The United States of Fascism Hysteria

So it’s been an exciting few weeks for Antifa and the rest of the neoliberal Resistance. OK, they haven’t yet managed to overthrow the Putin-Nazi occupation government (hereinafter “POG”), but they’ve definitely got “the Fash” on the run. “Fascism” hysteria is spreading like wildfire. Liberal Twitter mobs are out for blood. At this point, it’s only a matter of time until the sleeping giant of normality awakens and purges America of the fascist filth that have Putin-Nazified this once great nation.

Antifa has been at the vanguard of the fight, smashing the Fash on both East and West Coasts. In Portland, where a gang of neo-fascist anti-masturbationists known as the “Proud Boys” had assembled for a self-promotional street fight they were billing as the “Battle of Portland 2,” Antifa militants positively identified and preventatively beat the living snot out of a journalist named Andy Ngo. To prevent him from snitching to the fascist cops (who are allegedly working hand in hand with POG), they self-defensively robbed him, sprayed him with silly string, and pelted him with vegan milkshakes.

Now, before you get all up in arms about Antifa assaulting and robbing journalists, you need to know a couple of things. First, according to Antifa spokespersons, and those bloodthirsty liberal Twitter mobs, Andy Ngo is a “fascist adjacent,” and possibly even a card carrying fascist. Antifa representative Alexander Reid Ross claims that Ngo is personally responsible for putting people’s names on a Nazi “kill-list” (or at least that Ngo’s writing has been published by Quillette, which published an article by someone else that some fascists read and copied people’s names from), so, basically, he deserves to die.

Also, assaulting and robbing Ngo was technically “preemptive self-defense” (you know, the same as when we invaded Iraq to defend ourselves from those WMDs). Despite their helmets and body armor, and the fact that Ngo is a doughy little gay guy, his presence among them on a public street was making Antifa feel “unsafe.” So, they had no choice but to beat him senseless, steal his camera, and vegan milkshake him. As Antifa expert Mark Bray explains, when you’re Antifa, “fighting back is always self-defense, even if [you] strike the first blow.” (This logic only applies to anti-fascists, of course, like Antifa and the U.S. military, and not to, you know, gangs of thugs, or the perpetrators of wars of aggression.)

Antifa’s self-defensive mugging of a journalist apparently scared the crap out of POG, because one week later, back in Washington, D.C., President Hitler called in the tanks, and the Luftwaffe, and announced that he was going to stage a reenactment of a Nuremberg Rally right in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The liberal intelligentsia went apeshit. This was really it this time! Putin had given Trump the green-light to declare martial law and pronounce himself Führer. The long-awaited Putin-Nazi Apocalypse was finally about to begin!

Unfortunately, Trump’s Fourth of July Jamboree turned out to be a rather tame affair. He even almost made it through his speech without making an ass of himself. This was extremely disappointing for liberals, who were hoping he would go full-Hitler, paint “death’s heads” on the turrets of the Bradleys and a Swastika on the tail of Air Force One, and order ICE to start rounding up the Jews.

The weekend wasn’t a total let-down, however. The Proud Boys (who are clearly gluttons for punishment), staged another self-promotional event, this one billed as “Defend Free Speech.” A few hundred people turned up to listen to speeches by a handful of alt-right clowns desperately trying to reignite their careers. They were outnumbered 2 to 1 by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, assorted drag queens, and an indigenous, two-spirited transperson of color, who reportedly “performed a spoken word” on the meaning of the term “latinx.”

The D.C. police (who are even more fascist than the Portland police who stood by and watched as Antifa beat up and robbed a journalist) fascistically prevented Antifa militants from storming into the Alt-right rally and beating the snot out of everyone in sight. So, the anti-fascists had no choice but to preemptively attack a newspaper dispenser, which was presumably making them feel “unsafe,” or disseminating POG propaganda, or something. One of them tried to burn a flag, but he couldn’t figure out how to operate his matches. Assorted other hilarious acts of revolutionary direct action followed. Apparently, Antifa’s strategy was to smash the Fash by amusing them to death.

Meanwhile, militant Resistance actions against the POG “concentration camps” continue. New York City, San Francisco, and other liberal metropolitan areas have almost completely emptied out as liberals flock to the southern border to liberate the surviving prisoners. Conditions in the camps are now beyond inhuman. According to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, migrants are being forced to drink out of toilets, and otherwise subjected to “systematic cruelty,” (so you can understand why liberals are physically putting their bodies on the line to bring an end to this horrifying sadism, and not just sitting around on the Internet shrieking about “concentration camps” as they travel to their summer holiday rentals on Martha’s Vineyard, or the Hamptons, or wherever).

