RE:A Fascist America In 10 Easy Steps

…Jon Ston, you’re forgetting that Hitler, upon gaining power and forcing through the Enabling Act granting him ‘emergency powers’ as a dictator, never really did so with anything more than a slim popular mandate. His rise had just as much to do with backstage intrigue and underhanded deals as with political support. Consequently, whilst controlling Senate, White House, Supreme Court and House would obviously be crucial at some stage in the development of a fascist dictatorship, it’s not necessarily a prequisite.What Nazi Germany and, to some extent, Fascist Italy did need was apathy and loss of faith in the political institutions.

Active support wasn’t really crucial, passivity is always enough. Whilst Hitler personally enjoyed tremendous personal support, you need to remember that despite their personal devotion to him, Germans were initally very suspicious of the Nazi Party as an organization. So much so that there was no real desire for it, in and of itself, to be running the country. Hence the need for the Night of the Long Knives, in which Hitler purged the party of its more anti-establishment, radical elements, such as the thugs in the SA under Ernst Rohm, and in doing so, gaining the support of establishment figures.

Fascist rises to power, in contrast to leftist ones, typically don’t take the form of revolutions, per se. Unlike a typical leftist revolution, in which the old establishment is largely displaced and replaced with a completely new (but usually just as bad) ruling class, Fascist takeovers tend to me a more orderly handover of power, more to do with backstairs intrigue than barricades.

In Germany, the Nazis had the support of old establishment figures such as Hindenberg, Ludendorff etc; solid old war heroes, and symbols of the proud Imperial Prussia of the Kaiser. With economic chaos and social disorder (actively encouraged, though, perhaps not directly initiated) by the genuinely revolutionary elements of the Nazi party, these old guards viewed Hitler, and the conservative face of Nazism, as means through which stability could be brought – breathing new life into the established state, not destroying it.

Once Hitler had established himself as a figurehead which appealed to the German people, and he, and the conservative; ‘respectable’ wing of the Nazi party had secured the support of the old elites and business leaders, he was free to dispose of the revolutionary element of the Nazi party and take control via effectively constitutional means.

It was only as time went by, and very gradually, that the Nazi party was able to break down the old organs of the German state bureaucracy. Examples such as the marginalization of the Foreign Ministry by Hitler’s pal Ribbentrop, gradual absorption of the old German police and internal security services into their Nazi counterparts at the Gestapo, the gradual subordination of the army into the SS over the course of the war…the Nazification of the state itself was still ongoing in 1945; it was an evolution, not a revolution, built on the existing foundations of the German political system and civil service, its capacity and expertise.

Because of that, a Fascist America might not have required anything nearly as radical as one might expect. I use the past tense there, because my own view is that Fascism, in the sense that we relate it to Hitler, Mussolini etc. is a primarily 1930s phenomenon. It was never an independent ideology, and was largely based around the unique circumstances of that period in history. What we might describe as ‘Fascism’ in 2007 would have to be something almost unrecognisably different. In the 1930s, however, it doesn’t seem impossible.

Roosevelt’s New Deal, despite being a triumph in terms of the precedents it set and the psychological impact it had on the American mindset following the hammer-blow of 1929, actually achieved very little concrete in terms of economic recovery. It’s generally agreed that by 1937, the programme had all but ended, having been wound up by the Supreme Court, and otherwise was facing popular disillusionment and savage opposition from resurgent business leaders. If it had not been for Roosevelt’s ability to switch political attention abroad, it’s perfectly possible that he would have found himself in a similar position to his social democrat counterparts in Germany and Italy prior to Fascist takeover.

The Liberty league, made up of the Rockefellers and all the other business leaders, (which Prescott Bush and Joseph Kennedy, were, at least to some degree, also associated with), did in fact discuss the possibility of some kind of political re-organization to remove FDR and put in place someone favourable to their interests.

I find it interesting that Jon Ston assumes that Middle America would have necessarily opposed this orderly handover. Fascism, although usually driven into power with the collusion of conservative elites, also typically maintains at least a populist pretence, specific to each circumstance. The strongly anti-communist elements of Fascism which had been around even before the ‘Red Scares’ of the early 1920s were well established in the US. The desire for a homogenous sense of national identity and national culture was also extremely prominent; very few underestimate the isolationist tendencies of middle America, right up until Pearl Harbour. Consider the Quota Act which effectively halted immigration, the tariffs which sought to achieve economic independence in a similar manner to Mussolini’s ‘Autarky’.

There are also parallels to be made between the way in which Latin America was (is) viewed as lying within the US sphere of influence and Hitler’s view of Eastern Europe as a resource to be harnessed for Germany’s benefit. Even the elements of rascism which set Nazism apart from other types of Fascism are present; 6 states had, at this time, in place laws which authorized the sterilisation of ‘undesirable’ social elements (including the rural poor in Tennesee and West Virginia), as well as, of course, your run-of-the-mill segregation throughout the South. Indeed, one Prominent Eugenicist in Tennessee went so far as to complain to state education officials that the Nazis were in danger of overtaking them in their study of the subject.

I agree that Fascism could not have simply been transplanted into the American heartland direct from Germany, Spain and Italy, but something home-grown, framing Fascist core beliefs in language and political terms already part of the political discourse does seem possible. There’s no reason why such an American Fascism would have been linked to Hitler or Mussolini any more closely than the two were linked to each other. After all, Fascism is a fundamentally nationalist phenomenon. However, if aided to some extent by European counterparts, it does seem that it might well have taken hold without too much of a change in circumstances.

In terms of leaders, your imagination needs to stretch slightly beyond a carbon-copied Hitler figure with a mid-western accent. He would have been a home-grown, wholesome, charismatic small-town-hero-made-good from relatively humble origins, a popular hero who’s appeal went beyond politics. Charles Lindbergh, the aviator, is often mentioned in these circumstances. Although I’m not sure about him and how strong those links are, he does seem to fit the mould. A kind of white, typical, all-American hero viewed as representing the WASP’s conception of national identity. A family man, but with the elements of racism and willingness to depart from the political traditions (e.g. the Constitution) of a democratic society, but in a subtle, gradual way, with everyone so transfixed on his promises to make the nation great and powerful once again, that nobody really notices.

I can’t see a figure such as Huey Long, the southern hell-raiser who was assassinated, being able to do it; he was too recognizably radical and militant in a nation which had too long an experience of political continuity to embrace such a divisive figure, the same applies to Father Coughlin, the most recognizably Fascist of the three…

Either way, however, in the 1930s at least, Fascism in the US was certainly a possibility, albeit with an all-American face.