One performs thought experiments, or imaginary experiments, in the imagination. We set up some situation, we observe what happens, then we try to draw appropriate conclusions. In this way, thought experiments resemble real experiments, except that they are experiments in the mind. I want to state at the outset that it is debatable whether such an approach can provide helpful insights into what is going on the world. If you can join me in the experiment, and not get too defensive, we might open ourselves to a helpful insight. I might be making a too-subtle approach to what I want to say. If that is your experience reading, I apologize at the beginning.
To carry out this thought experiment, I will need to refer to President Trump and his supporters. The reason is that progressives too often use the fascist label for him and his followers, which number in the millions. Personally, I would prefer that Trump enjoy the rest of his life and allow Republicans to explore a future without his direct involvement. I would like him to be quiet. I did not expect him to do that, and although I hoped for Nikki Haley, I am not surprised at the result of the Republican primaries of 2024. I feel like I do not have a political party.
For this thought experiment, I am using Trump and his voters to explore whether such an accusation sheds light on the debate occurring in the public square of America today.
“Everyone seems to have become Hitler.” Historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld wrote these words in his study of how the Nazi past has become a recurring theme in contemporary culture – to the point of almost becoming trivial. Its prevalent use in political conversation is part of the nasty character of political dialogue today. When people make facile comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, they are trying, usually in good faith, to warn us about the dangers of ignoring history and its lessons. It attempts to deliver a knock-out blow that will end the argument. Thus, in political conversation, we may agree on nothing else, but we can agree that Hitler is a symbol of evil. Negotiating him was futile, so rational political discourse becomes futile if either side considers the other side as Hitler. False equivalencies not only risk trivializing Hitler and the horrors he unleashed. They also prevent people from engaging with the actual issues at hand – ones that urgently require our attention. The standard for inhumanity to other human beings is set high in referring to Hitler, who engaged in genocide. Dehumanizing the political opponent occurs far from genocide, and may include the comparison of the opponent with Hitler.
The 1930s were the time of Nazi rise to power in Germany. They used the crisis of German defeat in WWI and the global depression as a path to power. The populace was desperate, and the slogan “bread and work” was effective to bring them to power. However, they also effectively used methods of public intimidation to strengthen their hold on the population. The history of fascism does not begin with a dictator simply marching into a nation’s capital and seizing total power. It more frequently begins with the destruction of the legislative branch at the hands of centralization of executive power. Adolf Hitler did not just declare himself dictator; dictatorial power preceded him in the chancellor’s office by several years, dating back to Heinrich Bruning invoking emergency powers under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution in 1930. Benito Mussolini came to power under constitutional means in 1922 and did not consolidate his rule until 1925. Fascism, in other words, is a gradual process. And that process starts with executive branch actors accumulating authority they did not legally acquire.
I want to begin the thought experiment by illustrating the accusation of fascism used by a progressive. A progressive I follow on Twitter kept waiting for Trump to attempt the beerhall putsch, the feeble attempt by Nazis to take Germany by force. Some Nazis were killed, and Hitler was himself almost killed. Hitler memorialized those who died when he became chancellor. The progressive I follow thought January 6 was that moment, but it never materialized. Two years after Trump was no longer president, he was still seeing signs of that putsch. Such comparisons tell me much about how Trump and his voters disgust him, how dear his progressive ideology is to him, and nothing about Trump, except that he never took over the government by force. The progressive raising this fear was wrong. His accusation did nothing to persuade. It was a signal to his progressive friends that he was a loyal member of that community, and that was about all. The fact that he is a theologian and has written some solid theology on Bultmann but has never admitted his wrong is troubling but expected.
Thus, one way to read all this is that amid the collapse of the “public”-“private” distinction and the “other”-izing of half the citizenry by President Biden means that the stakes could not be higher. The vision for America promoted by progressives has grown increasingly dark. Its embrace of identity politics has morphed into an all-out drive for divisiveness, demonizing huge swaths of the American people for purely political purposes. Demonizing releases those who oppose demons from the responsibility of engaging the opposition rationally and respectfully. Thus, one could argue that if anyone is a danger to the soul of this nation and what America represents in the story of human history, it is President Biden and his allies. The idea that a sizable portion of the opposition to the party in power have replaced fascists, Soviets, and radical Islamists as the true enemies of America would seem to be a declaration of war on half of the country.
I want to concede that an American version of fascism may be the path through which the nation may need to travel to discover itself anew. Such a post-modern differentiation may be the dangerous path down which America needs to travel for its citizens to discover anew their common desire for human flourishing and respect for rationally arriving at divergent political conclusions. Let us now engage in a bit of irony by exploring a few fascist methods and relate them to a reading of certain recent actions by progressives.
A widely accepted element of “fascism” is the cooptation of the “private” sector by the “public” sector, especially in service of entrenching a one-party state.
