Article Analysis: Law and (the Fascist) Order

Editor's note: this article represents completely new content and has never before appeared elsewhere on the internet. Please also note that I didn't cram just under a hundred hyperlinks in this article to argue about whether or not I know what fascism is with alt-right trolls; click on the links and stop wasting my time.

At this point dear readers, I must confess to having become utterly exasperated with the cowardly and mendacious members of mainstream American society who utterly refuse to acknowledge even the existence, let alone the terrifying progress of the Trump-led fascist creep in America. I certainly don't think it takes a fortune teller to realize that when the President is signalling his open support for a deranged reactionary conspiracy theory that argues all of his political opponents are satanist pedophiles working with George Soros, Black Lives Matter and "Antifa" to conduct a coup against the rightful Furher, Donald Trump - we've gone a little bit past "dog-whistle" politics in America.

In particular however I have grown exceptionally weary of hearing about how Trump and his Pork Reich administration cannot represent an all-American form of fascism because "you can still say he's a fascist" - while the president actively conflates First Amendment protected protest with terrorism, unaccountable cracker murderpigs are taking head shots at journalists during riots started by the police and the administration is threatening to pull broadcast licences from media outlets that don't treat the President "fairly."

This argument is to say the least unsupported by an increasingly growing pile of evidence and perhaps more accurately represents a mendacious call for civility designed to attack the left, in the middle of a fascist takeover by the right. In recent days however, the objectively fascist Trump administration added two more pieces of damning evidence to the pile and disturbingly, the mass media at large hasn't really taken much notice yet. Let's start with this short piece from Vanity Fair's Caleb Ecarma on September 1st, 2020:

DHS Says It's "Working On" a Black Lives Matter Crackdown

First of all, I'd like to point out how completely dysfunctional the American corporate media has become if I'm seriously offering backhanded praise to Vanity Fair for having the balls to publish this story in any sort of context; other outlets that bothered to at least mention the fascist or authoritarian nature of Wolf's comments include the Daily Beast and Esquire, but all in all I think it's fair to say the American media basically sh*t its pants on this incredibly important story.

Why is it important? Well let's see, here we have the fascist head of the Department of Homeland Security (a man appropriately named Chad Wolf) telling noted fascist commentator Tucker Carlson, on national television, about another potential mass arrest plan to round up "the leaders" of "Antifa" and Black Lives Matter the Department of Justice (under noted fundie fascist William Barr, more on him in a minute) is "working on." Just so you don't think I'm f*cking with you, let's grab a screenshot:

Again, please keep in mind that this is the guy currently running the Department of Homeland Security and conducting an objectively fascist paramilitary "policing" war against protesters in Portland and other (primarily Democrat-led) American cities. In other words, when Chad Wolf threatens to do fascism against protesters, there's a fairly recent precedent that suggests you should take him seriously. As you'll see below however, I'm definitely not sure this author, Vanity Fair or the larger American media grasps that concept as of yet. 

After our quoted passage, the article then goes on to offer up some halfhearted, milquetoast push-back on some, but not all, of Wolf's outrageous statements and the conspiracy theories it implicitly supports:

"It’s unclear exactly who the DOJ views as the leaders of nebulous political movements like antifa and Black Lives Matter, as the past few months of nationwide protests sparked by police shootings of Black Americans are largely grassroots, often spontaneous demonstrations organized at local levels."

These are of course fairly logical counter-points to Wolf's argument but to say they leave a lot of important information out would be a bit of a mild understatement. 

What about the fact that Americans have a legal right to protest? What about the fact that a protest movement isn't the f*cking Mafia and trying to use RICO charges to silence antifascists and African Americans exercising their First Amendment rights is in fact, fascist? Should I applaud Ecarma for vaguely hinting at the idea Trump is wrong for suggesting simply protesting his Junta is "terrorism" at the top of the article, or would now maybe be a good time to expect our media to be a little more explicit about why that's textbook fascism? 

The article then goes on to tie-in Tucker Carlson's sympathetic coverage of far right vigilante murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, the growing (and open) GOP conspiracy that protesters are being flown around the country to conduct riots and finally Rand Paul's bizarre claim that protesters who targeted him near the White House after the Republican National Convention are “interstate criminal traffic being paid.” 

What it doesn't do at any point in time however is offer up any sort of righteous indignation, urgency or alarm at the fact that the f*cking head of Homeland Security is openly talking about "working with" the Attorney General on a plan to "round up" protesters like mobsters or terrorists based on the unhinged and objectively false conspiracy theories of the American far-right and their swine emperor, Donald Trump; conspiracy theories happily supported by fascists in US corporate media, might I add. 

This then brings us to our second and perhaps even more terrifying article of evidence that we are indeed roiling in the throes of an all-American fascist creep; let's start with this September 4th, 2020 article from Christina Carrega at CNN:

Barr says streets are 'safer' after killing of an alleged Antifa member

So for starters, just let me say here "holy f*ck" are you folks at CNN kidding me? The fundie fascist Attorney General cuts an objectively unhinged statement justifying the extrajudicial murder of a supposed member of a completely fictional organization, on the Friday before a holiday weekend no less - and the best you mendacious minions can come up with is a 281 word blurb treating Barr's assertions at face value, that somehow doesn't contain a printed copy of the (now repeatedly altered) statement? Let's take a look at that full statement below:

Okay so did the US Attorney General, the de-facto head of the U.S. Department of Justice just describe an extrajudicial execution (without evidence, a trial or any judicial process whatsoever) of someone suspected of a crime as a triumph for justice, while effectively signalling to law enforcement that the government will have their back if they kill anarchists or members of "Antifa?" You betcha; that is exactly what just happened - but don't tell CNN or the rest of mainstream "liberal" media in America, they clearly don't consider it very important that the President just put a hit out on a man (who might have acted in self defense) for political purposes, or that his fixer Attorney General then justified that revenge killing as necessary to maintain public safety. 

Naturally, CNN wasn't the only outlet to accept Barr's blatantly politically motivated arguments in favor of Michael Reinoehl's execution as gospel truth, they're just the ones that did so with the least amount of effort to do anything resembling journalism. There is of course just one problem, well aside from the fact that this isn't how the rule of law works at all; namely that it's increasingly looking like Barr straight up lied about Reinoehl pulling a gun on the fugitive task force that was trying to "apprehend" him by... shooting at him before they even uttered any commands. 

Now look, I might not have a fancy journalism degree from Columbia but I think it's safe to say that when protesting against the government is terrorism, it's worse in the eyes of the state to be antifascist than a violent nazi terrorist, and murderpigs are coordinating with far right extremists to exterminate the left, it's pretty f*cking obtuse to be quibbling about definitions of the word fascism. We're here, even if our media establishment is still too terrified to say it out loud.

So what pray tell has the stalwart opposition in the Democratic Party been up to while all of this is going on? Actually, it's probably for the best that you don't ask.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

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