Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion

Blueprint for Fascism Part 5

This series has been looking at fascism’s Biblical worldview and narrative. Last time, at the close of Part 4, I said we would look next at “Christianity’s claim that God and His genocidal directives don’t apply to New Testament religion.” On reflection, that topic is irrelevant to this series, so I’m going to wrap up without it.

I was showing my age. When I was part of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity, there was an assumed theodicy that the New Testament God had somehow superseded the Old – He was kinder and gentler, and so was the gospel. (“Theodicy means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil.” Wikipedia) I was shown the door out of that world over 20 years ago. It took most of those years for me to get re-situated until I could say, “Hey, would you look at that – I’m an atheist now!” In the meantime, the world I left behind changed to the point where it no longer needed its kinder, gentler God and kinder, gentler gospel.

The churches I’d been associated with were only peripherally related to the rising new Christian Right, although in hindsight I can see that we were less peripheral than we wanted to think. The shift was already underway by the time I got out – it was a product of the times, moving in sync with the USA’s economic, political, and cultural shift. Under the new militant nationalist regime, the old theodicy was unnecessary.

I didn’t see this happening while it was going on around me. I think most of us didn’t. I’ve only become aware of it because about 4-5 years ago I realized that I didn’t know how life works any more, and started reading and writing to try to catch up. Because I was detached from the church, my worldview hadn’t moved with the times. I was on the outside looking in. I had become part of the new fascism’s Other and didn’t even know it.

As I tried to understand the brave new world I was now living in, I made the faulty assumption (one of many) that the Christianity I once knew was still the same, and therefore I couldn’t understand how it had suddenly rallied behind Trump and the Republicans and their new American fascism. Turns out there was nothing sudden about it, and the Christianity I’d left behind wasn’t the one that had done the rallying. But I didn’t notice, and that’s why I was about to write this Part 5 on a topic that wasn’t relevant.

Instead of doing that, I’ll end this series by referring you to an article I read just this weekend by someone I follow on Medium who has been paying attention: Dear Christians: We Need to Talk, by Manny Otiko Medium (Jan. 15, 2021). In addition, if you’re interested in generally learning more about the rise of the Christian Right, here’s a list of short histories told from a variety of viewpoints:

Christian right – Wikipedia.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right – POLITICO Magazine. 

Movements | Religious Right | Timeline | The Association of Religion Data Archives (thearda.com). 

The Christian Right, The Twentieth Century, Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center. 

Religion and Right-Wing Politics: How Evangelicals Reshaped Elections – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion

Blueprint for Fascism – Part 3

I used to wonder how the Cristian Right could so unblinkingly support Donald Trump and the Republicans – a question made more puzzling when former Secretary of State Madeline Albright labeled what we were witnessing as “fascism.”[1] Recently an answer presented itself:  the Christian Right supports Trump because they, the Republicans, and Donald Trump all share the same Biblical worldview, which is fascist in nature.

Worldview shapes individual and collective reality around a shared narrative that explains life, defines what is true and what isn’t, tells us what’s really going on, what we need to think and do in order to survive and thrive. Biblical and fascist narratives are a match, as follows:

  • A utopian past when life was good;
  • A fall from grace – a turning away instigated by the evil Them;
  • An awakened nostalgic and righteous yearning to restore lost utopia;
  • The need for a beneficent intervention – salvation – to get back to the good life;
  • The arrival of a savior whose charisma commands a following;
  • The emergence of the congregation of the faithful – a chosen population of aggrieved victims transformed into the superior Us;
  • War and final judgment meted out on Them;
  • The Golden Age of the victorious chosen ones.[2]

Politics makes the Biblical/Fascist Narrative normative in secular culture. It explains fascism as practiced 100 years ago by Mussolini and as carried on today by Trump and the Republicans. Mussolini’s version of fascism was “clerical fascism” – so-called because of its endorsement from Catholic clergy. Trump’s version of fascism is the theocratic political agenda of the Christian Right.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series looked at The Biblical/Fascist Narrative and fascism’s signature characteristics and practices for carrying it out, the circumstances in which fascism is likely to arise, and how fascism responds with extreme nationalism, totalitarian rule, the promotion of violence, and “unthinkable” assaults on law, democracy, and human rights. This Part 3 looks at how fascism carries out its first and essential task:  evangelizing its narrative to the point of cultural acceptance.

