What I Read this Week
Minnesota shows the left how to fight back; the K-shaped recovery is fuelling luxury goods spending; and poverty is on the rise.
Like many of you, I’ve been completely preoccupied with what’s been going on in Minneapolis this week. I’ve always been pretty careful about the way I use the term ‘fascism’. Historically, fascist movements have been xenophobic, patriarchal, nationalistic etc – but they’ve also been associated with some kind of vigilantism or organised violence.
America hasn’t yet descended into full-blown fascism, becuase there’s still the semblance of democracy - and reistance. But Trumpism itself is, I would argue, a fascist movement. This much has been obvious since at least the Capitol Riots. But during his second term, the violence meted out by Trump’s acolytes – now organised into a state-sponsored vigilante army – has been taken to a whole new level.
Black and brown Americans have been abducted on the streets and placed in detention camps where their basic needs are denied, and they are ritualistically humiliated by Trump’s sadistic foot soldiers. Needless to say, these kidnappings make a mockery of the idea that the US remains a functioning liberal democracy. It now looks more like the ‘illiberal democracies’ so often scolded by the west for their violence and authoritarianism.
Trump supporters weren’t too worried about black and brown people being abducted by the state because they bought into the fascist idea of the leader as a stern but loving father protecting them from ‘threats’ to their way of life. The patriarchal narrative does not just legitimise extreme abuses of power on the part of the ‘father’; it also infantilises his followers. The ‘children’ in this fascist imagery aren’t just protected from potential threats – they’re also protected from having to take any responsibility for what’s happening in their country. They’re covered in bubble wrap and stripped of any agency.
Which brings me back to why I’ve been so preoccupied with Minneapolis. What’s going on in Minnesota right now is destroying the patriarchal narrative so central to any fascist regime. Not just because we’ve seen the regime murder white people, compromising the idea that Trump is a loving father to his flock of ‘true Americans’. But because it has finally started to stall the process of infantilisation that has accompanied the rebirth of fascism in America. The people of Minneapolis are taking back control over their city, over their country, and over their lives.
