Eight More Things NOT to Say During a Fascist Consolidation Attempt

& Some Role Model Reflections

Pamela Paul, ridiculous New York Times fascism-appeaser

I have 8 more things NOT to say about the fascist coup currently underway in the United States.

31. “Hey,” an Iowa City friend recently posted, “get ready to have the feel of a third world country.” What my friend means by this is “get ready to feel like you are living in an open political dictatorship.”

I have three problems with this comment. First, why on Earth should we prepare ourselves for that? How about joining some of the protests that are starting up against the attempted full consolidation of Trumpism-fascism? How about following the advice of the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity and Refuse Fascism by joining with others to “make this country ungovernable” by the fascist Trump-Musk-Project 25-(Stephen) Miller-Vance-Alito-Hegseth-Hannity-(John) Thune-(Mike) Johnson regime?!

Second, “third world” was a Cold War era term for extremely poor and “developing” nations on the vast super-exploited periphery of the world capitalist-imperialist system. The Trump coup is not about to undo the United States’ status as an extremely rich superpower at the parasitic apex of that imperial order! My friend and pretty much all US Americans continue enjoy a living standard far beyond the miserable conditions imposed upon the deeply impoverished masses of “the third world.” The horrifically low wages paid to workers in the “global South”/periphery is no small part of why she can afford to live comfortably in the United States. With all due respect for Trumpism’s threats to American working- and middle-class economic security and income, the vast structural wealth and comfort disparity between US and “third world” living standards is not going to be remotely eradicated by Mein Trumpf! My friend is not about to have “the feel” of living in a shanty town in Ecuador, the Philippines, or the DRC anytime soon!

Third, there’s an (I think unintended) Trump-like imperial arrogance embedded in my friend’s comment. “Third world country” is used here in such a way as to suggest shame, as in “far below the civilized and democratic United States.” The sentiment sense is not all that far from Trump’s phrase for Haiti and African nations: “shithole countries.” And here’s a big problem with that: no force on Earth has done more to impose and enforce poverty and dictatorship on poor “third world” nations around the world than the undemocratic capitalist US imperialist superpower itself. Uncle Sam has long been the top rich nation imperial cop, inflicting destitution and authoritarianism – “Third World Fascism” (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s phrase for US-backed “developing nation” dictatorships) – across the planet.

32. “I see the Trump thing as a part of continuum in American history. Same old, same old.” So says another Iowa City friend, who describes himself as a socialist and even a Marxist and who has tended over the years to minimize the dangers of Trumpism-fascism.

Yes and no. If by “continuum” and “same” my friend means that Trump and Trumpism are consistent with and expressions of deep historical US-American pathologies including virulent white supremacism, racist genocide, nationalist imperialism, toxic misogyny, rampaging capitalism, and xenophobic nationalism, there’s no argument from me. I dedicated an entire chapter of my book This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America to a richly annotated critique of Genocide Joe Biden’s notion that Trump and Trumpism were great anamolous “aberrations” in the supposedly exceptional and democratic historical record and "soul” of the USA. (The chapter is titled “America Was Never Great: On ‘The Soul of This Nation.’”)

But Trumpism also represents a radical – radically reactionary – departure in domestic capitalist governance: an attempt to programmatically, ideologically, and if necessary physically overthrow previously normative bourgeois electoral, parliamentary, constitutional, and “rule of law” democracy, such as it is, inside the imperialist homeland itself. I’ve been documenting, criticizing, and rallying with others against this ongoing fascist coup for many years now ( I won’t try to rehearse all of that here.)

33. “Fascism is too academic a word for use in mobilizing people to resist the Trump coup.”

Notice my use of the F-word --- no, not f*#k and not “felon,” but fascism. As I have been arguing for quite some time, it is the connecting link, the through-line tying together all the different aspects of the many-sided Trumpist assault on “our” supposed “multiracial democracy” — an assault that has now gone into hyper-drive.

A progressive recently said this to me in a thread attached to a recent smart and recommended Substack essay in which the brilliant young anti-fascist historian Thomas Zimmer breaks down the following four core “factions” of what he cleverly sees as “a MAGA feeding frenzy” that is carrying out “a full-on assault on constitutional government” and creating a “crisis” for the US constitutional order: [i] “the reactionary elites mostly aligned with [the] Heritage [Foundation] and Project 2025”; [ii] … “the America First [Christian white nationalist] nativists [associated with Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon];” [iii] … “the [more globalist] techbro feudal barons [led by the top government coup-maker Elon Musk];” [iv] … “Donald Trump, driven entirely by a sense of grievance, a desire for revenge, and his personal obsessions (tariffs, for instance; and the urge to install a politics of domination both domestically as well as on the world stage).”