No, these Putin-Nazi “concentration camps” are nothing at all like the “detention facilities” the Obama administration operated, even though they look exactly the same. Sure, thousands of migrant children were separated from their parents, in cages, and there were tens of thousands of incidents of rape, sexual abuse, beatings, and so on, but, otherwise, these Obama “detention facilities” were more like great big 2-star hotels, or like student dorms at a state university, so there was no need for liberals to get all worked up and start comparing them to places like Dachau and Buchenwald.

Plus, here’s a picture of dead people! Look at this picture! These people are dead! So just shut up about Obama already! Enough with history, and critical thinking, and the practical aspects of immigration policy! It’s time to abolish all national borders, issue everyone a U.S. passport, and transcend the whole concept of national sovereignty … or at least to provide the capitalist ruling classes with an endless supply of cheap, undocumented, extremely compliant unskilled labor. Those Bel Air lawns aren’t going to mow themselves!

Jesus, I can’t believe I just wrote that. Concentration camps and dead people are nothing to joke about. It’s OK, however, to cynically use them to whip people up into a paroxysm of manufactured mass fascism hysteria. Not that the neoliberal ruling classes and the corporate media would ever do that. No, they would never repeatedly attempt to evoke our hatred of the actual Nazis (and their actual concentration camps … which people were dragged out of their homes, loaded onto trains, and shipped away to, and which you could not voluntarily depart) in order to short circuit our critical thinking, or otherwise emotionally manipulate us into supporting their War on Populism.

No, the Putin-Nazi occupation government is not just manufactured mass hysteria concocted by the neoliberal ruling classes. Donald Trump is really a Nazi. There’s a portrait of Hitler in the Oval Office. Putin really controls America. Putin, and his cabal of Russian Nazis. They’re everywhere. They own the banks. They control the media. They control elections. They are the “International Invisible Government.” (Is any of this sounding vaguely familiar?) They are devising the Final Solution to the Immigrant Problem right this minute. They are doing this at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has had a big “Black Sun” etched into the marble floor.

So, if you’re serious about your anti-fascism, now’s the time to load up on silly string, ski goggles, masks, hard knuckle gloves, and whatever you make those milkshakes with. POG might be on the run at the moment, but there’s an election season coming up, so we need to be prepared for anything. The important thing is to remain hysterical, and to be ready to respond to whatever emotional stimuli the ruling classes wave in our faces. The fate of democracy hangs in the balance.

Oh, and watch out for those fascist newspaper dispensers!

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CJ Hopkins
July 10, 2019
Photo: “Antifa” by cantfightthetendies – CC BY 2.0

CJ Hopkins Summer 2018 thumbnail

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, which we understand is pretty gosh darn funny, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, please feel free to contact him directly.

31 thoughts on “The United States of Fascism Hysteria”

  1. “Those Bel Air lawns aren’t going to mow themselves!” “The important thing is to remain hysterical . .”

    I continue to marvel at your ability to somehow find a way to satirize this insane, inane, shit-show being passed of as “reality” here in the States. The irony of the fact that you reside in Berlin is of course not lost on me. Particularly as I incredulously watch the Democratic Party establishment and MSM talking heads attack the lead Putin-Nazis from the “right,” insisting that when the Orange One is not being a complete Nazi-Nazi he is instead being a complete pansy-Nazi because it is clear we most certainly need a new war somewhere, on somebody, and as soon as possible, and yet he just keeps dawdling along failing to seal the deal. Go figure.

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    1. ‘I continue to marvel at your ability to somehow find a way to satirize this insane, inane, shit-show being passed of as “reality” here in the States’.

      What’s more, to do so 16 years after Tom Lehrer himself gave up. Asked why he didn’t write some songs about George W Bush and his crew of murderers, he replied that “the trouble is I don’t want to satirize them – I want to vaporize them”. (A perfectly sane, decent, normal human reaction).

      Long before, Lehrer declared that satire died when Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

      “The devil about writing satire now-a-days is that reality constantly outstrips you”.
      C.S. Lewis (letter, 8 December 1959)

      “It was at that moment that satire died. There was nothing more to say after that”.
      Tom Lehrer, when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973

      “I’m not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn’t figure out what sort of song I would write. That’s the problem: I don’t want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them”.
      – Tom Lehrer (interview, 28th February 2003, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/28/1046407753895.html)

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  2. Fascism is on the rise around the world. Antifa is indeed a neo liberal Democratic party orbital and corporate media darling. But their main thrust, that fascism is on the rise, isn’t wrong. Its categorically supportable particularly in Germany where a hard backlash against antinazism is in full swing. I’m not sure why you’re belittling the use of the term “concentration camps” as this is exactly what the camps are by definition.

