Right wingers don’t know it (seldom do), but the January 6th insurrection led by a narcissistic zealot was a prelude to a wildly unprecedented wet dream. Most belonging to that ideological camp have already stated that they’re “tired of democracy” (too messy, too slow, too “compromising”) and prefer a monarch or a king. They also long to follow someone willing to draw clear, simple lines in the sand between good and evil, right and wrong.
This burgeoning ideology has already made itself clear on issues of racial profiling, ethnic cleansing, voting restrictions, immigration, xenophobia, guns, mixed marriages, homosexuality, religion in schools, censoring books, shutting down “liberal” media outlets, white supremacy, and “intolerance/hatred” in general – to say nothing about global warming (that “liberal” conspiracy!) and women’s reproductive rights. Their way, they claim, is the path to “freedom” and “justice.” – Meanwhile, anything remotely “liberal-leftist-progressive-socialist” isn’t even on the political radar. It was laughed off the national stage in 1980 by Reagan’s new phalanx of televangelists and neo-liberals.
This is a highly emotional movement thirsting for a final coup de grace with a culminating mass-celebration, the likes of which (they wish) could be witnessed with “awe.” Flags, lights, uniforms, trumpets, and salutes, united under stadium klieg lights and flyovers by military jets. In the background, a new Anthem played through loudspeakers – Lee Greenwood’s Proud to be An American, the party’s answer to Deutschland uber alles.
And so, let’s just cut through the crap and get to it. If someone were to suggest a uniformed protocol of allegiance to a charismatic leader and his cause, this group would jump at it in a heartbeat. If someone introduced a new Pledge of Allegiance – ditto. If someone drew up a new Constitution – ditto. And if they demanded a more dramatic name for “leader” or “guide” (such as guardian, defender, preserver, keeper, savior) – they’d say by all means, yes!
This is a predominantly illiterate (information-challenged) movement that puts faith over science and sensationalism over logic. It wants a nation of men, not laws. It is, obviously, history repeating itself, and so what?! They’re grabbing their AR-15s and saying bring it on!
To show ninety-year-old footage of the Nuremberg rallies to this movement would evoke sexual excitement. Its members would see themselves as they truly feel. Some would actually stand and salute the Sieg Heil. Someone would most likely come forward and demand a whole new restructuring of “the party” based on the film they had just watched.
Indeed, to watch the Nuremberg rallies is to watch exactly where the movement is going, knowing it or not. The corporate media (in its financial clutches) dignifies its existence more and more by airing its stories and rallies, which only empowers it further. Sixty years ago the American Nazi Party and other hate groups wouldn’t even rate a hundred words on page eighteen of The New York Times. To completely disarm them, all it had to do was ignore them. Today, they’re given headlines and front-page photos and interviews. Which is to say, “As Americans, this too is who we are.” Sixty years ago, The Times censored them. Today they censor us. The ideology takes a huge share of airtime and even succeeds in steering legislation. The First Amendment is on trial, while the Second Amendment is not. Intolerance & impatience is America’s growing mantra.
The 1934 Nuremberg rally is a firsthand deja-vu. In the beginning (1923), these rallies started small. The first two took place in other locations, but the third was in Nuremberg near the center of where the German empire began. From then on they were also conducted on the Autumnal equinox (tribal, pagan references). There were at least twelve rallies from 1923 through 1939, each lasting up to eight days, each becoming more and more significant as the Reich gained momentum. Interestingly, the 1929 rally was called the “Day of Composure,” while the very next one (1933) was called the “Rally of Victory” (going from temperance to all-out aggression). Hitler had seized control of the Weimar Republic, and Leni Riefenstahl had just made her first propaganda film for the party.
The 1934 “Rally of Power” was pivotal, and all the subsequent rallies simply built on the growing foundations of conquest – the “Rally of Unity and Strength,” “Rally of Freedom,” “Rally of Honor,” “Rally of Labour,” “Rally of Greater Germany,” “Rally of Peace,” and so on. The final rally actually never happened as it was preempted by World War II. – In other words, reality interfered.
There’s something to be said about “group psychology” (even if it’s Psych:101). The herding instinct/mentality by nature is obviously a dangerous thing. For reasons that filter down to a desire for acceptance and inclusion by one’s peers, the individual’s ability to think rationally and intelligently simply sublimates into the subconscious. He forfeits both (rationale, logic) for peer acceptance. And when the whole group forfeits simultaneously, a lowered mentality takes control. Before he knows it, he finds himself saying and doing things he can hardly believe and can’t quite comprehend. But he does it anyway and tries to fool himself that it’s the right thing (for “the cause,” God & Country, the sacred leader).
When alone, individuals see the stupidity of it through a rational lens. When conscripted by force, peer pressure and guilt, the lens is switched for another. Before they know it, as George Carlin once said, they’re “wearing uniforms and funny little hats.”
The danger to rational thought and behavior has been around for millennia. Hence, the obvious warning: If you see a large powerful group, especially one drunken on high emotion, take note and be wary. It doesn’t matter what group it is. If it’s growing, or already large and organized, it will most likely try to convert you, change what you know and believe, or censor you and leave feelings of regret and guilt. One might even attempt to draw violence down on you if you resist. As a resister, you will be made into a pariah and reduced to a stereotype. On the subject of pariahs and stereotypes alone, just ask any minority group in America. – The only real difference between some groups and others is “degree, frequency, and staying power.” In other words, the nation defines itself by some groups that have been around so long that they make up the fabric of who (we think) we are. Christianity, Manifest Destiny, predator capitalism, a predominantly “white” America, all come to mind.
