Fascist elements in the religious right

By Heraclitus

Two excellent posts from two of my favorite bloggers, Jill Filipovic and Amanda Marcotte, on the resemblance between certain strands of conservative Christianity in the US today and classical fascism. They were prompted by this interview with Chris Hedges, a New York Times war correpsondent and author of a new book, American Fascists. The mention of fascism might seem alarmist or overly polemical to some, even an instance of the justly dreaded reductio ad Hitlerum. But see especially Jill's link-rich post, which is particularly thoughtful and well-informed. And Amanda's post identifies more pervasive, dehumanizing or alienating dynamics in our society which give rise to these problems, in addition to delivering some characteristically penetrating and brilliantly caustic criticisms of the religious right in particular.

But I mention these posts not only to bring them to your attention but to say something about the larger phenomenon or problem they're discussing (my observations here are no doubt unoriginal, but I'm not knowingly stealing them from anyone). I remember years and years ago, it may have been during the 2000 election or its aftermath, reading a guest op-ed piece in The New York Times about Pat Robertson. The author argued, persuasively, I thought, that Robertson's political achievement relied on the almost total ignorance of the American working class on the part of our political elites. Robertson was thus able to convinced politicians and their handlers that factory workers in the Midwest and farmers in the Great Plains cared more about stem cells than about health care. In other words, I want to blame this, as I do everything else, on the lack of a viable, real left-wing in this country.

My point is not just that it's a huge problem that there's no one making as much noise about health care and related issues as Robertson and his ilk make about stem cells and teh gays. My point is that even the politicians who don't court Robertson and company buy what he's selling, a vision of American politics defined and driven by symbolical issues. The primary example of this is, of course, the Clintons, but I think I'll save my thoughts about them for another post. The point here is just that when politicians on the alleged "left" as well as on the right play the game of symbolic politics -- or white, lower middle-class identity politics -- people like Robertson have already won. The political landscape has already become a void into which the more or less fascistic obsessions and impulses Jill lists in her post move and gain increasing traction.

All of this is also by way of saying something about John Edwards' candidacy. You all probably know that I'm holding out to endorse McCain (I can see the headlines now: "Random commie bastard endorses wise-cracking war hero renting soul to demented godbags"). But this is one obvious and, I think, very important advantage Edwards has. He is discussing economic reality, and I don't think he's going to be bullied into triangulatin'. He has a clear vision of what American politics should look like, and I don't think he's going to allow himself to be derailed by anxieties about whether he's pandering successfully to "Nascar dads." I'm not saying I simply endorse him at this point, because I think Gore would probably be the best candidate (oof--think of what the past six years would have been like with Gore as president), but I think it's very important, and gives Edwards a crucial advantage over candidates like Clinton and those who want to play her brand of symbolic/identity politics.