The starting premise of any true democracy must be that all citizens are equally citizens. Anything less than equality of citizenship renders the assertion of democracy absurd. A vote is a vote; it weighs the same whether from a working class black woman or a white, banking CEO. Equality of citizenship entails equality under the law. The rule of law aims at justice. Justice is blind – is no respecter of persons - of personal differences in race, wealth, religion, or temperament. Justice is impossible in a society where its citizens are not equally citizens. An unequal society renders the assertion of democracy and justice absurd.
Although implicit, the starting premise of fascism or any other variant of authoritarianism is, paraphrasing Orwell, that ‘some people are more equal than others’. When you begin your reasoning about society with the assumption that people are not equal as persons, what conclusions are you logically permitted to make? Well, if they are not equal, then they do not have the same right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness as every other member of society. They have a lesser right to life, which in essence is saying they don’t have an inalienable right to life at all, because in fact, applied fascism means that for a select group of citizens, the right to life should be alienated from them.
Inequality enters the situation because certain people, on account of some incidental feature such as race or gender, religion, wealth, or physical ability, are not treated equally as persons under the law. They may have lesser access to voting or healthcare; are treated differently by police and the criminal justice system, or encounter systemic, institutionalized discrimination. Part of what it means to live under fascism is that the Constitutional rule of law has been replaced with the rule of a few, or even a singular individual, who now determines the criteria for the right to life. Those with the power – those with the most ‘equality’ – are free to say that certain lives are less valuable and can be ignored or eliminated if they don’t serve the state, ruling class, or dictator, because according to fascist logic, life has no intrinsic worth. It has no independent value in itself. In short, no one is “endowed by their creator” with the right to life, but instead allowed to remain alive at the discretion of state/corporate power.
Religious fascism (the evangelical Christian Right) also begins its reasoning with the assumption that its followers are elevated by God to a superior status over all other humans, and their special relationship with God empowers them with the right to judge, lecture, harass, and under certain conditions, persecute other, lesser beings (e.g., ‘mud people’, secular humanists, etc.). So religious fascists see themselves being ‘more equal’ as children of God, and are free to regard others as not having a life of equal value to the so-called, ‘chosen people’.
There is an inexorable progression or unfolding of fascist logic, whether from secular or religious sources. Once one accepts the premise of inequality – that some groups of people are more human than others, the way is open to the conclusion that genocide, torture, and mass murder is permissible. It may take several steps using dubious or patently false premises to get there, but once you get on the fascist train, the end of the line is death squads and Auschwitz. Hitler rode his assumptions about race and political ideology to their furthest logical conclusion, which in essence was (to him) a rational justification for the ‘final solution’.
Today in this country, a similar (although incipient) Nazism is propounded by the so-called ‘Alt-Right’, to which Trump and several of his inner circle of advisors subscribe. The one reliable expectation of a fascist, right-wing government is that it will be unrestrained by ethical principles, empathy, legality, or the Constitution. It despises the weakness they believe is inherent in the concept of fair play, justice, or any form of New Testament sentimentality toward helping strangers or the less fortunate. So, do not expect them to uphold the Constitution or have any respect for the rule of law, and I wouldn’t expect them to allow such a contemptible process as voting to remove them from power in the 2018 elections.
These conclusions might appear far-fetched, or as a form of catastrophizing. However, if you’ve paid attention to political discourse in this country over the past 30 to 60 years, it’s difficult not to recognize a kind of progression within conservative politics and politicians. The progression resembles a kind of distillation, wherein conservatism has been reduced to its most primitive, fascistic components. …Or, perhaps it’s more like a dying off of the brain, where prefrontal cortex functions disappear first and the person is gradually reduced to relying on those less cognitive areas - the so-called ‘paleo-mammalian’ and ‘reptilian brain’ centers, where it’s all about friend/enemy, fight/flight, kill or be killed – everything being a zero-sum game. The progression (or devolution) from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump rather graphically illustrates this steady moral and cognitive decline.
There’s some justification for expecting at least an attempted right-wing coup, and the destruction of constitutional democracy in the United States. The White House leadership and much of Congress represents conservatism stripped of all pretense of public concern, and willing to cynically violate principles of democratic governance solely to gain a tactical advantage over Democrats and over the opinion of a majority of people.
If you think this is a wild exaggeration, consider the following quote from a 2004 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which the author, Alan Wolfe summarizes points made by the fascist philosopher, Carl Schmidt: “Conservatives are not bothered by injustice because they recognize that politics means maximizing your side's advantages, not giving them away. If unity can be achieved only by repressing dissent, even at risk of violating the rule of law, that is how conservatives will achieve it. Liberals think of politics as a means; conservatives as an end. Liberals think of conservatives as potential future allies; conservatives treat liberals as unworthy of recognition. Liberals believe that policies ought to be judged against an independent ideal such as human welfare or the greatest good for the greatest number; conservatives evaluate policies by whether they advance their conservative causes. Liberals instinctively want to dampen passions; conservatives are bent on inflaming them. Liberals think there is a third way between liberalism and conservatism; conservatives believe that anyone who is not a conservative is a liberal. Liberals want to put boundaries on the political by claiming that individuals have certain rights that no government can take away; conservatives argue that in cases of emergency -- conservatives always find cases of emergency -- the reach and capacity of the state cannot be challenged.”
With the exception of a few dissenters, the Republican Party, especially since 2008, has behaved like this in a flagrant, aggressive, and almost celebratory manner. A political party that engages in this kind of non-governing, lawless, and disdainful behavior is an incipient or proto-fascist party. And like the acorn seeking its ultimate fulfillment in becoming an oak tree, incipient fascism takes root and grows into a fully formed fascist, Nazi-style regime. Unless that is, a Constitutional opposition, preferably as a non-violent popular force, is able to cut the fascist growth back to its stump, and establish (perhaps for real this time) a government of, by, and for the people.