The Alt-Right is a Fascist Movement That Supported Trump, As Shown By Its’ Own Quotes

This was published September 1st of 2016 while the 2016 Election campaign was at its height, but it seems so appropriate now, I am re-posting it:

Alt-Right is the name given to itself by a loose knit American movement that has thrown its  support behind Donald Trump.  This movement represents a youthful, technologically savvy demographic, whose popularity has spread through the use of the internet and social media.  While it has no standardized political philosophy, I see that as analogous to the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy after their being defeated in World War I.

Fascism is less a coherent theory of a political system,  rather it is an amalgam of various strains of thought incorporating an acceptance of the pseudo-science of Eugenics in a blend with ultra-Nationalism and the  desire for authoritarian leadership.  The lack of ideology behind Fascism is most typified by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NAZI) which was neither socialist, nor a defender of worker’s rights.  However,  just as “Billionaire” Donald Trump has promised to “fight the corporations and defend American workers”,  Adolph Hitler did the same.  While Hitler’s Germany was staggered by the Great Depression,  Americans have seen their workers wages diminish, their graduate students being crushed by outrageous student debt and a Billionaire class being enriched beyond belief.  At the same time people of color are demanding that they are treated with the same benefits of citizenship as their White fellow Americans,  thus making a certain racist segment of the American population feel encroached upon.

My contention is that just as I’ve equated Donald Trump‘s rise with that of Adolph Hitler, as I wrote in  Godwin’s Law, Donald Trump, Rising American Fascism and its Eerie Similarity to the NAZI’s,  the Alt-Right movement reflects the rise of again of American Fascism. This is Fascism  the like of which we haven’s seen since the 1930’s and the height of the German-American Bund, Ku klux Klan and Father Coughlin’s millions of radio listeners following his bigoted screeds. Below are a number of pertinent quotes that make my case:

Adolph Hitler on Democracy:

“Hitler often denounced democracy, equating it with internationalism. Since democratic ideals espoused equality for all men, it represented to Hitler and his Nazi ideologues the notion of mob rule and the hatred of excellence.^[91] Not only was democracy antithetical to their social-Darwinist abstractions, but its international-capitalist framework was considered an exclusively Jewish-derived conception.”

      Peter Thiel Billionaire Trump Supporter on Democracy

“Peter Thiel wrote, on April 13, 2009, in the Libertarian ‘Cato Unbound’ blog, “Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” In the same article, he also wrote, “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.”^[65]

David Duke, Trump Supporter Running to Become Senator from Louisiana, on Democracy

“We have the best democracy Jewish money can buy”

“Duke describes himself as a “racial realist,” asserting that “all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage.”^[7] Duke also speaks against what he describes as Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. federal government and the media. Duke supports the preservation of what he considers to be Western culture and traditionalist Christian family values, Constitutionalism, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, anti-communism and white separatism.”

What is Alt-Right?:

The alt-right is a segment of right-wing ideologies presented as an alternative to mainstream conservatism in the United States.^[1][2] It has been described as a movement unified by support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump,^[3][4] as well as by opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.^[5][6]

The alt-right has no official ideology, although various sources have said that it is associated with white nationalism,^[6][7][8] white supremacism,^[6][9][10] antisemitism,^[6][8][11] right-wing populism,^[12][13] nativism,^[14][15] and the neoreactionary movement.^[16][17]

The alt-right has been said to be a largely online movement with Internet memes widely used to advance or express its beliefs, often on websites such as 4chan.^[11][18][19]

The term’s modern usage, however, is most commonly attributed to white nationalist and self-described “identitarian” Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of Alternative Right.^[12][24]

Here are some quotes from Richard B. Spencer and his National Policy Institute:

“Martin Luther King Jr., a fraud and degenerate in his life, has become the symbol and cynosure of White Dispossession and the deconstruction of Occidental civilization. We must overcome!”
—National Policy Institute column, January 2014

“Immigration is a kind a proxy war—and maybe a last stand—for White Americans, who are undergoing a painful recognition that, unless dramatic action is taken, their grandchildren will live in a country that is alien and hostile.”
—National Policy Institute column, February 2014

 “I believe in democracy” expresses the utter uselessness of “conservatism” and the American right wing.”  –  Richard B. Spencer on Twitter  September 2015

The self named “Alt-Right” has been among Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters.  This “movement” represents a broad spectrum of the ultra-Right Wing in American Conservative politics as proven above and below by quotes from some of their most prominent leaders.  This Presidential campaign has legitimized this movement by even discussing it in the realm of normative American politics and as such has returned outright bigotry to the American political discussion.  More importantly,  if that even makes sense, is that outright Fascism is now an important component of Republican Party politics. This has been typified by their nomination of Donald Trump,  Some further quotes will support my thesis about this Right Wing movement.

