rectified, which is to be respected.
As far as America goes, I think you're right that all three labels refer to something that happened in other places. Not that they couldn't recur, but it's mostly another time, as well. America's problems are more diffuse than that.
Inflated terms like "fascism" and "communism" are meant to lure in people who aren't really paying attention. Of course the point is to monopolize said attention.
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