Fascist America

Today I heard something on the radio that made me nervous. It was a professor comparing fascism to democracy, and it suddenly made me wonder if America could ever become fascist. Sure it's possible. Anything's possible, but for now I'm quite sure we can keep our bourgeois country.

There are various forces pushing our country in the direction of Mao and the little red book, the main one being the power of America's upper class. In a fascist society the elite is actually similar to that of a democratic society, but with more power. Big bosses still run enormous corporations with thought only to themselves. This means that it wouldn't take much to tip the guys with the Rollses into fascism. The other force is our nationalism. Just like citizens of a communist or fascist state, we are encouraged to and do put up flags, pledge allegiance, sware by our country try not to make too many jokes about our national mascot, Uncle Sam. Theoretically, this could lead to blind allegiance to the state, which would allow an easy takeover by a dictator or oligarchy. However, this is very unlikely to happen. Americans believe in America because of what it stands for more than because they were born there, and converting to fascism would mean an uprooting of all those morals.

This unflagging belief in the principles of our country is what keeps us from a government change in two ways. The first is that our loyalty to democracy means it would be near impossible to force upon us the ideological change from entrepreneurial to blind labor. Although the upper class wouldn't have to change drastically to become fascist, the lower classes would need to adopt these morals. The bourgeoisie would need to do this as well as demoting to laborers. The other thing holding us back, in my opinion the real safety net right now, is America's martial patriotism. Although it's been 300 years, compelling ideas of battle for freedom still rack the minds of our countries more conservative men, and I'm sure that should Bush try to build an army of storm troopers, the NRA would mobilize their pick-up trucks so quickly that the army would not be able to fight back. I'm actually serious in this opinion. More than three quarters of American men own a gun, and the do so because they are allowed by the constitution. If that constitution was threatened they would rush to defend it. What would most likely happen in this case is an annihilation of both sides, leaving anarchy. It may be unnerving to have your rights protected by gun nuts, but they're better than bloggers.