“Since we are fighting for nothing less than the biological survival of our race, and since the vast bulk of Jews oppose us, we need to err on the side of caution and have no association with Jews whatsoever. Any genuine Jewish well-wishers will understand, since they know what their people are like better than we ever can. Saving our race is something that we will have to do ourselves alone.”
—Greg Johnson, “White Nationalism & Jewish Nationalism,” August 2011

“I oppose the Jewish diaspora in the United States and other white societies. I would like to see the white peoples of the world break the power of the Jewish diaspora and send the Jews to Israel, where they will have to learn how to be a normal nation.”
—Greg Johnson, “White Nationalism & Jewish Nationalism,” August 2011

“At the core of the JI [Jewish Identity] is a malevolent supremacy. This is the manifest in their rejection of outgroups who wish to participate and innovate traditional Jewish cultural activities. Why reject diversity and progress within your community if not a false feeling of ‘betterness’? The root of this problem is, of course, a sexual feeling of inferiority. Mighty psychosexual urges must not be downplayed within group dynamics. As a remedy to this, the JI must be infiltrated with foreign members to procreate with their men and women. That way, the deep psychological psychosis can be treated at the root.”
—“A Critical Analysis of the Jewish Identity,” The Right Stuff, January 2011

“The new left doctrine of racial struggle in favor of non-Whites only, a product of decolonization and the defeat of nationalists by egalitarians after WWII, must be repudiated and Whites must be allowed to take their own side in their affairs. A value system that says Whites are not allowed to have collective interests while literally every other identity group can do so and ought to do so is unacceptable.”
—“The Fight for the Alt-Right: The Rising Tide of Ideological Autism Against Big-Tent Supremacy,” The Right Stuff, January 2016

“This is our home and our kith and kin. Borders matter, identity matters, blood matters, libertarians and their capitalism can move to Somalia if they want to live without rules, in the West we must have standards and enforce them. The ‘freedom’ for other races to move freely into white nations is nonexistent. Stay in your own nations, we don’t want you here.”
—Matthew Heimbach, “I Hate Freedom,” Traditionalist Youth Network, July 7, 2013

“Those who promote miscegenation, usury, or any other forms of racial suicide should be sent to re-education centers, not tolerated.”
—Matthew Heimbach, “I Hate Freedom,” Traditionalist Youth Network, July 7, 2013

Donald Trump’s entire persona is based upon what is in fact a brand-name created with the help of the American corporate media in order to engender ratings and sell advertising. Trump himself is little more than a con man, who has convinced many that he is a successful businessman,  rather than a mountebank playing a successful businessman in the media.  His Presidential campaign thus far has benefited from free media publicity and the use of outright racism to develop devoted support among the racist American Fascist movement,  which I see personified by the Alt-Right as shown by the quotes above.  To my mind there is a clear and present danger facing this country if Trump is elected,  however, even if he loses I think the Fascist monster has been released from its cage and will continue to influence American politics into the future.

                      Richard B. Spencer Creator of the term Alt-Right

The President is a Crazy Fascist: Who Is To Blame?

It is little wonder that since the bizarre Presidential Race and even more bizarre election, this nation has become obsessed with Trump. Obviously I have been carried away by this obsession as well, which is shown in this link to my dozens of Posts about Trump.  Once again this morning, I woke up musing about this Fascist First Citizen and the Party (R) that enables him. I was remembering Bill Maher’s New Rule from his show last night:

As we are living through this twisted time, it is necessary to reflect upon how we arrived here and who are those to blame for this sad state of affairs. Obviously the Republican Party and its’ demented Reality Show Host playing at President are to be blamed for the crisis of credibility shaking this country.  Yet this catastrophe has a wide swath of responsibility that puts onus upon many others, not the least of which being the members of the electorate who voted for this unqualified liar because they believed his obvious untruths.

