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On 9/9/18 3:42 PM, Andrew Stewart wrote:
its obligatory organizations (Hitler Youth etc). Trump and the GOP seem to want to punish the ‘improvident’ poor, whereas the fascists promoted a national community, purged of its dissidents and unassimilable minorities, in where all the ‘real’ members of the ‘volk’ would be taken care of. Fascism was communitarian, Trumpism is individualistic. Using the fascist label in an indiscriminate fashion conceals these basic economic and social goals, and so keeps us from understanding the Trump administration.”
It is necessary to understand the huge differences between 1932 and 2018. In 1932, there were huge CPs and SPs everywhere and the example of the Soviet Union that appeared to be a workers paradise compared to the suffering taking place in the West.
So it was absolutely necessary for the ruling classes to con the workers into thinking that capitalism could be made to work for them if a strong state and a kind of planning was operative. This was what made FDR and Hitler in their own ways palatable to the workers.
In addition, in 1932 capitalism was still in its Fordist phase. The German, British and American bourgeoisie had a vested interest in reviving their economies since steel, auto and armaments were driving them rather than collateralized mortgage loans and Facebook.
Also, despite the weakness of the capitalist economies since the early 70s (except for China), you don't have the kind of massive collapse that took place in the 1930s. Instead, it is a chronic low-grade economic fever that in the absence of Fordist manufacturing tends to lead people to seek individualistic solutions of the kind Michael Moore documented in "Roger and Me": raising rabbits for food; moving from Flint to Houston where there were jobs; taking programming classes at a community college, etc.
As I have said on many occasions, the good news is that there is no imminent threat of fascism in the USA. The bad news is that there is neither an imminent threat of socialist revolution, the only thing that might provoke an American Hitler to be backed by the Koch brothers et al.
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