    The problem isn’t calling a concentration camp a “concentration camp” nor in pointing out the dangerous swing towards extreme right wing and fascistic policies all over the planet. The problem is that the liberal media has made an absolute freak show out of it all bordering on a joke while the democrats have done their best to downplay it all or even outright support it while shedding obvious crocodile tears to try and seize votes in the primaries and coming national election.

    There are heaping piles of evidence that fascism is swiftly on the rise around the world and in the US in particular. But it’s not Donald Trump bringing it. He’s just a more aggressive version of what the entire bourgeois system has been veering towards for decades. The Dems are possibly even more responsible for this rise than the Republicans and taking active part in it as well (as the author points out with Obama’s “detention centers”). Just bc the neo liberal establishment used Orwellian double speak while in power doesn’t mean they are incorrect when changing from double speak to real speak. It just means they are opportunistic dishonest parasites.

    But to me, the author is doing a huge disservice by downplaying the rise of fascism globally just because opportunistic parasites are coopting facts to drive their political machinery. And even worse is downplaying the expanding concentration camp system and expansion of ICE raids nationally just because the Democrats are psychotically addicted to their own false narrative Russia BS. The most skillful manipulators use real situations and facts to spin their own conclusions and drive their own ambitions. This is exactly what the neo liberal establishment is doing and it’s actually reinforcing the surge in fascism and neo conservatism.

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    1. Where have you been – Ben? What sort of progressive “liberal” paradise do you think we’ve been living in up until now? As a kid I watched civil rights demonstrators assaulted with police batons and firehouses while the FBI watched, and while it infiltrated and destroyed EVERY attempt at progressive organizing in the U.S. This was standard operating procedure. State policy. The KKK were openly involved in suppressing the racial justice movement and were not the pathetic bunch of rag tag goof offs that today’s so called “alt-right” are, but a band of racist murderers. It is also worth mentioning perhaps that the U.S. establishment assassinated with complete impunity the four most important progressive leaders in the country during a five year period beginning with JFK in 1963. Not a peep of protest from our valiant MSM of course.

      It seems quite likely that the actual “literal Nazis” Allen Dulles brought into the CIA were a big help in assisting the CIA in helping to create our own “brand” of neo-fascisim posing as a liberal democracy. I mean besides teaching us the most effective torture techniques, I’m sure they brought along other “hands on” kind of fascist knowledge into the realm of our propaganda and psyops. Fascism is as fascism does I’d say – and I’m not exactly sure “when” one might have considered the U.S. to be anything other than neo-fascist? Would it during the round-up and deportation of aliens during the Red Scares early in the last century? When the police and military were used to brutally crush union strikes and organizing decades ago? Or perhaps when we were training and arming death squads all over Latin America during the “good old days” of the Reagan and Clinton presidency’s? Or maybe during Operation Gladio or during the Phoenix Program? When exactly weren’t we a brutal neo-facist enterprise posing for the benefit of the populace as something more enlightened and progressive I wonder?

      So what exactly is it that you’re concerned about Ben? Would you simply prefer that fascism stay in the closet so that MSM and our political figureheads can pretend that using the proper gender pronoun while we illegally and immorally bomb and slaughter and torture innocents all over the planet makes us a decent society? The U.S. has ALWAYS been (based on deeds not words) a neo-fascist, racist, uber-violent, genocidal settler society no matter what fig leaves we hold up to disguise that.

      You state: “the author is doing a huge disservice by downplaying the rise of fascism globally just because opportunistic parasites are coopting facts to drive their political machinery.” – all I can think when considering what you might mean by such gibberish is – “where have you been all these decades to be able to see any of this as ‘something new?'” And how pray tell is Mr. Hopkins pointing out the complete inane idiocy of the official establishment propaganda narratives somehow a disservice, rather than a service, to truth and to better understanding what is actually occurring with these false establishment narratives imply we are valiantly “fighting fascism?”

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      1. I think you’ve inverted the purpose of my post. The US has clandestinely carried out brutal authoritarian policies and repression of dissenters for as long as the US was a nation. No disputing that. But that’s not what fascism is. Fascism is now becoming an actual integrated part of the state and its policies are being codified. Germany is seeing a rise in actual Nazi sympathies in their state organs overtly NOT covertly. Laws are being structured in the US that is taking it on the same path as Germany in 20s and 30s. France’s crackdowns on protests are unprecedented as sympathies for fascists and the Nazi collaborators of the Vichey regime in France are being glorified by the head of state. Italy has also begun the process of changing its structures and laws to fall under the hyper nationalist extreme right wing category as well.

