Is America Turning Fascist?

I've often wondered if at least some of the infamous "101st Fighting Keyboarders" could be described as Fascist. The belligerent and intolerant rhetoric from some of them, often inspired rightwing talk radio hosts and frothing media pundits like Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, certainly smells unpleasant. But Fascism is a word devalued through overuse. Are they really Fascists, or just a few isolated bigots?

This long article by David Neiwert, Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis gives a disturbing vision of how the far right has infiltrated mainstream conservatism in America. As summarised by Mark Rosenfelder (from where I got the link):

Neiwert estimates that far-right extremists make up about 4% of the electorate. That's enough to be extremely valuable if they can be persuaded to support a major party -- and the Republicans have invited them inside. They're comforted with coded messages of support, and in return the rightist media helps spread and mainstream their message. A nice dance has been perfected: fascist sentiments (such as calls for physical attacks on liberals, or for interning Muslim Americans, or the equating of welfare recipients with chimpanzees) are spread by conservative pundits, who can claim to be joking if anyone protests; the extremists take it quite seriously.

The constant ratcheting-up of acceptable hate speech is one of the marks of fascism on the rise; indeed, Neiwert considers the far-right venues as a sort of trial laboratory for anti-liberal extremism. The virulence that resulted in the Clinton impeachment circus, for instance, was mooted about years earlier in far-right groups.

Anyone, especially conservatives, who wonder if I'm exaggerating should read Neiwert's pages. I think there's much that will shock reasonable conservatives; and there's a clear moral and historical point: if you want to distinguish yourselves from these people, kick them out of your Party.

The whole thing is pretty long; it's taken me much of the evening to plough through it. But it's worrying, and it doesn't look as though we in Europe can do much about it. But it's not just American's problem. As Neiwert say in his final line.

European fascism was a terrible thing. An American fascism, though, could very well devastate the world.