One could argue that progressive ideology so permeates Big Tech and other large corporations so deeply that its alliance with a progressive power structure in Washington DC constitutes a move in the direction of a one-party state-private sector. Removing not just Trump but other conservatives, removing posts that are not consistent with the progressive view things, placing warnings on conservative views of climate change, are among the hints of such an alliance.
One method of fascism was the control of major information outlets. They told reporters what the theme was to be in their communication. They made sure their political views were the dominant concepts in the major newspapers and on the radio. Everywhere one turned, the only acceptable political views allowed were views consistent with the Nazi program.
One could argue that progressives are using this strategy effectively. It does not require a central organization dominated by a charismatic personality because it is a shared ideology. We see it in major media outlets (NYT, Washington Post, and the major papers of every major city, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC). We also see it in entertainment, as progressive ideology works their way into movies and television shows. The practice of shaming entertainers if they do not tow the progressive line has been effective, in part because if one moves against it, one is less likely to get a job.
Another method of fascism was physical intimidation. The brown-shirts were thugs that occasionally went through the streets to kill and physically intimidate opponents. They were the reason in the Night of Broken Glass they destroyed many Jewish businesses, and they killed 100 Jews, was what it was.
One could argue that for the progressives, Antifa and Black Lives Matter were organized to intimidate voters before the 2020 election. It made it appear that if Donald Trump were just not President, everything would quiet down in the streets. This has been true, as the organizations have become less vocal and less violent. One can be sure their violence will increase if the next President is GOP.
• There were riots throughout the nation that shut down many cities. The use of violence through Antifa and BLM were designed to intimidate voters into electing whomever the Democrat Party nominated to assure peace.
Another method of fascism was political intimidation. The goal was to eliminate any legal political opposition for the sake of national security.
The progressive needed the Democrat Party for this, and some Never Trump persons, and it worked.
• Using many lies, notably the Russia narrative which some journalists like Margot Cleveland and others have exposed as the Russia hoax, and the Steele Dossier, making Trump Hitler and Trump supporters Nazis.
• They had a sustained effort at the nullification of the 2016 election, which Hillary Clinton still questions its legitimacy.
• When rioting exploded in the streets of Washington, D.C., after the election results of 2016 became clear, Madonna infamously shouted to a mass crowd that she dreamed of blowing up the White House, with the Trump family in it.
• Do they believe that Georgia or Texas run “fair and square” elections? Doubtful. Yet, the media asks only conservatives to treat every election law passed by Democrats as a sacrosanct pillar of “democracy” or risk Democrats and their many friends in the media smearing them being as traitors.
• As an aside, the election of Biden with a $419 million infusion from Zuckerberg and friends targeting Democrat strongholds in purple states to get out that vote was a significant victory, especially since Trump outpaced past GOP votes from among Hispanic and Black voters.
• The President accusing his political foes as “semi-fascist” is the same one who sent the federal law enforcement to execute a predawn raid on the private residence of his former, and perhaps future, ballot box opponent.
Another fascist practice was to discredit by fabrication and lies. They would turn on each other. The Nazi Storm Troopers came under suspicion by Hitler. In 1934, Hitler had many killed and Ernst Rohm imprisoned. Other Nazi leaders, such as Hess, Himmler, and Goehring, wanted Rohm killed, but Hitler resisted until they fabricated evidence of the disloyalty of Rohm.
This allows me to expand on the point above, reading the behavior of progressives in a certain way.
• Progressives used this method in the fabrication that was the Steele Dossier, the basis for the accusation that Trump colluded with Russia.
• This form of intimidation continues in the January 6 committee, in which the opposing political party did not have a representative. No one thinks what happened in the capitol of the nation was a good thing. However, it was not a good thing that riots occurred throughout the country, property destroyed, and lives lost because of it. The use of public show trials of political enemies is a favorite of authoritarian regimes in every time and place.
Another method was fear. Fascists wanted Germans to blame Jews for their financial woes and for their defeat in the war. This proved to be tricky. When they tried a national boycott against Jewish businesses and planting SS troops outside such businesses, many Germans walked past the troops and did their businesses anyway. They lied about the violence against Germans in neighboring Czechoslovakia, generating a fear in the German population and acceptance of the invasion of that country.
One way to read progressive methods is that they have effectively used lies about Trump, but they have also used lies about the effect of overturning Roe vs Wade and lies about the climate, to generate fear and justify calls for national emergency measures and increased restrictions on businesses and individuals that line-up with the lies.
My question is this: does such a comparison of fascism and progressive methods have any effectiveness? The comparison I am making between fascist and progressive methods in this thought experiment tells you as a reader that I really dislike these actions by progressives and that I hate fascism. However, does my concern about recent progressive methods and actions equate to fascism on the part of progressives? More importantly, does the comparison do anything to advance the conversation America needs to be having in the public square?