Being Jewish, I must freely admit to an enormous sense of guilt about many things in life, for that is the nature of our cultural angst, which surpasses Roman Catholics in its magnitude.  However,  I feel no guilt when it comes to the election of the traitorous Trump,  because in my admittedly small way I did my best to prevent it.  You see I refuse to accept any mantle of guilt for being an elderly man, writing an obscure blog whose reach was inconsequential in this electoral battle. I tried in the best way I know how.  I donated time and money to try to defeat this con man and I wrote much in an effort to define the problems that had brought America to this sad state of affairs.  What follows is my estimate of who is to blame for Trump with their names providing appropriate links explaining why:

Barack Obama:

Our First Black President was blamed for everything that occurred during his two terms by his  racist opponents, whether responsible or not, so why not continue to pile on.  Obama’s main “failing“ was promising us an audacity of hope and governing with a singular lack of audacity of scope. He is an extraordinary man, whose American life experience was such that he believed far too much in an American vision that disguised its ugly underpinnings. Barack’s misplaced striving for a bi-partisan accord only strengthened his opposition and gave them leeway to mis-characterize all he accomplished.

Hillary Clinton

There is much to be admired about Hillary and her career, but not quite as much as she tried to have us believe. She became known to us as the very intelligent and accomplished First Lady to Bill Clinton, who was probably the third best Republican President of the 20th Century, only in Democratic Party costume.  Hillary and Bill, via their strategy of triangulation, won two Presidential terms and a Senate seat, but in the process turned the Democratic Party into “Republican Lite“  losing its raison d’etre.  Given her two Presidential runs, it is obvious that Hillary felt that she was somehow anointed and destined to become President. She failed herself, but most importantly she failed US who voted for her.

The Democratic Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt was unquestionably the greatest Democratic President and his “New Deal“ agenda saved America from becoming Fascist in the 1930’s,  setting a blueprint for American prosperity and social justice that lasted for 50 years, until a Republican “B“ movie actor charmed the country into believing a nonsensical economic and social agenda. In a crisis of confidence, fueled by an influx of corporate dollars, the Democratic Party establishment began abandoning the firm groundwork of the New Deal and started to move rightward in the vain hope of re-capturing the voting public.  All they accomplished, was diluting whatever message of governance they had and making it easy for corporatocracy money to put compliant Republicans into office.

The Republican Party

The Party of Lincoln, who was perhaps the greatest American President, took less than a decade after his death to sell out his ideals and to align themselves with the wealthy elite of the country. The bank robber Willie Sutton, when answering the question of why he only robbed banks, replied “Because that’s where the money is“.  The Republican Party early on abandoned any sense of principled governing to become the Party of the American Elite.  Under the phony rubric of “Conservative Philosophy“ the sole purpose of the Party became the care and nurturing of the One Percent.  Since they understood that this was problematic for the rest of the people they always carefully cloaked their message in many seemingly populist guises.  Among them Jingoism; fear of socialism/communism;  homophobia; racism;  terrorism; anti-semitism;  law and order;  and any other phony means of getting people to forget that their real agenda was pampering the already pampered.  How ready then they were for someone like our current illegitimate President, even as they expressed horror about being thrown into that particular Briar Patch.

You will note that I appear to put more blame upon Democrats than I do Republicans.  This was done with purpose.  I expect nothing from the Republican Party since they all are shills for the one percent.  Through its 36 year identity crisis, since the Reagan election,  the Democratic Party Establishment has been providing mixed messages to its supporters and has moved to the Right ideologically when it comes to economic and military matters.  I am not one who believes that the so-called social issues like racism and homophobia should take a back seat to economic issues.  That is a false dichotomy.  The Democratic Party has a problem with these issues not because of their nature, but because its leaders have forgotten that each generation must be taught the lessons of equality over and over again.  The so-called social issues of the Left and Leftist economic issues are all of the same piece, they speak to the notion that all Americans should be equal under the Law and in the application of Law.  As our Resistance movement grows,  we must not only be clear about what we are resisting, but also what we want to replace it with.

