“Is it fascism?” isn’t what we need to know, we need to know how to fight it.
A short review of From the Flag to the Cross: Fascism American Style, edited by Zachary Sklar and Michael Steven Smith, published by OR Books, 109 pages
How many articles have we read asking “ Is it fascism?” Shouldn’t we have guessed that when Donald Trump characterized his attempted coup on January 6, 2020 as “a day of love?” How many articles have asked “is it genocide?” while people in Gaza starved and the body count piled up? Meanwhile, The Heritage Foundation developed the Trump administration’s blueprint Project 2025 three years ago, and we’re still talking about how to respond.Mainstream media op eds, talking heads on news broadcasts, and public intellectuals sparring over definitions are nothing more than an effort to postpone meaningful action. Meaningful action will be risky, exhausting, likely dangerous. It will involve unremitting effort, all our organizing skills, and an unshakeable commitment to community and solidarity. Zachary Sklar and Michael Steven Smith have put together a short book of essays From the Flag to the Cross, published by OR Books. It cuts to the chase: What we must know and what we must do now. That’s essential reading for all of us.
The underpinnings of our social order (or disorder) are our shared resources and the myths that allocate them. There’s not much question that capitalism, at least for the last fifty years, has been focused on nullifying the concessions made to labor in the Great Depression, and increasing the productivity of labor while allocating those gains in profit to an ever smaller group of wealthy oligarchs. Deindustrialization, globalization, the destruction of unions, the elimination of many public goods and services have all contributed to the increasingly desperate situation of anyone who lives on a paycheck. What myths are being made to justify the wholesale reallocation of wealth? What myths are holding us back from the fight against fascism?
Their Myth #1 – In his chapter “The Rise of Christian Fascism,” Chris Hedges argues that the Christian right is putting in place the ideological basis for dictatorship. Ministers are seen as unchallengeable cult figures in direct contact with God. This insight is even more to the point when we look at the recent verbal meanderings of President Trump. His hair’s breadth escape from assassination may have convinced him, and certainly has convinced others, that he is the chosen one. Add to this a Secretary of Defense (now “War”) who is an adherent of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches – a sect that calls for theocracy to replace democracy, and a Supreme Court stacked with advocates of an unchecked executive, and a Congress dominated by a mix of true believers, unabashed opportunists, and terrified centrists fecklessly yearning for the yesterday of bi-partisan co-operation.
Their Myth #2 – In her chapter “Unions Must Lead the Fight,” Diane Feeley points out, creating categories of human and sub-human is one of the building blocks of fascism. It’s the “migrants” who have stolen our jobs, our health care, our wealth. Donald Trump: “They’re taking our jobs… they’re taking our money, they’re killing us.” (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers) How far is this from the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer that repeatedly described Jews as the parasites, stealing the wealth of the Fatherland?
Their Myth #3 – Trumpism is a political movement of a disenchanted working class. Richard Wolff’s chapter “When Capitalism Morphs Into Fascism” speaks directly to the Trump administration and Project 2025 as “the steps capitalists take when the inevitable inequality and instability of their system theatens its sustainability.” They turn to force.
Our Myth #1 – It’s Trump. Hedges says Trump is the symptom, not the disease, and we have to treat the disease — the ruination of the working class through deindustrialization, globalization, and financialization by a tiny kleptocratic oligarchy.
Our Myth #2- If they only knew the truth…. The precondition for dictatorship is that truth no longer exists. Hannah Arendt notes, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, that “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” True believers are not the only pillar of totalitarianism. An exhausted, cynical, disillusioned majority is what’s actually decisive. Henri GIroux in “Militarized Education and the Assault on Free Speech” describes how de-education and historical illiteracy is central to creating that cynical majority, and the critical role of student uprisings in fighting back.
Our Myth #3 – The Law will save us. The US Supreme Court has done a good job of shattering this myth but every time I think this is obvious, someone tells me like “the courts will never allow this.” Lawsuits are still worthwhile. They are an educational tool and can create important delays, but without mass actions, they cannot win. Bill Mullen, in his chapter “The Law Won’t Save Us,” urges us to look at the history of racism in the United States, how it was upheld and actually structured by the courts, and how the rightwing’s current doctrine of “originalism” embeds the racism inherent in the founding document in today’s legal decisions. The gains of the civil rights movement and the wins we need today come from mass mobilizations.
Kshana Sawant’s chapter, “A Fighting Strategy for Community-Based Action” is a roadmap for community mobilization. She argues compellingly that structure of our political system is designed to insure both political parties are at work to thwart change. Popular movements, like the demand for Medicare for All, can only succeed if they are built outside the structure of the two parties.
This is a short read packed with the arguments and strategies we urgently need now.
You can order From the Flag to the Cross from OR Books; you will find many other worthy titles from this publisher at orbooks.com.
Felice Gelman had a 25-year career on Wall Street as an investment manager and securities analyst, specializing in analyzing and investing in banks and other financial companies. She worked for two investment banks and then started her own asset management business which became the largest firm specializing in financial company investments. She has participated in Palestine solidarity efforts for 20 years.