If a progressive were to read to this point, I can imagine the reader offering many objections. That is my point. While from my conservative political position I do not like what I see happening, the point of my thought experiment is to explore whether the accusation of fascism in the American context sheds light upon the issues facing the country today. I used a conservative reading of progressive behavior to show that as easily as the charge of fascism rolls off the tongue of a progressive when directed to President Trump and his supporters, a conservative has plenty of behavior by progressives in government and culture to make the same charge. However, do such accusations advance a discussion of the issues facing the country?
To make my point directly and clearly, not only is history not repeating itself, but it is also not even rhyming, as it relates to the horrible experience of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. All Americans agree that fascism as experienced in the middle part of the 20th century was a horrible part of the experience of the Western democracies and none of us want it repeated. I encourage you to watch documentaries related to the historical movement of fascism, especially the rise of Hitler to power and its effect of concentration camps and a war that resulted in the loss of 50 million lives. No one on either side of the political spectrum wants this. Thus, the accusation of fascism in that sense ought not to be part of honest discourse. However, an American version of post-modern fascism stemming from intense anger, which the progressive seems to nurture toward all who disagree with that ideology, is clearly a possibility. I have no idea what that path would like or the type of transformed nation it would create. I clearly would prefer not to find out.
The question then arises as to why both sides use the accusation of fascism against their opponent. I will share my view.
The accusation of fascism displays an anger that arises from a view of an opposition that considers the political opponent to be either evil or irrational. Such a view results in relieving oneself from the burden of respecting the other and engaging in honest debate with the other. It does not matter if the accusation comes from a conservative or a progressive, for in both cases, it absolves the accuser of engaging the political opponent rationally and respectfully. Instead of thinking of Trump supporters as monolithic haters, one might listen to their concerns for fiscal conservatives, traditional values, illegal immigration, smaller federal government, preserving what is best about America as represented in its founders and its constitution, the sense that cultural, economic, and political elites have isolated themselves from the concerns of the common person, and the alienation some of these voters from institutional life. They are men, women, black, Hispanic, young, old, and of varying economic status and educational level.
I suggested that this thought experiment might lead to a helpful insight. I stress that this is only an imaginary experiment. To repeat: the point is not that progressives are fascists. I have seen that accusation proposed concerning Trump and his supporters and find it disgusting. I would find such an accusation against the progressive equally wrong. To state it clearly, I do not think progressives are fascists.
Could such a thought experiment help the progressive see with greater clarity what might be happening to the progressive side of the political equation in America today? If I were a progressive, or a never-Trump conservative, I would be concerned with the methods used and with the direction such methods will lead it.
However, I think even that might be too optimistic for the use of a thought experiment as a method of argumentation. All this thought experiment has done is solidify the resolve of those who are concerned with the progressive ideology as practiced by its devotees today. If a progressive were to read this and receive an insight that would question these methods, even if not the ideology, I would be shocked but pleased. However, I suspect that all I have accomplished is tell the reader something about my beliefs. Obviously, I do not like the progressive ideology. By comparing certain practices to those of fascism, the thought experiment is expressing how intensely I dislike these practices. This thought experiment tells you I cannot imagine anything worse than the fascist, so comparing progressive methods in certain areas to them tells you how offensive I find them. Of course, I would like any potential reader to find them equally offensive. The thought experiment assumes that any potential reader would find fascist practices offensive.
My thought experiment has a modest goal. These concluding words are for the conservative or the progressive engaged in the public square. It has to do with our use of language in the public square. It also has to do with Christians commenting on what is happening in the political world today. It can be difficult to resist the anger so prevalent in the cultural and political discourse of the country, but we need to find a way.
I want to share some good wisdom. Since the wisdom derives from the Bible, I want to be clear that my point here is not that the public square become Christian. Rather, I would like to encourage participants to become wiser.
For example, blessed are the merciful, said Jesus, for they will receive mercy. If we are merciful in the way we approach those of opposing political positions, we have a greater possibility of receiving mercy from them. It will move us toward the other rather than distancing ourselves from them. From this closer position, we might find common ground and learn from each other. Blessed are those who make peace, said Jesus, rather than allow oneself to be caught up in the war of words so prevalent in the public square today.
As another example, Paul in his vice lists refers to stirring up enmity, which involves hostilities between individuals and communities, on political, religious, or racial grounds. He urges that we avoid strife (quarrelsomeness, contention, and wrangling). We are to avoid anger, which is often vengeful. He wants us to avoid malice, which suggests ill will or a desire to injure the other, or to adopt a vicious disposition toward the other. Feuding and rivalry in this form lead to little more than division and disorder, even revolution and anarchy in the political and moral sphere. From the perspective of the virtues (Galatians 5:22-23) we are to develop, such language does not move us toward love, it does not nurture peace, it does not cultivate patience, kindness, or gentleness.
All political perspectives could remove the accusation of fascism when describing their opponent. If they did, it would increase the fruitfulness of the debate occurring in the public square. Fascism, like all moments of history, was a unique happening that none of us want repeated. It had enough evil for its time, and we do not need to relive it in our language. However, I am confident that the removal I suggest will not happen, but one can always hope — and pray. Let it be so.
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