Elevating Subconscious Worldview to Conscious Narrative

Biblical worldview is deeply embedded in western thought, culture, politics, and history. Like any worldview, it operates behind the scenes, promoting its narrative through subconscious assumptions, perceptions, and biases. Fascism elevates Biblical narrative into the conscious awareness of the electorate, makes it normative for media coverage and commentary, and from there stokes it into obsession. Fascists make Biblical worldview newsworthy and sensational, invest it with power and significance until it becomes a populist rallying cry for God’s plan for the nation, including the nation’s deliverance from the threat of political infidels. The result is a default new normal that stokes survival-level fear spurred on by wildly fantastical conspiracy theories and channeled into hatred of the nation’s enemies – those most easily identified by civil rights criteria such as race, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual preference, plus the free press, professionals, educators, the educated and intelligent, those with affinity for science and rationalism and objective reality.

The process follows the pattern of religious conversion. The nation’s citizens must be awakened to their plight and motivated to remedy it. The nation’s enemies have done this, but the government and its citizens have allowed it. They must be awakened and convicted, must believe, repent, amend their ways, and band together against their foes. They must become zealous for the Truth, arm themselves, enlist as soldiers marching off to war for the nation’s true destiny, and their own.

Fascism transports its converts to a populist and nationalist safe haven in the midst of too much change too fast, too much globalism and disruptive innovation, too much political correctness, too much of the elites telling them what they should think and do and believe and care about. They are free now. No one can tell them what to do. They see the state of the nation and their own lives for what they truly are. And now they’re part of something that is going to fix things, make their country and their lives great again. They belong. They have a new sense of meaning and a cause to live and die for. They can realize their highest calling. They can live purpose-driven lives.

The congregation of the committed organizes in service to their savior – the one who enlightens and informs them, tells them when to rally and when to stand down and stand by, the one who keeps the froth of outrage whipped to a frenzy of delusional thinking. Biblical-Fascist Narrative hones its followers to a keen edge of fear, outrage, and terror, feeds them a steady diet of righteous indignation, mobilizes them into marauding mobs.

Fascism achieves all of this through recognized, studied, predictable forms of mind control. Chief among them are “gaslighting,” cult indoctrination, and militant patriotism.

Gaslighting

The term “gaslighting” has been around for years, but the Trump years brought it into the vernacular.

“Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind. 

“In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free  I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:  

1. They tell blatant lies.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof. 

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition. 

4. They wear you down over time.

5. Their actions do not match their words.

6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you. 

7. They know confusion weakens people. 

8. They project.

9. They try to align people against you.

10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.

11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.”[3]

Cult Indoctrination

Cult indoctrination is an extreme form of religious conversion.Like gaslighting, ithas also become an active topic for psychological and psychiatric attention.[4]

“The cover of The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, sets the mood with President Trump’s last name as well as the ubiquitous red baseball hat worn by his supporters, embossed with the word “cult” in the center. Some psychiatrists may wonder if this book is breaking the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) “Goldwater Rule” (GR),[5] Rest assured, it is not.

“First, author Steven Hassan is not a psychiatrist and this ethical principle applies only to psychiatrists who are members of the APA. Secondly, and subtitle aside, the focus is on cults and how people become attached to them, with President Trump as a crucially considered example.

