Saturday, June 4, 2011

DougJ at Balloon Juice Sees Fascists

DougJ:
I think that politically, it might be smart for Republicans to force a default this summer and blow up the economy. [...] I would not have said this before they all voted for Vouchercare. [...] If the economy goes into true free fall, they’ve got a very good shot to unseat Obama. [...] Once they’re in, they should find some pretext to abolish labor unions as much as possible and then try to disenfranchise as many younger and non-white people as they can, after extended DOJ “investigation”/Congressional hearings/Breitbart circuses about teh voter fraud.

He is, of course, describing a fascist revolution, and this is made the stronger by his not recognizing what he is describing.

So what do I think?

Well...

There are two factions in the Republicans: the Wall Street faction (Pete Peterson, et al) and the nationalism-values-and-racism aka Tea Party faction (DeVos, Prince, Koch brothers, et al.) The Wall Streeters obviously don’t want a default. The Tea Partiers don’t care; I've met some who are convinced that it would make no difference at all. It is possible that some of the Tea Party leaders are using actual fascist history as a model.

There's a historical precedent in the rise of the Nazis: the German equivalent of the Wall Street faction invited the Tea Party faction in and, in hard times, found the Tea Party faction was popular. A split on the left, between Stalinists and democratic socialists, prevented an effective unified opposition.

The US situation is considerably different. There is no effective left. I suppose the current governing coalition of Wall Street Republicans and conservative Democrats might successfully oppose the Tea Party Republicans, but it would be the ruin of both parties, and the end of the Democratic progressive faction.

My guess is no revolution, but also no substantial change. Continued conservative governance, with the Tea Party Republicans become increasingly shrill until the next election, after which they will probably lose power. As I wrote previously, I see nothing that will lead the USA out of its current political deadlock and economic depression. Which means...

More food for corvids. Croak!

[2011.06.08: minor copy errors (capitalization and verb tense) corrected]

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