I largely agree with Zimmer’s description of key components of the Amerikaner Trumpist movement and with Zimmer’s suggestion that there are considerable tensions between these factions — tensions that are likely to emerge in greater force as the initial post-inauguration “feeding frenzy” loses some of its novelty and energy. But I find it odd that Zimmer never mentions the core politico-ideological thread uniting these four factions (and also millions in Trump’s base): 21^st Century Amerikan Fascism – the essence of what Zimmer calls a “radical ‘Counter-Revolution.’” My best guess is that Zimmer knows very well that his factions are all different parts of a fascist movement but prefers to keep “the F-word” somewhat at a distance given his status as an academic at an elite institution of so-called higher education.

When I voiced this opinion in the thread, a smart reader commented as follows: “I can’t speak for [Zimmer], but I am guessing that in this piece he avoids that term because it's too academic and broad for the average layperson.”

Too academic and broad for everyday people? Just last weekend I was in the streets with hundreds of Latino and Latina Chicago high school students who very much at home with the F-word and far from confused about its meaning. Many of them had written the F-word on their posters, some in Spanish and some in English. Hundreds of them joined in chanting “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA.” And hundreds joined in repeating this statement after me and other younger and more dynamic fascism-refusing revolutionary communists said it: “In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America.”

What do I mean when I say fascism? Here is he definition we give on the Website of Refuse Fascism (RF), on whose editorial board I sit:

“Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive ‘traditional values.’ Fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build the movement and consolidate power. What is crucial to understand is that once in power fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All of this [took] dramatic leaps under the Trump Regime. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.”

And here is a recent passage from the Revcom leader Bob Avakian:

“In the fascist form….the ‘rule of law’ is essentially what the fascists say it is, and the rights of people are more or less openly limited to what is allowed by the fascists, while such rights are only extended to those who go along with the rule of the fascists…As I made clear in my 2017 speech about the first Trump regime (The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!—available at revcom.us), the program and policy of Trump/MAGA fascism is: relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and inequality; acting with callous disregard or cold-blooded malice toward those they consider inferior and a drain or stain on the country; on a mission to deny health care to millions who will suffer and many who will die without it; crudely degrading women, as objects of plunder, breeders of children without the right to abortion or birth control, subordinate to husbands and men in general; defying the science of climate change, attacking the science of evolution, and repudiating the scientific method overall... intensifying state terror against Muslims, immigrants and people in the inner cities; unleashing and giving encouragement and support to brutal thugs spewing vile “America First,” white supremacist, male supremacist and anti-LGBT venom—a regime that boasts of all this and declares its intention to do even worse.”

Besides being accurate descriptions of the Trump program and orientation, these two passages (the one from RF and the one from Avakian) are written in clear, straightforward, and eloquent prose that everyday people can understand (and it’s depressing how reluctant many Ph.D-brandishing folks in the humanities and social sciences have been to sign on to these descriptions, by the way.)

34. “We shouldn’t take to the streets in huge numbers right now because fascists will kill us and Trump will declare martial law.” The leading liberal and anti-fascist US Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) pretty much said that in a recent interview. Here’s the actual quote:

“First of all, we’re not having marches of millions of people right now because Trump would undoubtedly deploy his private militia…pardoned Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and Three Percenters and violent insurrectionists to come and clash with protesters, to claim ANTIFA’s there and to create street violence so as to give Trump an excuse for imposing martial law. I think that the forces of opposition …are being far more nimble and clever than that…”

This is wrongheaded in at least four ways. First, it’s not mainly fear of fascist paramilitaries and martial law that is keeping millions off the streets right now, it’s shock and dismay at Trump’s official popular and Electoral College victory combined with a badly exaggerated sense of the legitimacy of Trump’s supposed “mandate.”

Second, Raskin seriously exaggerates the threat to mass protest currently posed by fascist paramilitaries. This plays into the Trump coup by discouraging mass resistance.

Raskin is wrong if he seriously thinks millions of Americans are saying to thermselves “wow, I’d love to go out and protest this Trumpist madness but if I do I’ll be shot down by the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers or the Three Percenters and Trump will declare martial law.”

Third, Raskin doesn’t seem to understand that truly mass protests compelling Trump to try to carry out the violent repression that Raskin fears would significantly help de-legitimize Trump’s illegitmate presidency, exposing it as an authoritarian and fascist regime whose leaders know they do not reflect the will of the masses. “Marches of millions” and more would help create a political crisis for the Trump47 regime and perhaps for the whole damn system that generated it.