“The part of the book that focuses on cult followers is just what we need now. Certainly, there has been more than enough speculation on President Trump’s mental state by the public, media, some psychiatrists, and many other mental health care professionals. Less emphasis has been put on what psychologically drives people to follow President Trump, vote for him, and-for better or worse-stay so strongly attached. Whether or not there is really a ‘Cult of Trump’ is debatable, even after you read the persuasive arguments made in this book. At the very least, using the knowledge now available on cults is a helpful way to understand our national political scene and, as far as I can tell, does not violate the GR by focusing on the psychology of his followers.

“Unfortunately, psychiatrists as a whole, after a flurry of interest in cults in the 1970s and 1980s and culminating in 1992 with the Group for the Advancement (GAP) book, Leaders and Followers: A Psychiatric Perspective on Religious Cults, seem to have lost interest in the subject. But cults are still prominent. The author claims that there are at least 5000 destructive cults in the US, and they can range from two people to several thousands.

“According to the author, cults can be religious, political, sexual, educational, or psychotherapeutic in nature. If so, we have probably had members in mental health care, but it is hard to determine whether a patient is in a cult due to indoctrination. Therefore, it is crucial to look at control of thoughts and behaviors. Though the author never suggests this, the book led me to wonder if a slight case can be made that the GR holds such control. Indeed, why is an ethical principle like this a ‘rule’ rather than a guideline? In other words, why is it not called and conceived as what I would call the ‘Goldwater Guidelines,’ allowing more freedom of thought and speech for psychiatrists?

“All cults have something in common. They strip away freedom of thought and realign ideas with those of the leader. The author discusses his original way of conceptualizing cults, called the BITE model-the acronym for controlled Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion. Even more revelatory was his discussion of how hypnotic techniques such as repetition, subliminal messages, programming amnesia, and even guided meditation can be so effective in swaying followers.”[6]

Steven Harran, the cult specialist who wrote The Cult of Trump,[7] uses a BITE model to detail authoritarian mind control techniques.[8] His book details how Trump uses the BITE method to convert and control his followers.

Militant Nationalism

Fascism’s rise to power mirrors how nations justify war through heightened patriotism.

Biblical worldview includes the prohibition ,“Thou shalt not kill,” (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17). This prohibition applies generally to human society, but an exception allows God’s people to go to war. That exception derives from God Himself, whom the Bible describes as a “man of war.” (Exodus 15: 3) In that identity, God can and does kill and direct His followers to do the same. To justify the mayhem and brutality, the nation’s patriotic causes become sacred, and secular life is anointed with the requisite elements of religious culture:  dogmas and orthodox language; rites of initiation and passage; songs, symbols, metaphors, and icons; laws and customs to honor heroes, demonize foes, discipline skeptics, and punish nonbelievers. Thus fascism’s war against Them becomes holy war.

“War celebrates only power — and we come to believe in wartime that it is the only real form of power. It preys on our most primal and savage impulses. It allows us to do what peacetime society forbids or restrains us from doing:  It allows us to kill.

“Because we in modern society have walked away from institutions that stand outside the state to find moral guidance and spiritual direction, we turn to the state in times of war… We believe in the nobility and self-sacrifice demanded by war… We discover in the communal struggle, the shared sense of meaning and purpose, a cause. War fills our spiritual void.” [9]

War requires a cause to rally around, and the Biblical-Fascist Narrative provides it.

“It is hard, maybe impossible, to fight a war if the cause is viewed as bankrupt. The sanctity of the cause is crucial to the war effort.

“The cause is built on the backs of victims, portrayed always as innocent. Indeed, most conflicts are ignited with martyrs, whether real or created.”[10]

The Biblical-Fascist Narrative provides the requisite cause, plus new vocabulary, beliefs, and customs for expressing it:

“War finds its meaning in death…. The cause, sanctified by the dead, cannot be questioned without dishonoring those who gave up their lives. We become enmeshed in the imposed language.

“There is a constant act of remembering and honoring the fallen during war. These ceremonies sanctify the cause.

“The adoption of the cause means adoption of the language of the cause.