        I think you purposefully ignored a very important qualifier in my OP that the neo liberal establishment uses these real facts but spins and manipulates them to fit their demented narrative all while actually supporting and implementing the same themselves. The historical mistake you are making is referring to history as if it’s gone and done with. No. Actually, those extremist groups never went away nor were they neutered. They simply went darken ship. The KKK and neo nazis persist and are still in government and important military positions. But they are quiet and benefitting from both Trump’s extreme nationalist propaganda and the neo liberal insistence on using identitarian BS propaganda to gain momentum in the overall society. This is the disservice I’m speaking of. Acting as if this is all the norm is a completely incorrect assessment. The world is shifting hard to the right and we have concentration camps BY DEFINITION in the US. Is this new to Trump? No ad I already mentioned but it is new to the country in the last 25 years. And they are expanding those rapidly. Funding border walls and expanding federal raids in neighborhoods to drag people into detention centers. Censoring the internet and trying to codify suspicious behavior as being anything that goes against the bourgeois system which includes both Trump and the Dems.

        Suggesting that it’s all the same as in the 60s or even that it’s better is a total inversion of the truth. Just because you can’t see or smell cancer doesn’t mean it hasn’t aprear throughout the body.

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        1. Ben – you are obviously rather uninformed regarding the history of our great nation and of Europe post-WWII. But you show your true colors by attacking the messenger (in this case a satirist critiquing and dismembering State propaganda) while you maintain that what we see today is somehow qualitatively different than COINTELPRO, IranContra, Plan Colombia, Project for a New American Century, color revolution after color revolution, Operation Condor, “humanitarian intervention” after humanitarian intervention, drone strike after drone strike, and endless war of course, or for that matter all those crowds of rage-filled screaming white folks in the south only held back from physically attacking Black children by National Guardsmen while said Black kids were being integrated into the schools. Maybe were we “less fascist” when the FBI was complicit in assassinating Black Panthers and American Indian Movement member with complete impunity because, uh, they claimed self-defense or that they just couldn’t find the assassins?

          The point is, you make no point. You simply assert that somehow fascism is in the ascendance in German “state organs” for example, obviously oblivious to the fact that Reinhard “freaking” Gehlen was appointed the HEAD of the West German intelligence services by the CIA post-WWII, along with many of his right-hand Nazis henchmen. We’re not talking about as you fear – a “rise in actual Nazi sympathies in their state organs overtly Not covertly” here – we’re talking about real live actual Nazis war criminals! Nobody who could read in the 1950’s and 1960’s was in any way mistaken about the (Nazi or fascist or Nazi collaborationist) background of many prominent Post-WWII European politicians. The U.S. put them in power at the time and we continue to dominate the political scene in Western Europe to this day. Operation Gladio was one aspect of the fascist terror technique used to undermine and destroy the “left” in Western Europe (see today’s European ‘socialist’ and “Green’ parties that in fact support neoliberal globalization and amoral imperialism).

          Hopkins points out the absurdity of the West’s deep state (truly fascist) narratives regarding the fevered imagined dangers posed by “Russia and Putin Nazis” – and your delicate sensibilities are offended because – what – Hopkins didn’t sufficiently sound the alarm that Reinhard Gehlen might be cloned and brought back from the dead to hold yet another position in a – ‘German state organ?’ Really? We recruited Nazis directly into the freaking CIA Ben. What don’t you get about this? Nazi-R-Us! This is historically true in spite of your assessment that – “The world is shifting hard to the right” – as we speak.

          It’s interesting to see that you in fact have taken one of the authors “satiric” recommendations quite to heart: “the important thing is to remain hysterical.” Good luck with that.

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          1. You misrepresent my entire post. What fantastic strawmen you’ve created to feel like you’re “right”. You couldn’t hope to provide one example from my post that in anyway claims that any of those deep state operations aren’t still going on. You’ll be sad to realize that no where in my post mentions anything about lunatic whites being held back from attacking anyone. Nor is the south mentioned once. Nor am I hysterical though your own frothing strawmen and shoving unrelated garbage into my post would seem so.

            No where do I glorify the media in fact I’ve made sure to comment on how they are implicated in all this. You probably read one sentence and went off on your rant. My points stand. You literally haven’t answered to a single one of them instead opting to create imaginary points that you can attack.

            It’s so wildly crazy to see someone trying to shoo away the dangers of a growing SS squad in ICE and expansion of concentration camps as being the “norm”. If I were you, I’d reexamine my whole position on this matter and try to think if I have anything worth lying to myself over to convince that everything is just as fine as it was 25 years ago. Good luck.

