The idea that the Bush administration is imposing fascism on the United States has become increasingly commonplace in leftist and liberal circles. It's often taken as a given in political discussions, at protest rallies, and on the Internet. Sometimes this is little more than name calling, but over the past six years, a number of critics have offered serious arguments to back up the claim, and the claim deserves serious attention.
This is hardly the first time that U.S. leftists have warned against the rise of a fascist state. FBI/police repression against the Black Panthers, Joe McCarthy's cold war witch hunts, even Franklin Roosevelt's early New Deal experiments with state-sponsored cartels — sections of the left have labeled all of these as fascist. But George W. Bush has come to embody the f-word for a whole generation of activists.
The Bush administration is the most authoritarian presidency in living memory. Witness the USA Patriot Act and other measures that shred civil liberties, the mass round-ups of South Asian and Middle Eastern men, the systematic — and now openly defended — use of torture and warrantless wiretapping. Witness the proclamation of permanent warfare, the invasion and occupation of two sovereign nations, the claim that the United States can rightfully invade and conquer just to block a possible threat. Witness the blend of apocalyptic nationalism and religious zealotry that divides the whole world into absolutes of Good and Evil. And, many would argue, witness the suppression of voting results and political manipulation of the courts that put Bush in the White House to begin with.
There's no question that ugly changes are taking place, with serious implications for political activism and daily life now and in the future. But to call this a trend toward fascism doesn't help us understand what is going on in the United States, and it doesn't help us understand fascism. Calling the Bush administration fascist promotes a distorted picture of U.S. politics or history. In some versions, the f-word is essentially a scare tactic to rally people behind Democrats such as John Kerry, whose 2004 campaign literature urged that we "keep 95 percent of the Patriot Act and strengthen the rest." In other versions, the charge of fascism reflects conspiracy theories that the Bush administration itself somehow orchestrated the September 11th attacks.
Even when it's coupled with a deeper critique of the U.S. political system, the claim of impending fascism lumps together radically different forms of right-wing authoritarianism under one label. This confusion hurts our ability to develop clear and effective anti-right-wing strategies.
There are several versions of the claim that Bush & Co. are driving us into fascism, each with its own set of weaknesses. Most of them, however, reflect the widespread idea that fascism equals an extreme version of capitalist repression, an authoritarian regime that does the bidding of corporate elites. For example, some Bush critics define fascism as the merger of state and business interests — a formulation so broad that it could fit any capitalist state. Most famous on the left is the Communist International's 1933 definition, which is still in use today: "Fascism is the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital." This might describe a company town from the robber baron era but it's a feeble caricature of fascist politics.
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