Fourth, Raskin’s fear-fueling cowardice-feediong comment ignores the crucial fact that NOT stepping out in the millions to confront Trump and Musk et al.’s tyranny means permitting the consolidation of a fascist regime that will kill and maim on a grand scale (in many different ways) at home and abroad. Want to see people get hurt and even killed on a mass scale? Leave this regime in place and the bodies will pile up in coming months and years, trust me. The body count from not engaging in mass resistance will far surpass the body count from engaging in mass resistance.

The role models here are not Raskin’s Democratic Pary officials and lawyers who are suing Trump in court (good for them) but the Puerto Rican masses who forced their reactionary governor out of office in 2019 and the South Korean masses who have risen up against their Trumpist president, forcing his arrest and indictment after he brazenly and groundlessly declared martial law last December 3rd.

The Abject Idiocy of Pamela Paul on How to Get Through Fascist Takeover

35. “Refuse to react…If you think that most maximalist positions on the right sound unhinged and inhumane, consider that their corresponding positions on the left may be zany in their own special ways. Whether your spiritual guide is a yogi, the Stoics or the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean, you can still engage in nuance, complexity or indecision.” This is an actual recent statement from The New York Times columnist Pamela Paul. Ms. Paul’s understanding of “nuance” and “complexity” is for people not to get worked up about the potential full fascist takeover of the most powerful and dangerous nation in history…. because “the left” is “zany” too. God knows what she really means by “the left” — my guess is “woke” bourgeois identity politics and (given her history) legitimate support for transgendered folks — but this is paralyzing “both-sidesism” taken to an absurd and pathological extreme. This is truly disgraceful: “Three cheers for yogi-directed and meditative indecision and inaction at the dawn of the Fourth Reich!”

36. More really bad advice from Pamela Paul: “Disregard Musk.” Oh yes, by all means, pay no attention to the world’s richest oligarch, Mein Trump’s top financial sponsor – the Seig Heiling Afrikaner tech Nazi to whom the wannabe be fascist strongman for life has handed the keys to federal finances and personnel management! JFC!

37. Yet more Pamela Paulean idiocy:

“Engage in mini-rebellions. We know that Resistance is Out or at least cowering in a corner clutching its Hydroflask and alternating between A.S.M.R. and a Theragun. But that doesn’t mean you must submit entirely to the current order. Take a card from Roz Chast’s comic on ‘mini-rebellions,’ which offers examples of satisfying micro-revolts like paying rude cabdrivers with ‘very old, torn, dirty money.’ Personally, I avoid using favorite Trump words like ‘beautiful’ and ‘huge,’ which nobody else notices but which brings quiet satisfaction. Make whatever adjustments you need to prove that you neither approve of nor participate in what is happening.”

Do I even need to comment on how stupid and arrogant this is? I’ll disregard the ugly classism of her cab driver comment and note that (a) resistance is NOT out (people are coming out into the streets and public squares to confront Trumpism-fascism) and (b) the last thing we need right now is ridiculous petty-bourgeois “mini-rebellions.” We need sweeping maxi-rebellions from coast to coast and a broader rebellion that moves towards revolution against the underlying capitalist-imperialist system that hatched Trumpism-fascism.

38. A final piece of nauseating nonsense from Pamela Paul:

“Break up with your tribe. Belonging to any group that requires ideological, behavioral and even aesthetic commitment isn’t necessarily the best way to connect with fellow humans in a highly pixelated and polarized world. You can be a singular individual while still forging community with the people around you — preferably in actual geographic space rather than an imagined cyberspace — despite your disagreements. Technically, it is possible to embrace people who differ from us and still stay true to who we are. Remember, we are all, every one of us in our own imperfect way, simply trying to hold onto a swiftly tilting planet without letting ourselves go.”

At first blush, this may sound smart and sensitive. In reality, it is stupid and sinister. Of course we should not embrace mindless and cultish tribalism. But there’s nothing wrong with “ideological, behavioral, and aesthetic commitment,” without which great social and political movements for human emancipation (individual and collective liberation) and great works of art are impossible.

“Embrace” white supremacist ecocidal women-hating gay-bashing and xenophobic and fundamentalist fascists? No!

We are all of us “simply trying to hold onto a swiftly tilting planet without letting ourselves go?” No! Far too many Americans high and low are trying to destroy livable ecology along with civil and human rights, basic decency, truth, science, and any chances for a decent future!

(Speaking of science, who told Pamela Paul that Earth is “swiftly tilting”? Does she have any scientific evidence for this faux-poetic assertion?)

Please write to The New York Times to demand the immediate firing of the ridiculous fascism-appeasing trans-basher Pamela Paul.

Until next time…likely quite soon as things are moving quite quickly.