“The state spends tremendous time protecting, explaining, and promoting the cause. And some of the most important cheerleaders of the cause are the reporters. This is true in nearly every war. During the Gulf War, as in the weeks after the September attacks, communities gathered for vigils and worship services. The enterprise of the state became imbued with a religious aura. We, even those in the press, spoke in the collective.

“The official jargon obscures the game of war — the hunters and the hunted. We accept terms imposed on us by the state — for example, the “war on terror” — and these terms set the narrow parameters by which we are able to think and discuss.” [11]

Dissent has no place in the culture of war – to disagree is to join the enemy. The nation’s institutions and citizens are expected to speak the language of war, which frames and limits public discourse. Exaltation of the nation, faith in the cause, conformity to the language of war, and honoring of the dead make doubt and dissent damnable:

“When we speak within the confines of this language we give up our linguistic capacity to question and make moral choices.

“The cause is unassailable, wrapped in the mystery reserved for the divine. Those who attempt to expose the fabrications and to unwrap the contradictions of the cause are left isolated and reviled.

“The state and the institutions of state become, for many, the center of worship in wartime. To expose the holes in the myth is to court excommunication.

“When any contradiction is raised or there is a sense that the cause is not just in an absolute sense, the doubts are attacked as apostasy.” [12]

Crimes Against Humanity

Once the Biblical-Fascist Narrative has fully emerged as the nation’s new normal, fascism is empowered to pursue its agenda of purifying the nation by eliminating its enemies, which it does by means codified in international law as crimes against humanity:

1.. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:

(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;

(b) “Extermination” includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;

(c) “Enslavement” means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;

(d) “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;

(e) “Torture” means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

(f) “Forced pregnancy” means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;

(g) “Persecution” means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity;

(h) “The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

(i) “Enforced disappearance of persons” means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.[13]

War Crimes

Fascism’s war against Them begins at home — fascist supporters pitted against their fellow citizens. Fascism’s civil war is carried out by crimes against humanity. When fascism confronts its enemies internationally, it does so in like fashion – through war crimes.

We’ll look at war crimes under the Biblical-Fascist Narrative next time.

[1] Madeleine Albright: “The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad,” The Guardian (July 8, 2018). See also Madeline Albright Warms of a New Fascism, The New Yorker (Apr. 24, 2018).

[2] Wikipedia – Fascism

[3] Sarkis, Stephanie, 11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting, Psychology Today (Jan. 22, 2017).

[4] See Collins, Glenn, The Psychology Of The Cult Experience, The New York Times (Mar. 15, 1982).; also Dittmann, Melissa, Cults of hatred:  Panelists at a convention session on hatred asked APA to form a task force to investigate mind control among destructive cults, American Psychological Association (November 2002, Vol 33, No. 10)

[5] Wikipedia – Goldwater Rule”  “The Goldwater rule is Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics,[1] which states that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements.[2] It is named after former US Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

[6] The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control | Psychiatric Times Psychiatric Times book review (Jan. 9, 2020). Hassan, Steven, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019)

[7] Hassan, Steven, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019)

[8] Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control, Freedom of Mind Resource Center.

[9] Hedges, Chris, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid.

[13] The Rome Statute, Article 7.

Kevin Rhodes Fascism and Religion, The Long Reads

Blueprint for Fascism – Part 1

I used to wonder how the Christian Right could support Trump. “They must be just like him,” I thought once, but that wasn’t strong or deep enough — it was too individualistic, made it too much a matter of personal choice. Same problem with shared ideology — libertarianism plus capitalism. Ideology gets way too much credit as a way to explain why we do what we do. We aren’t the free thinkers we believe we are. We don’t act from reasoned choice, we do what we’re predisposed to do on a subconscious level, then rationalize after the fact.