Trump and Hitler: Another Example of Fascist Techniques In Action

Using the model of Adolph Hitler and Germany,  Trump and his Republican enablers are working to create an alternate reality. Spouting lies and confabulations into what his ’Goebbels“  Kellyann Conway terms  “Alternate Facts“, Donald Trump is weaving an alternative reality for his mesmerized supporters.  Beyond his slavish authoritarian followers, Trump’s alternative reality has been accepted by his Republican followers in the Congress, who are being herded like dumb animals following a carrot on a stick.  Now somewhat immersed in the alternative reality, we see the corporate, mainstream news media,  responding like lemmings to the musings of our new President.  The press and media are caught between their mostly weak ethical constructs and the fear of reprisal from their corporate bosses, if they are seen as not being respectful enough to Presidential authority.  As for the rest of us, the majority of the American people, our perceptions run the gamut from outrage to fear to stunned disbelief that this is our President.  Yet the Big Lies crafting the Trumpian alternative reality, will ultimately fracture the common sense distrust of many Americans, unless these lies are constantly debunked.  The effectiveness of the Big Lie technique is based upon a constant repetition and a refusal by those lying to ever admit the truth.  Let’s look at the mechanics in NAZI Germany, as compared to the current schemes of Trump and his amoral cohort to achieve the same destructive results.

The Frightening New Normal: Donald Trump and Fascist Authoritarianism

“Wanna-be tyrants in a democracy are just comical figures on soapboxes when they have no following. So the real…threat lay coiled in parts of the population itself, it was thought, ready someday to catapult the next Hitler to power with their votes.” Professor Robert Altemeyer  Website Link

Since 2010,  at four different websites, I’ve written perhaps 600 posts.  To my mind the most important piece that I have ever written was first posted at Jonathan Turley’s award winning Legal Blog, January 2012, titled: The Authoritarians: A Book Review and a Free Book. That post,  re-published twice, was about the free book offered by Professor Robert Altemeyer, reporting on the findings of his long career, studying authoritarian behavior in human beings.   While Altemeyer’s book was written when George W. Bush was President, his findings are even more important today with Donald Trump ready to be inaugurated.  I found Altemeyer’s book and writings so important that I’ve referenced it in many other posts as you can see here.

Trump in my opinion is the quintessential Right Wing Authoritarian Leader and in Altemeyer’s article, written July 2016, he demonstrates he is of like mind.  The difference between us though is that Altemeyer is the expert, whereas I am simply an acolyte learning at his feet.  The prospect of Trump as President frankly terrifies me because I believe that we have the possibility that an American Hitler,  will soon be President.  To be able to deal with the coming chaos and destruction that is coming in the Age of Trump, it is important that we fully understand the nature of this threat.  While I could simply refer you to Altemeyer’s website via the link above,  my belief is that it is so important for people to read the Professor’s take on Trump that I am presenting his full article below.  If after reading the article you want to know more, go to the linked website and download a free PDF version of Altemeyer’s book “The Authoritarians”

A Russian Coup Under Way in America? Nope, It’s Just the Election of a Fascist President

Is there a Russian Coup Under Way in America?  No!  The situation is much worse than that. The Russians want Trump not because they can control him,  but because Trump represents re-creating our country into a Fascist State just like Russia’s Fascist State. Putin sees America as a roadblock to his dream of Russian hegemony. The main element of that block is that America has been considered to be the most stable and most “free” world power. Trump’s election already has gravely damaged our country’s reputation in the world and that is to Putin’s benefit.

The essence of Fascism is not bigotry per se,  but an interweaving of corporate interests with government interests, ensuring a servile workforce.  China and India have become Fascist as well.  This is a worldwide trend and as I’ve been writing its’ end game will be to establish an aristocracy based upon wealth and heritage worldwide.

The bigotry that we see in these movements is more or less a version of the old “bait and switch”  advertising schemes.  The bigotry and racism plays upon the “fear of the other” present in so many people frustrated by their lives and that is part of the bait.  The other part of the “bait” is the promise of jobs and economic prosperity.  We are already seeing the “switch” in the appointment of Trump’s cabinets which are overwhelmingly either corporatists or excessive militarists.  We also mustn’t discount though, the probability that Trump is deeply in debt to Russian bankers.

Words of explanation and resistance from Keith Olbermann.

