The Looming Fascism: How The Pandemic Lays The Groundwork For Future Exercises in Totalitarianism
It has been a hard few months.
Watching the United States of America falter in a generational-defining crisis has been equal parts demoralizing, infuriating, and exhausting.
With each new development it is more and more staggeringly clear that the government we were taught to believe existed is mythical and beyond fragile. That monied and powered interests have undermined science, education, and reality in order to further their own agendas and it has resulted in a country that not only distrusts experts but is willing to ingest bleach if a reality television star president tells them to. We have watched the Republican Party exposed as a death cult willing to mortgage the future for power and profit in the moment. And, perhaps most frustrating and angry-making, we have witnessed a genocide unfold, in full view of the world, without so much as a mention of its existence.
It is a dizzying preview of the world if this type of post-political environment populated with grifters, demagogues, politicians, and wealthy manipulators is allowed to continue. Doubtless, the coronavirus pandemic will not be the last pandemic we face as rapid-deforestation and human encroachment continues, but we will begin to see the long-heralded consequences of our civilization unfurl. Particularly worrisome is climate change, which has already reared its ugly head as we have seen super storm after super storm and changing condition after changing condition. It has already wrought untold damage on our society even as we are unable to call it by its name and while large swathes of the country choose to believe, for their own benefit, that it simply does not exist.
Watching the response to the coronavirus pandemic provides a test-run for what the future holds for us. Already, authoritarian Donald Trump has used the crisis to lie, cheat, and steal, turning the federal government into an organized crime unit that deals in life-saving supplies and the fate of the American people like two-bit hoods. But the corruption is only a fraction of the concern. Now, knee-deep in a national tragedy and embarrassment, we’re seeing the Republican Party resort to its oldest trick: playing the tribal and destructive game of Us vs. Them.
To be clear, this is the only winnable strategy for the Republican Party, a political body that has ceased to represent a majority of Americans and is only capable of winning elections if a. turnouts are low, b. rural Americans continue to vote against their own interests and out of fear, and c. the Electoral College, designed to advantage slave-holding states, holds out, and d. disenfranchising efforts and pushes to gerrymander districts go unchallenged.
Because of this, the Republican Party will always go dark and always go paranoid white nationalist. Now, in the midst of this crisis, we are seeing a preview of what is to come as more pandemics and disasters strike our country.
On Monday, President Trump made a stunning call for states seeking financial help after the pandemic to trade their immigrants. Considering Trump is an authoritarian, a power move like this is hardly surprising as they continually use crises as a means to consolidate power while scapegoating minorities and conspiracies. But the brazenness of the gambit was what was truly shocking. To say it in so many words, to push it as a trade that wasn’t morally and ethically bankrupt, not to mention horrifying on every level, put this entire picture into perspective.
As the pandemic fallout worsens, we will see more of this, especially as we lumber toward November’s national election. The Republican Party will propose more xenophobic and racist policies while targeting vulnerable populations. It’s what they do and the only way they can win an election. And Donald Trump, as an authoritarian, is naturally pulled to these proposals and worldviews. It will only get worse, and as resources, including money, food, energy, and even land grow scarcer and scarcer, we will see more of these proposals and more of this hatred.
Jared Yates Sexton is the author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed Its People, available for pre-order from Dutton/Penguin-Random House. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Politico, and elsewhere. Currently he serves as an associate professor of writing at Georgia Southern University and is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast.