The ”Fascist” Label

Then Madeline Albright’s book pasted Trump with the “fascist” label. The past couple years of his all-out assault on democracy, discourse, decency, decorum… have left little doubt. The Democrats have sprinted to the intellectual and ideological high ground, gibbered among themselves, stirred themselves up, got indignant, and generally have been oh so reasonable and insightful. Their criticism and analysis have also been entirely ineffective against post-truth reality. Meanwhile, the Christians and Republicans have been unfazed – haven’t even bothered to respond to the fascist allegations with “it takes one to know one!”

Why not? “Fascist” explodes in the brain. Someone calls you that, you come up swinging. But that’s not what happened. The Christians and Republicans mostly yawned and nodded, only jumped up on cue now and then to make some noise.

Explain that.

A couple weeks ago I had a dream that did.

No kidding. The dream’s explanation was so outrageous, I probably needed it to come through my subconscious mind, break through my defenses like a thief in the night, like the Bible says.[1] Which is appropriate, because it’s about the Bible and the Bible’s God.

Here it is:  what sustains Trump’s support from Christians and Republicans is their shared Biblical worldview, and that worldview is essentially fascist in nature. The Bible is the ultimate fascist blueprint, and the Bible’s God is the ultimate fascist. If you want to know how to do fascism, just give me some of that old time religion.[2]

Like I said, outrageous. Let’s break itdown.

Worldview

Ideology is surface-level rationalization. What’s buried deeper down?

Worldview.

Worldview satisfies our need to survive and our urge to thrive. There are giants in the Earth:  to survive, we need to identify and avoid them; to thrive, we need to defeat them. Ideology gives us a plan for doing that – it’s worldview’s to do list, our executive function in action. Ideology is worldview’s conscious spokesperson making it sound like we knew all along what we were doing – we were mission- and value-driven, we were living purpose-driven lives.

Worldview is meta-knowledge, meta-consciousness, meta-awareness. It is the Reality Distortion Factor in real time – the perspective, bias, and prejudice lens that warps and sorts input — the knowing before knowing that skews, bends, and conforms.

Worldview comes from a long way back. It’s epic in scope –a long story arc spanning the globe. millennia in the making, a cast of thousands, played out on uncountable stages by an encyclopedic cast list of actors and an infinity of extras.

Worldview is pervasive, assumed, incorporated, inculcated. It’s not a topic for media coverage, it’s the fabric and essence of our lives — our personal and communal institutions, languages, customs, ways of navigating through life. Worldview is cosmic comfort food — it fuels everything we know about how life works, guides how we navigate.

Ideological logjam gives pundits something to be right about, media something to report, think tanks something to advocate, and fund-raisers something to sell. Okay for them, that’s their job. Meanwhile, worldview keeps the fire burning.

The Fascist Worldview

Worldview is why the Christians and Republicans didn’t budge when their critics threw the “fascist” label at them. Nobody’s Biblical worldview came unhinged. Not all Republicans and Christians are Christian Right, but all of them share the same Biblical worldview, and that worldview stayed intact while the “fascist” accusations treated the issue as an ideology. But fascism isn’t rooted in ideology. It draws its life from worldview. It touches worldview-level pain and vulnerability and offers worldview-level comfort.

Fascism thrives on identifying who They are – the giants in the earth, the beasts on the prowl. When fascist worldview holds sway, there is no moral or legal recrimination associated with being Us, only great pride and relief at being on the good side of eternal terror. And once you’re in, you get to bang the drums and chant the slogans as you set about exterminating Them – which is both your duty to the cause and your best service to yourself and your comrades, since fascism must destroy the infidels before the righteous can be edified.

Meanwhile, They mistake fascism for ideology, and trot out the intellectual, historical, and legal case against it — trying to move a mountain with a rock and a pry bar, not realizing that fascism’s Us isn’t out to win an argument, it’s out to destroy. Whenworldview is at stake, it’s not Debate Club anymore, it’s Fight Club. No wonder there’s all that rage. No wonder fascism wanders in the guise of populism. No wonder conspiracy theories abound.

Biblical Worldview and Fascism

What then is the worldview that creates and sustains fascism?

