Seven More Things Not to Say

as Fascism Seeks Full Consolidation in History's Most Powerful Imperialist State

You may have seen my two previous essays (see here and here) enumerating and elaborating on 17 things not to say in connection with the coming (at the time I wrote these two essays) return of Trumpism-fascism to the White House and the broader fascist takeover of US government:

1. “We survived the first Trump administration so we’ll get through a second one just fine.”

2. “It’s going to be a tough four years.”

3. “Half the country voted for Trump.”

4. “I’ve stopped paying any attention to current events now that Trump is coming back. It’s too disgusting. I’m done with the news.”

5. “Trump’s far-right talk is just empty political campaign rhetoric. He won’t act on any of it. Keep calm.”

6. “I’m too exhausted by US politics and Trump. I’ve got to step away.”

7. “I can’t join your resistance because I’ve to got to focus on myself first. You can’t help anybody else out unless you take care of yourself first.”

8. “Trump is what America deserves”

9. “The Democrats have to be better, more working class. Bernie was right!”.

10. “Stop criticizing Trump and his party. The Democrats are no different.”

11. “I’m staying home and quiet because I don’t believe in violence.”

12. “Luigi showed the way.”

13. “Trump is an anti-imperialist isolationist.”

14. “Trump’s base is the working class, driven by economic insecurity and anxiety.”

15. “Trump is too stupid and venal to be a real fascist menace."

16. "Calm down: the Republicans will implode and collapse the Trump threat."

17. “You have Trump Derangement System.”

Today I want to push my list out to 24.

Here we go…

18. “There are more things happening in the world right now,” the so-called radical Angela Davis recently said, “than the inauguration of someone who represents fascism.” How absurd! Of course there are other things occurring on the planet besides Trump’ return to power. You’d have to be an abject moron not to know that. But no recent and ongoing development is more significant in the world today than the emergence of an outright fascist regime making a very real bid to consolidate fascism across government and society in the most dangerous imperialist power of all time! As the leading revolutionary communist Sunsara Taylor notes in a recent brilliant Instagram post, the liberal professor Davis didn’t make her weird comment as part of an effort to tell her audience to dig deeper into understanding the capitalist-imperialist system that gave rise to this horrific fascist nightmare and how to overthrow the new regime. No, she said it “put people to sleep,” to turn their attention away the menace Trumpism-fascism poses and the need for a mass movement to defeat it.

19. “Trump can’t do this, it’s illegal!” The makers of the common liberal and centrist comment seem to think the rule of law is some kind of autonomous force of nature that can’t be violated by Trump again and again. Trump and his team across government and society are working 24-7 to redefine what’s legal and illegal, to remake the “rule of law” on authoritarian and fascist terms. They are aggressively attacking the previously normative bourgeois-democratic rule of law and it is by no means certain that they will be unsuccessful in this effort. Failure to rise up in huge numbers against this fascist offensive will ensure their victory.

20. “Trump gets to do all the crazy fascist shit he’s doing because he won a popular mandate to do so under our democracy.” Yes, I know this is not entirely unlike #3 above. But I think this merits elaborating on, as I did in my second to most recent PSR, where I point out that Trump: (a) Trump’s official popular vote amounts to just 29% of the nation’s voting age population, not “half the country;” (b) won the official popular vote tally by just 1.5%, a very slim victory margin my historical standards; (c) Trump owed his official Electoral College victory to just 0.15% of the popular vote; (d) Kamala Harris would have won both the popular vote and the Electoral College but for racist voter suppression; (e) the Democrats are an “inauthentic opposition party” that represents wealthy people and their corporations and financial institutions, not ordinary citizens; (f) voters make their ballot choices on the basis of candidate qualities more than on policies under the corporate-crafted US electoral extravaganzas; (g) the US is not remotely a democracy; it is a capitalist class dictatorship and oligarchy whichever major capitalist party or combination of major capitalist parties controls government.

21. “Why are you talking about fascism when you aren’t locked up? You are free to speak and write so obviously we are not living under fascism. Stop being so hysterical.” I have heard this again from fascism-deniers, including a leading Chicago “left” activist. To help you process how fundamentally idiotic and dangerous this comment is, imagine that you had a noticeable tumor starting to form on your neck and growing larger by the day. Imagine further some clown telling you not to be concerned about the growth on your neck because “you can still speak and swallow. You’ll know you have throat cancer,” they tell you, “when you can’t do those things anymore!” Trump and Trumpism have been exhibiting classic signs of fascist cancer for more than eight years and now the cancer has expanded like never before. Without an urgent radical intervention it will fully consolidate, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad. Imagine refusing to intervene against the choking of someone by a police officer until you had proof that the victim was no longer breathing.

22. “Now I’m getting libbed up.” I read this comment recently from a smart and cynical lefty who had previously been somewhat downplaying the menace of the second Trump administration but changed his mind and decided that the new White House and the broader fascist movement it is leading do in fact pose an existential menace to humanity. I’m glad he changed his mind but the problem here is that he has ironically over-identified anti-fascism with liberals/liberalism/Democrats. Today as back in the days of classic European fascism, radicals of the left and not liberals and centrists are the leading anti-fascists. By comparison, the liberals and Dems tend towards Weimar- and Vichy-like appeasement and passivity. Being anti-fascist is not at all about getting “libbed up”! US liberals and Dems have been incredibly squeamish about acknowledging much less fighting fascism in the Trump years. That very much needs to change.

23. “Trumpism has nothing to do with Christianity; Trump-backing Christians aren’t really Christians.” I’ve heard this again and again from decent spiritual people who think that Christianity is all about egalitarian concern for the common good, equality, social justice and the like. When I hear this comment, I often wonder if they’ve ever actually read the Christian Holy Bible, to whose terrifying Old Testament Jesus was committed. It is jam-packed with God-approved and indeed God-commanded and God-celebrated stories of mass genocide, rape, kidnapping, slavery, femicide and general Holocausting in the name of “the Chosen People.” (Please see the “God the Original Fascist” series on the Recvoms’ website.) Like it or not, the far-right Christian fascists who make up a large and key component of the Trump movement have lots of material to justify their horrific views and actions in Christianity’s sacred texts.

24. Nothing — nothing about Trump and Trumpism-fascism, that is. I have a Trumpenleft friend (some readers may find that hard to believe) in Iowa City who is quite active on social media. He posts pretty much daily with one generically leftish kind of item after another – something Noam Chomsky said in 2003, something James Baldwin said in 1962, something Rosa Luxembourg wrote in 1902, something Chris Hedges wrote in 2008 (all the Trumepnelfties I know are way into Hedges), something Dr. King said in 1966, and so on. He’s against war and for Single Payer health insurance. He posted for Jill Stein. He discovers yet again and again that both of the two major US political parties are capitalist and imperialist – who knew?! And he never ever under any circumstance posts one word about the deepening fascist menace and the white nationalist takeover of the world’s most lethal and dangerous country the United States in the Age of Trump. This is consistent with his personally stated beliefs that January 6 was no big deal and that the Capitol Rioters shouldn’t have been jailed for their supposed little “working-class rally.” I imagine my Trumpenleft friend in Germany after Hitler became Chancellor, refusing to say one word about the new head of state and the genocidal Nazi Party but rambling on about how bad World War One and liberals are as Germany careened towards the Reichstag Fire. My friend has gone beyond the idiocy of Angela Davis, who can at least acknowledge that we have just seen “the inauguration of someone who represents fascism” even as she tries to direct attention away from that terrible fact.