Another element of Fascism that Trump has added to his “bait” is an intermingling with religion.  In Mussolini’s Italy the Roman Catholic Church helped pop up the regime.  In Hitler’s Germany it was the cooperation of the Protestant Church with example like Lutheran Nationalist Pastor Niemöller ho realized his mistake much too late and wound up in a concentration camp.  In Russia Putin has allied himself the Russian Orthodox Hierarchy and gone after homosexuals. Trump has received 81 percent of white evangelical and born-again Christian voters.

“Knowing he would need to win over evangelicals in order to beat Clinton, Trump promised them much of what they wanted. He gave a well-received speech to hundreds of Christian conservatives in New York this summer and formed a 26-person “evangelical executive advisory board.” The board is almost all male, and according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “stacked with anti-LGBT activists.”

In Trump, right-wing evangelicals see someone who will protect them from what they view as liberal tyranny assaulting their religious freedom. Nonprofit churches want the right to engage in politics. Business owners want the right to discriminate against LGBT employees and customers. Religious private schools want states to fund voucher programs so low-income students can attend on the public dime. And perhaps most important to right-wing Christians is defunding Planned Parenthood, which Trump has pledged to do, and making abortion illegal, which he has signaled may happen. Trump told “60 Minutes” the Sunday after Election Day that he would appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, and that if the court struck down Roe v. Wade, states could decide whether to allow abortion or not.” Why the Christian Right Is Head Over Heels About Trump Becoming President

Trump: An Authoritarian Fascist is Coming for You

The puerile Commander In Chief Forum did provide one definitive conclusion about Donald J. Trump,  which I think can’t be refuted.  Trump is in essence a Fascist, as proven by his admiration for the leadership of the Russian Federation by Vladimir Putin.  To my mind Putin is the quintessential Fascist leader in the world today. Here is a take on Fascism by “an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era.”

“Robert Paxton says that fascism is “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

How better to describe the ascendance of Putin in Russia.  He is a super-nationalist, decrying the fall of the “Russian Empire”,  as if it were a victim of malevolent forces and working to restore it’s “past glory”.   Putin has become a collaborator with the Russian Orthodox Church to enforce its’ religious doctrine and has allied with like minded Billionaire, Russian Oligarchs.  Putin has ordered and condoned the murders of many dissidents and has embarked on an extermination campaign of the LBGT community.  I don’t state this as “Cold War” rhetoric, because I don’t see Russia in the same “Evil Empire” terms as did Ronald Reagan.  Instead I see Russia as a Fascist dictatorship, led by the cult-like adoration of a “strong man” leader.

That Trump is attracted to and approves of this type of leader by his own admission, gives us all we need to know about what the style of Trump as President would look like.  My sense is that Trump is right about Putin in one sense, KGB trained Putin is a competent leader if ones taste runs to the Totalitarian.  Trump may personally see himself as a Putin-esque type, but that is only in his narcissistic fantasy view of himself.  Trump’s “success”, if you can call it that, occurred in what was for him a very benign environment for people “to the manor born” such as himself.  Putin’s rise to power was in a totalitarian Empire on the verge of collapse and he like many Communist Party functionaries  lived through the collapse and made out very well.

I can remember when the idea of electing Ronald Reagan was considered a joke to many, only to have him defeat Jimmy Carter and gain the Presidency.  The corporate press proclaimed a “Reagan Revolution” and he was just about “canonized” by all elements of the Republican Party, as he shifted our country drastically to the right.  Who knew that 36 years after Reagan’s election we can see that his policies, not his iconic veneration,  would be considered “too liberal” by a majority of today’s Republican politicians?  If Trump is elected,   the previously reluctant Republicans, would quickly come around and the corporate media’s attitude would go from mild ridicule to praising hyperbole overnight. In 2007 a social scientist wrote a book that took into account the changes happening in the right wing.  The short (284 pages) book is available in PDF at this link:

Click to access TheAuthoritarians.pdf

A while back I wrote a review of the book, “The Authoritarians: A Book Review and a Free Book”,  which provides more details about it.  If you really want a perspective on the phenomenon that has occurred in America since 9/11, I suggest you take the brief time to read this short, highly informative book.  Here though are the last paragraphs, to perhaps peak your interest and start making my point.