Trump himself told us – on Monday, June 1, 2020. That was the day he led a procession of sycophants and servants, devotees and disciples – among them Attorney General William P. Barr, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, daughter Ivanka, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley (in camouflage), Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper – in a procession to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church, the way cleared by the teargas and rubber bullets of his personal SS forces.

And then he held up a Bible.

That was it – a complete message delivered on the same level from which it came – from worldview – and delivered in the most appropriate way — in symbolic, pre-language form. Symbolic messages sneak past our defenses –like a thief in the night.

The media “lefties” called the stunt “vulgar.” Church leaders and religion academicians said no, this is not what Christianity is about. Reporters snarked about whether it was his Bible, if he ever read it, knew what it said. Lots of decent, thinking, believing people chafed and protested. They were earnest and brave. They interpreted Trump’s procession to the church for what it obviously was – racist backlash against the George Floyd protests.

And everybody missed the point. “It’s a Bible,” Trump said. He spoke, as he always does, with total transparency about his beliefs and intentions. The whole point was that he went to a church and held up a Bible. That’s it. Nothing more. But that “nothing more” had a whole lot more to say.

There was such a storm that his visit the following day to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine was barely noticed – a visit that delivered the same message in the same symbolic language and got the same disgusted response from the critics.[3]

In both visits, what Trump did and said was out of reach of consciousness, reporting, analysis, commentary. He spoke and acted from worldview, with maximum impact. Tyrants have an uncanny knack for knowing how to do that – how to tap worldview with profound symbolic gestures. The icons of ideology – metaphors, myths, symbols – land with far greater impact than words.

“As he took up his post before the church, which was partially boarded up after a minor fire that broke out during a recent protest, Mr. Trump set his face in a stony scowl and held up a black Bible, tightly closed.… There Mr. Trump was, holding aloft this mute book — neither opened, cited, nor read from — in the shadow of a vandalized church, claiming the mantle of righteousness.

“After all, that was what he had come to do. A ruler maintaining order strictly by brute force has a problem. Such regimes are volatile and fragile, subject to eruptive dissolution. Mr. Trump may lack the experience or interest to even pantomime genuine Christian practice, but he has acute instincts when it comes to the symbolism of leadership. He seemed to know, as he positioned himself as the defender of the Christian faith, that he needed to imbue his presidency with some renewed moral purpose; Christianity was simply a convenient vein to tap.

“‘I think that’s a standard trope in American political frames of reference,’ Luke Bretherton told me on a Monday night phone call. Mr. Bretherton, who is a professor of moral and political theology at Duke University’s Divinity School, cited Cold War efforts to demonize socialism as viciously atheistic and amoral. It was work undertaken with anxious eagerness precisely because socialist criticisms of American life were substantial and compelling.

“‘It’s significant that Trump did this alone,’ Mr. Bretherton observed. Unlike prior presidents who sometimes appeared on grave occasions with priests or pastors, Mr. Trump ‘doesn’t need a Billy Graham figure to give divine sanction. He doesn’t need a priestly figure. He himself can be the mediator.’” [4]

Fascism is salvation, nationalism style, and fascist leaders are saviors. We the people have forsaken our lost glory, grown lax, allowed an enemy to break in and steal our divine destiny. But God’s Anointed One can restore us. Trump has proclaimed all along that he is the only one who can restore the greatness of America’s lost Eden and lead us to the Promised Land, MAGA style. His detractors call politicking and ideology, but his devotees know, and rejoice. Biblical worldview applied to extreme nationalism saves them from the deranged liberals at our gates and counters the wickedness of globalism. The Bible puts Truth with a capital “T” on our side. Suddenly the Founders who took great pains to be sure there could be no national religion were founding America as a Christian country. Suddenly eternal and unchanging Truth is on our side. Truth stops the world so America can get off. No need to adapt, grow, change. No need for the wretchedness of globalism. No need to deal with the shithole countries or the refugees wo come from then, scrounging for our shelter. We can circle around, hunker down, banish the foreigners from our midst and send the miscreants begging. To him who has will more be given. We’re the ones who have more, and God bless the child that’s got his own.[5]

This is worldview-based fascism grown from the most ancient of roots of Western civilization.

