From this part of the world at least the US Tea Party stinks to fascism, regardless of its peculiarities.
Vicenç Navarro compares it successfully with the classical European fascist triad and the more recent, and very much typical Spanish in the worst sense of the phrase, Aznarismo.
Aznarismo (from J.M. Aznar) is probably best described as a neoliberal authoritarian Christian corrupt populist movement, whose leaders are more often than not pathetic... yet manage to obtain high levels of power. While Aznarismo as such is powered by Catholic sects such as the Opus Dei, in North America the Tea Party is supported by all kind of reactionary Judeo-Christian sects. Otherwise they feel much the same.
Something that Navarro underlines is that most Tea Party leaders are in fact healthcare businessmen who feel threatened in their wallets by the healthcare reform of Obama. That is the case of Rick Scott and Rand Paul, while Carl Paladino is a major real state speculator. But other backers are, as happened with classical fascism, prominent members of the Big Capital single inner (real) party: Dick Arney (corporate lobby boss), Robert Rowning and Trevor Ree-Jones are oil barons, while Rupert Murdoch is such a well known far-right boss of the mass media that he needs no introduction.
Navarro also emphasizes the ultra-liberal ideology of the US political phenomenon, looking for a reduction of the state to its minimal role: army and police guaranteeing the property of the class they represent but leaving the people defenseless before business oligarchs. That they call libertarianism but for me that is an insult, as libertarianism (anarchism) is precisely about the suppression of the public force, and relatedly, that of any property other than consensually accepted possession.
Today the far right is mobilized and the left is demobilized in the USA, says the Catalan professor. This is caused by the right-wing orientation of Obama's presidency, which has got the left leaderless and hopeless in the short term.
Navarro describes the Tea Party as extremely similar to the Spanish far right of today:
Actually what we see is the transformation of European fascism in a more Americanized far right (...) trying to detach itself from their Fascist or Nazi roots with the exception, as always, of the Spanish far right.
I must say here that we cannot forget the close relationship of Aznarismo with the Bush administration. Aznar was the third (or the second or maybe even the first) of the three of Azores who declared war on Iraq without any kind of legal formality, like getting the war approved by parliaments. He has since lived in the USA. Rodrigo Rato, his first vice-president, became for years head of the IMF. So what we have here is Bushism or Reaganism by another name.
There would be a lot to say about this new kind of fascism but what is clear, and the crisis of the 1930s should serve as warning for what we can expect in this one, is that fascisms do get boosted wherever the middle class is impoverished. As the working class is also impoverished (surely more) the left, a radical genuine left, may be boosted too but this is not something that anyone in power would support, so it has to be a totally different, genuinely democratic bottom-up build. The objective conditions for the forge of the new revolutionary movement are there but consciousness is still lacking.
Source and original article (in Spanish): Vicenç Navarro: El Tea Party ¿es el fascismo posible en EE.UU.? (The Tea Party: is fascism possible in the USA?)
That interpretation seems off in terms of the structure of the Tea Party movement.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to point to one "father" of the Tea Party movement, that father is Glen Beck, a conservative talk show host, cribbing horribly from one of the reactionary anti-communist John Birch Society notables and turning his old writings into best sellers (Colorado's Republican candidate for Governor cited his writings in a newspaper quiz as an influence).
This is also a very grass roots development that goes far beyond health care. This is a movement drawn predominantly from the Christian conservative base of the Republican party, and is fueled by generalized economic hardship. Opposition to health care reform is the scapegoat de jure, but paranoid fear of government power in general, rather than anything particular about health care reform (which is itself very private sector oriented) is the bigger culprit. Colorado Springs stopped watering its parks, discontinued bus service, turned off a third of its street lights, sold its police helicopter, disconnected the suicide prevention hotline, and shuttered rec centers with the same motive.
Could it become fascism? Yes. It has violent rhetoric, adopts an ahistorical view of the past, and insists on absurd disasterous public policies. But, for fascism to earn the name, it needs power.
It isn't obvious that this will happen. In the tussle between the mainstream GOP and the Tea Party faction in Colorado (highlighed in today's Wall Street Journal), the mainstream GOP faction seems to be winning, making only minor, symbolic nods to Tea Party demands.
If the economy recovers, there is every reason to think that the movement will lose steam.
The promises made by Tea Party candidates can't practically be fulfilled. Their multiple public finance goals (lower taxes, don't borrow money, don't cut spending to defense) turn out to be overconstrained and impossible to meet simultaneously. They can't pass their agenda in Congress with a Democratic President and large numbers of Democrats in the Senate.
Ominous as the movement may be, its likelihood of remaking the American political world in its image in modest.
I (and Navarro surely too) see this phenomenon from the distance, a distance that is not just something physical and present but also one of background. However the similitude with Aznarismo is shockingly total: that's almost exactly how the most vocal Spanish far-right (swinging from reactionary ultra-conservatism to pure national-catholic fascism) is. They have the same kind of wacko people and they also have the same kind of backing from corporate and religious powers.
ReplyDeleteSo in a sense is like we know them: they are just like my mum in fact, go figure!
And my mum is like a soft dummy version of Margaret Thatcher... dining with Pinochet.
"But, for fascism to earn the name, it needs power".
If you wait for so long, it will be too late, I fear. When fascism has power you are in jail (exiled, dead...)
As for the absurd contradictions in their populist messages, they do not matter at all, as they are just part of some sort of chaotic brainstorm to see what entices people to the formation of this fascist party within the system. When they are in power, if they are (and they will be to some extent surely), the movement will be mobilized to the support of its leaders, some will be left aside but those who can really be organized in a fascist movement will persist. Others will join as they see the opportunity of power...
I also hope it's just a short-lived platform but I know how this kind of pathetic mentality can become endemic with a little help from the media.