Hitler’s definition of (national) “socialism” was not socialism. Real socialism promotes autonomy, free expression, equal rights). Hitler’s version terminated all of those. The only “rights” allowed were those in full service to the Fatherland. Lifelong friends and extended families were forced to spy on each other. And yet Hitler called it the “Peoples’ Party, ” a movement for “all of Deutschland.” These tags were designed to twist and confuse notions of “peace and freedom” with total subjugation. Orwell brought this home in 1984: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” And as Hitler said, if you repeat a lie frequently and loudly enough times, the people will eventually believe it.
Leni Riefenstahl was Germany’s celebrated photographer and filmmaker. She produced and directed Triumph of the Will in 1935 which became the Reich’s official propaganda film for all Germans to watch in theaters. She also produced Olympia: Festival of Nations about the 1936 Olympics. Hitler collaborated closely with her on three separate films.
What Riefenstahl focused on was not was athletes and patriots, but the theme of Aryan purity and superiority. America had not (yet) come that close to rallying behind this theme, even with its own deeply embedded racism. But let’s not forget that the whole eugenics theory did not originate in Germany but the United States, by the likes of Sir Francis Galton and his theory of “genetic determinism” (which, by the way, received extensive funding from the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation). German scientists and doctors borrowed it from him. The Carnegie Institute then also helped fund Germany’s research into eugenics while applying it to Jews. One could almost say that the whole Aryan mythology movement took seed elsewhere, where there was no Beethoven, Nietzsche, Wagner, or handmaidens to the gods (Valkyries) deciding “who shall live and who shall die.”
What has been obvious for a very long time has been the (unwritten, handshake) agreement between Hollywood and Washington – to always cast Americans (especially in uniform) as unwaveringly brave, noble, strong, patriotic, unified in a purpose and vision. Washington said to Hollywood “You wave the flag, and we’ll wave the regs” (on filmmaking). Today, anyone who does not stand for the National Anthem, does not salute the flag, is not a member of the “national religion” (Christianity), and (most of all) who scrutinizes the military industrial complex — is subject to stereotypes, ridicule from all sides, and even physical harm for the offense of “disloyalty.” An athlete or celebrity refusing to stand for the Anthem because of personal conviction is forced to defend himself for the rest of his life. The burden of proof (of innocence) is on him.
If/When unchecked, stereotypes only grow into monstrous caricatures. “Ingrates” and “liberals” today often end up in the press, first as socialists and atheists, then finally as seditionists, terrorists, treasonists, and even the Anti-Christ. – It’s equivalent to showing up at a Nuremberg rally out-of-uniform and waving “anything” other than a Nazi flag, which would have gotten him killed. – It’s what happens when an intelligent person finds himself in the midst of mongrelized (herded) masses.
Personally, it sickens me as I watch virtually anyone in a uniform (military, firefighter, police, healthcare provider, Boy Scout, sewer inspector, flycatcher) already hailed as a “hero” before even doing anything. He walks in “slow motion” towards his patriotic task every morning as the sun rises on Iowa corn and mom’s apple pie. The flag is draped above, sounds of a tearful America: My Country Tis of Thee rings loud with the backdrop of amber waves, hot dogs, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and purple mountain majesties. The mental indoctrination (conscription) process is stunning.
But, then, there’s everyone else. And who is everyone else? What’s to be done with them (Germany’s dilemma before the Final Solution)? Are they standing up for the National Anthem? Are they standing at home in their living rooms? Such unbelievable (nativist) programming requires a steady supply of scapegoats, those who do not stand, salute, or show up at the parades. They’re to be hated in order to balance out good with evil. It doesn’t matter who it is or what they have to say. They’re already guilty anyway. The Party will find them.
This is the atmosphere/climate I personally see taking over – if it isn’t stopped. Yes, enclaves (oases) of an “old liberal” spirit live on, but they’re constantly besieged on all sides – 24/7. On the other hand, not everyone at the 1934 Nuremberg rally lost his mind to the herding instinct. Many did, but some did not. And as the thousands adjourned the stadium, what came under fire was the proof of allegiance. In other words, the inductee found himself alone, without moral support. He returned to himself and his conscience. It was a candle in the wind for signs of lucidity.
The same goes today for those few who sit alone with themselves, when the gatherings have dispersed. This is also why, as I observe it, there exists an almost phobic fear of being alone. The system warns against it, calling it “antisocial, withdrawn, depressed, low self-esteem,” and so forth (extroversion, gregariousness – good; introversion – bad). The danger is one of thinking too deeply by oneself, for oneself. It stirs up too many shadows and demons.
But, as with death, we’re all alone anyway in the end, unavoidably, inevitably. That said, it’s nothing less than phenomenal how a movement’s worst nemesis is always itself. All it requires is time – time to run through its own cycles of life and violence, to reach its own penultimate fate.
The fascist movement in America today still needs time. It has to cycle through its own process and run its course. As Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, Polybius, Machiavelli, Marx, Chomsky, Tytler, Schlesinger, and so many others have taught, it’s part of a greater cycle: (roughly) mob rule, to monarchy, to kingship, to tyranny, to aristocracy, to oligarchy, to democracy, to anarchy, back to mob rule again. Right now, many Americans are “tired of democracy.” Mob rule is trying to find its new Nuremberg. Past is prologue, once again. We need to resist and educate (also part of the cycle), but it needs to go through its dark night, its kristallnacht of broken glass.
© 2023 Richard Hiatt
The Subversive Imagination: Dispatches from the American Frontier 