Now let’s break that down.

The Elements of Fascism

First we need a definition of fascism so we’ll know it when we see it. According to Madeline Albright, that’s not easy to come by.

“I suggest to her that the book struggles to offer a satisfactory definition of fascism. ‘Defining fascism is difficult,’ she responds. ‘First of all, I don’t think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system.’

“It is in his methods that Trump can be compared with, if not precisely likened to, the dictators of the 1930s. Fascists are typically masters of political theatre. They feed on and inflame grievances by setting ‘the people’ against their ‘enemies’. Fascists tell their supporters that there are simple fixes for complex problems. They present as national saviours and conflate themselves with the state. They seek to subvert, discredit and eliminate liberal institutions. She reminds us that they have often ascended to power through the ballot box and then undermined democracy from within. She is especially fond of a Mussolini quote about ‘plucking a chicken feather by feather’ so that people will not notice the loss of their freedoms until it is too late.

“In her book, [she labels Trump] the first anti-democratic president in modern US history’. Those Trumpians who know their history might retort that previous American presidents have been accused of being enemies of democracy, including some who have become the most revered holders of the office. Abraham Lincoln was charged with tyranny by his opponents during the civil war. So was Franklin D Roosevelt when he was implementing the New Deal.

“Trump is different, she insists. Look at his attacks on the institutions of liberal society as he Twitter-lashes the judiciary and the media. ‘Outrageous,’ says Albright. ‘It was Stalin who talked about the press being the enemy of the people…. I also think Trump does act as though he’s above the law.’ He lies without shame, she says. He threatens to jail political competitors. He foments bigotry. He lavishes admiration on autocrats like Putin and by doing so encourages the worldwide drift to authoritarianism.”[6]

Runway Change

Social and cultural upheaval breed fascism. “Progress” is too fast and innovation too disruptive, social norms are uprooted and culture comes unglued. Strong-armed “leadership” steps in to restore order, to bring us back to the standard of Truth.

“Sometimes social development is just too fast, too chaotic, too disorderly, and ultimately doomed to fail. In the aftermath of defeat; in the dislocations of great recessions; at the tail end of an economic miracle, traditions can melt away, making everything seem possible. But it is at just such moments that higher development all too often fractures and fails.

“The artistic and intellectual innovations of the early twentieth century can make those of the early twenty-first appear unimaginative and conventional… [for example], the social and artistic innovations of the ‘roaring twenties,’ which saw literary forms dissolved in Joyce’s Ulysses and sexual norms exploded in Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa. It saw the emergence of Art Deco and Bauhaus in architecture; the popularization of jazz; and the rise of cinema…. [The] erosion of forms accompanying these developments left all too many people feeling unsettled and shaky, as if walking along a slippery slope at too high an altitude.

“Yet innovation by itself is not enough to sustain freedom. True freedom takes work to sustain, and is everywhere reliant upon settled institutions, like freedom of speech and assembly, the rule of law, and the right to vote. These were unstable in Italy and Germany following the First World War, as they were in Russia at the turn of the millennium, and are in Central Europe today. Where democratic institutions are unstable, freedom tends to be suspect; where accompanied by widespread disorder, a visceral appeal to tradition often emerges to shut it all down. With the past exploded and social progress unsustainable, those inclined to fascism have nowhere to turn but a re-imagined past, decked out with all the paraphernalia of the future from which they run for their lives.

“Fascism… meets the premature dissolution of social norms with the heavy hand of authoritarianism; the sudden fracturing of settled forms with the illusion of law and order. It meets surrealism with classicism; atonal composition with military marches; and the liberation of women with a return to the kitchen. But while fascism may romanticize the past, what it actually presents is a brutal alternative to rapid social development.” [7]

Patriarchy and Misogyny

Strong-armed “leadership” always has a patriarchal face and a misogynist underbelly.

