Americans have lost sight of what ‘fascism’ means
How do Americans decide what to be outraged about? It seems like ancient history now, but that was one of the questions The New York Times inadvertently raised in June when it appended an editor’s note to an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton—a piece that some on the Times staff saw as presenting a physical danger not only to the country but to themselves.
The op-ed called for American troops to be sent to “restore order” to cities experiencing violent protests. Outside and inside the Times, it was widely condemned as “fascist” or fascist-adjacent. More recently, though, the Times published an op-ed of a similar vein, except this time readers had the opportunity to glimpse what actual fascism looks like. Fascism, in today’s context, isn’t mere authoritarianism, but the attempt to suppress all dissent, public or private, in the name of the nation; it is the expression of a regimented society that elevates order as both the means and end of all political life.
The October 1 op-ed, by Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, captured such sentiments well. Ip laid out the case for a new Chinese-backed security law that would effectively criminalize anything that might be perceived as “subversion.” …
This time, though, no staff revolt occurred, even though Ip’s article was an elaborate, if refreshingly frank, endorsement of real fascism.
Many Americans who brand Trump and his allies as fascists are paying too little attention to abuses in Hong Kong and cultural genocide in Xinjiang…
A world where a Republican senator in a democracy—even a flawed democracy—is deemed fascist and therefore beyond the bounds of respectable discussion, while actual authoritarians, or worse, are free to propagate their views with little public censure is a world that is upside down. Words should mean something, and if Americans insist on instrumentalizing them for political objectives, however just, then journalists and analysts will no longer have the language to describe the worst threats from the worst actors.
What the Chinese Communist Party is doing is not unspeakable. It can and should be spoken about, however difficult that may be. Moral clarity requires us to seek both accuracy and proportion. Anything less does a disservice to those who have actually struggled, fought, and died against fascism. If Americans, even for just a moment, could look beyond Trump, they might realize that another world—one where fascism is a living, breathing thing—awaits them.
