FASCISM--The Discussion

++Just a warning,the ADL has alerted Americans that the Norwegian group, Sons of Odin, has now set up shop in the United States and claim 26 branches. Talking Points Memo has a good article on them and their efforts to stir up anti-Muslim sentiments. One example was in Montana where there was no effort to resettle Muslim refugees,they created a whole network of people protesting this non-existent action.

++We blogged about Jonathan Weisman,editor of the Washington Bureau of the New York Times,forwarded Robert Kagan's op-ed from the Post about fascism coming to the United States. The Weisman was inundated by anti-Semitic tweets. 

++Today he writes in the Sunday Times about "The Nazi Tweets of 'Trump God Emperor'". Weisman goes in detail about the Jewish journalists who have experienced everything from a "candelabrum made of six million to photoshops of authors in concentration camp garb. Julia Ioffe was one of the first to suffer the anti-semitic barrage from Trump supporters who took umbrage of her profile of Melania Trump in GQ magazine. Melania said the author deserved it. Conservative Bethany Mandel had so much vitriol hurled at her, she bought a gun.

++Weisman retweeted the choicest attacks on him An official at Twitter encouraged him to block the anti-Semites and report then to Twitter but he preferred to preserve them for a database of hate. He kept the image of a smiling Mr. Trump in a Nazi uniform flicking the switch on a gas chamber containing his photoshopped face. 

++Weisman says we have heard nothing from Mr. Trump,no denunciation , no broad renouncing of racist, anti-semitic support, no sympathy for its victims. 

++Weisman points to the Republican Jewish Coalition "abhorring the abuse of journalists,commentators,and writers, whether it be from the Sanders, Clinton or Trump" campaign. 

++So we go to Peter Baker's frontage piece in the New York Times on "Rise of Trump Tracks Debate Over Fascism". Baker reports that to Trump supporters these accusations are unfair smear tactics to tar conservatives and scare voters. They say it is easier to delegitimize his support than to acknowledge widespread popular anger at the failure of both parties to confront the nation's challenges. (I am sorry I am obtuse .I simply don't get this meme about both parties and failing to meet the nation's challenges."

++But Baker admits that there is a discussion around the globe about the revival of fascism--which is generally defined as a governmental system that asserts complete power and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism. 

++Traditional parties in Europe have been challenged by nationalist movements during economic crisis and the influx of migrants. Baker also points to the ongoing feuds within Israel, which is leaning even more to the right.

++Baker's article is a good and long read. He quotes Robert Paxton of Columbia about the whole spectrum of these parties form right-wing nationalism,illiberal democracy and populist autocracy. 

++Baker reviews the complaints that Trump is a fascist , which his wife denies. But he notes that Trump was slow--very slow--to denounce white supremacist David Duke and praised Vladimir Putin and promised to be his friend. And that he has not denounced his supporters anti-semiticism or the neo-Nazi support for his campaign. 

++Paxton saw similarities and differences In Trump and Hitler and Mussolini."His message about an America in decline and his us-against-them pronouncements about immigrants and outsiders echo Europe in the 1930s.  On the other hand,Trump has hardly created uniformed, violent youth groups. "

++Volker Perthes, the director of then German Institute for International and Security Affairs, read Bob Kagan's piece and said "All the phenomenon he describes are raising concerns but I would still not call Trump or his campaign fascist".

++Charles Grant ,the director of the Center of European reform in London, distinguished between far-right nationalist parties like Le Pen;s National Front in France and actual fascism. 

++Grant said," Historically,it means the demonization of minorities within society to the extent that they feel insecure. It means encouraging the use of violence against critics. It means a bellicose foreign policy that may lead to war, to excite a nationalist feeling. It takes xenophobia to extremes. And it is contemptuous of the rules-based liberal order."

++ And Stanley Payne ,professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, says that we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of politics maybe best called right-wing populist nationalism.  Roger Eatwell of the University of Bath in England calls it "illiberal democracy", a form of government that jeeps the trappings of democracy without the reality." 

++But Baker concludes the article with a quote from Lilia Shevtsova, a political scientist in Moscow, says that neo-fascism in liberal societies stems from crisis and dysfunction while in illiberal countries like Turkey and Russia it reflects an attempt to fill the void left by the failure of Western notions to catch on.

++That the issue has been raised front and center in our election year should trigger alarm bells. To have a candidate endorsed by the KKK,the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists without any criticism by that man should worry people.