“The US may now be on the cusp of similar developments. Women are continuing the slow decades-long rise in the workplace. A younger generation of women is increasingly assertive and confident of its ability to succeed. The movement to end sexual harassment is overturning workplace norms. Gays and lesbians are coming out of the closet; gay marriage has been institutionalized; the transgender rights movement is bringing the scrutiny of gender itself—long an academic and feminist preoccupation—into mainstream debate. Conservatives have reacted with a backlash, reviving a virulent form of patriarchy, which sanctions unrestrained masculine impulses and the denigration of women by powerful men.

“Whether the reason lies in biology or cultural conditioning, men tend to locate themselves in hierarchies of other men. Conditioned to find their place, they typically maneuver through such hierarchies with alacrity, thus faring better than women in more hierarchical societies. Most try to hold their own in the pecking order, but “alphas” aim for the top, and fascists attempt to overturn traditional hierarchies altogether, setting up their own alternative orders, behind which their followers might line up. These newer orders tend to be punishingly vertical, as in the case of the Republican Party, where stepping out of line now ends careers—for their principal organizing mechanism is the ability to bully others.

“Patriarchies are generally understood as hierarchical orders dominated by men. Pre-modern societies are typically patriarchal, with males dominating politics and the family. Gender roles are circumscribed and human freedom is limited.

“Stable democracies are rarely patriarchal, but the regression to patriarchy is typical in failed or failing democracies….

“Fascists do not try to prettify their actions, but rather use them to hammer liberals and minorities into submission, for domination is essential to cowing the opposition and assimilating the weak. Women are vulnerable to this kind of intimidation, for they are seldom as well-schooled in the arts of oppression as men, and are typically more vulnerable to physical attack.

“American Republicans chose their most abusive bully and lined up behind him as he broke all social and political norms to tear down perhaps the most powerful woman in the world for a reason. They chanted “Lock her up!” not simply because they viewed her as a criminal, but because they were reasserting their patriarchal right to power.

“The early twentieth-century social psychologist Wilhelm Reich believed fascists relied on this kind of sexual and emotional repression to foster a masculine aggression that could be directed against outsiders.

“Fascism cannot be properly understood without some consideration of this reversion to patriarchy. Eugen Weber has written that fascism always emerges in response to the rising power of women. The Nazis entered office after a long decade of democracy in which women gained the vote and children won legal protection. The patriarchal family broke down in Weimar Germany, amid an open gay scene in Berlin, and a flourishing of the experimental arts, to which the Nazis responded with a dominant father-of-the-nation, who sought to re-establish patriarchy.

“American Republicans have long sought to re-establish a traditional order that puts women back in the kitchen, but Trumpist fascism represents a more visceral form of domination. Studies have shown that, while support for previous Republican presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney and the late John McCain was loosely correlated with more chivalrous views of traditional gender roles, support for Trump is correlated with outright hostility toward women.”[8]

We’ll look more at fascism’s characteristics next time.

[1] “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2; “But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.” Matthew 24:43; “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” Revelation 16:15; “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” 2 Peter 3:10. (All quotes English Standard Version.)

[2] The Johnny Cash Show – Give Me That Old Time Religion – YouTube.

[3] Catholic Archbishop of Washington Slams Trump’s Visit To John Paul II Shrine, The Washington Post (June 2, 2020).

[4] The Last Temptation of Trump, The New York Times (June 2, 2020).

[5] God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday song) – Wikipedia.

[6] Madeleine Albright: “The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad,” The Guardian (July 8, 2018). See also Madeline Albright Warms of a New Fascism, The New Yorker (Apr. 24, 2018).

[7] Fascism:  A Forced Regression to Patriarchy, AlJumhiriya (Oct. 16, 2020)

[8] Ibid.