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            1. You threw a bunch of assorted shit at the wall to see what might stick – (while you attacked the author) – since unfortunately “the wall” in this case – is the very perceptive and well informed satirist challenging and deconstructing the dominant propaganda narrative of the times. What a curious post indeed you have shared with us in choosing to critique the messenger as you have. Particularly given how rare such a critical analysis of this propaganda narrative is to come by these days. Please forgive me for having zero tolerance for your logic free BS. I’ll assume you are simply ideologically pure of heart, but incapable of coherent thought and argument, since the alternative options are even less flattering.

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              1. Logic free? What fantastic absurdity. I didn’t throw a bunch of shit at the wall. I made very direct and poignant and measurably correct criticisms about the author claiming that fascism is not on the rise globally and his mocking of calling these concentration camps what they are. Unlike you, I don’t simply default to defending and believing satire simply because it goes against the mainstream line. This isn’t just some dichotomy or two sided coin. Fascists and the KKK can go against the mainstream but that doesn’t mean their analyses or conclusions are sound or even sane. I happen to agree with the author on almost everything he writes. It’s this particular subject where he seems to be dismissing the growth of fascism in the overt state structures around the world and the expansion of dangerous things like ICE raids and concentration camps as well as hyper nationalist protectionism and imperialism here at home that we divert on.

                And on these points, I have made concrete statements and there is a mountain of evidence regarding it as well as a trove of policies that every president from Reagan thru Trump have implemented which fortifies all the worst parts of Nazi Germany outside of actual gassing and burning. I’ve also discussed the new levels of surveillance and censorship on top of all that which is the kind of stuff Hitler and Stalin probably creamed themselves dreaming of in their time.

                It is you who seems to be deranged on this subject. For whatever reason you simply NEED to think that it’s all business as usual and nothing has actually changed in the last 25 years. It’s really quite amazing. Talk about a lack of logic.

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          2. Come on, man! I agree with most of what you said, but don’t you realize how aggressive and sarcastic your response to Ben was? ”Where have you been?? ; ”what you meant by such gibberish” ; ”Good luck with that”. What’s the point of that?? I don’t think that stating your opinion (”TO ME, the author is doing a disservice..”) qualifies as attacking the author. We’re all here trying to be critical thinkers, that’s why we follow this site. We should be able to disagree and have civilized discussions. We should always try to rethink and deconstruct our perspectives on any topic rationally, and not take criticism personally. Both parties involved in any discussion, if they’re really interested in contributing to an informed debate, should respect and have consideration for the other’s perspective, EVEN if they disagree.
            For example: ”Hey, Ben, I see where you’re coming from, but really, as I see it, we need to remember that this is not a new phenomenon and fascism has been a hallmark of American society…”. Then Ben would reply: I get your point, I agree with you on this and that, but what was trying to say is…”. A respectful and considerate approach by both parties is always more productive. Belittling someone’s point of view contentiously and sarcastically has never made anyone change their mind. Animosity and lack of empathy are one of the main features of today’s society. If we, who consider ourselves informed and critical citizens, also take part in that, then there’s really no hope of changing anything for the better.

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    2. Fascism is – and always has been, since 1776 – the American way of life. Defined as an intimate partnership between totalitarian government and the corporations, it has grown stronger and stronger. Today the supremacy of entities such as FaceBook, Amazon and Google signals the triumph of fascism.

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  3. ‘Also, assaulting and robbing Ngo was technically “preemptive self-defense”…’

    Andy Singer’s brilliant cartoon drives this home with a sledgehammer.

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  4. “President Hitler called in the tanks, and the Luftwaffe, and announced that he was going to stage a reenactment of a Nuremberg Rally right in front of the Lincoln Memorial”.

    Which was particularly offensive because Abraham Lincoln was a dedicated pacifist, who loathed the sight of soldiers and weapons, and did everything he possibly could to avoid bloodshed.

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  8. Your words are true. But the sad thing most people don’t realize about ‘antifa’ is that many of these people think they are in the trenches at Stalingrad, fighting off Nazi hordes with their milshakes adn iron bars. The only thing they have in common with the Red Army heroes is a total lack of irony. Even Stalin had a lively sense of humor. These people are so enmeshed in ‘theory’, they can’t laugh at anything. I know a lot of the anti-fa cheerleading section. I strongly suspect the entire thing is a COINTELPRO op at the very top. They combed through Portland’s many homeless shanty camps and found enough meth crazed brawlers eager to put the boot in that it was a matter o aiming them in the right direction and..voila..instant mayhem!

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