A Dictionary Definition of Fascism
The latest revelations by the January 6th Committee are both stunning and entirely predictable. Sean Hannity — a hatemongering, propagandizing shill with a fawning adoration of authoritarians, an abiding distrust of multiracial democracy, and an ego inversely proportional to his sense of ethics — was “an inside man” on the coup. So, for those of you who had “coordination of Fox and state” on your Onrushing Civil War Bingo Cards, congratulations. They are as awful, interconnected, and dangerous as we thought.
You all know this. The crimes are so obvious you’d have to be Jim Jordan in a locker room to ignore it. What has my wheels turning today, however, is what this episode reveals about Donald Trump’s inclination toward literal, denotative, dictionary-based, find-the-definition-in-your-glossary fascism.
Without descending into a hair-splitting session on the fundamental attributes of fascism as it has manifested throughout history and across cultures, one central feature is ALWAYS the merging of the state and corporate power — particularly in the media. It is impossible to see how Sean Hannity acting in one capacity as a news anchor and another as a counselor to an authoritarian thug with aspirations of dictatorial power is anything but a page directly from Joseph Goebbels playbook. As a self-styled historian, I cannot imagine a good outcome arising from sweeping this truth under the rug. Fortunately, the January 6th Committee seems determined to tell this story to the public, despite the fevered efforts of the guilty to hide their many sins.
What Sean Hannity did was probably not illegal, but it was deeply wrong. It was wrong to know of a coup plot and not report it to Congress and the FBI — but it was also wrong to act, for years, as a journalist while quite literally serving as an active advisor to the President of the United States. I don’t doubt Sean Hannity’s political insight. Like Goebbels before him, he knows his volk and the power of a single, loud voice. If he wanted to be the Press Secretary and the President wished to hire him, he would have been a good and dangerous choice — but you can’t do both, goddamn it.
You can’t pretend to be a part of the free press while serving state power. That’s not how any of this works in a democracy. It is, however, EXACTLY how it works in a fascist state. In 1933, after the burning of the Reichstag, Hitler created the Reichsring für Nationalsozialistische Propaganda und Volksaufklärung — the Reich Ministry for National Socialist Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, and it served to organize and enforce message discipline in all media spheres. In that dystopian world, the RNPV wrote the headlines and delivered the message to the people, all while decrying the Lügenpresse, or the “lying media” who strayed from the party line.
Sound familiar?
When the RNPV formed, the Nazi Party controlled just three percent of the newspapers and presses in Germany. Four years later, they’d seized them all — which, perhaps, is a good thing to remember about the trajectory, timing, and intentions of this Very American Coup.
With reason, there’s always pushback against comparisons to the Nazis. When fully empowered to rule by will and fiat, the German Fascists of the early 20th century were as dark as dark can get.
But get this: In 1933, there were no camps, no gas chambers, no crematoria, no boxcars filled with “undesirables.” In 1933, there was a nascent collaboration of state power and a willing segment of the media with whom they shared a goal, a message, and unwavering support of the Party and Führer — so tell me how that’s not an apt and chilling juxtaposition of then and now.
Maybe Hannity isn’t Goebbels. Maybe he’s more a Leni Riefenstahl — or, for Vonnegut fans, Howard Campbell, Jr — but he is this for sure: Sean Hannity is a central player in the plot to destroy our nation, end our democracy, and strip us of our freedom. His team failed in their efforts in 2021 but will be back for a second run.
Will Hannity still be on the field?
Almost certainly, he will.
Fox News has far more power over the public mind right now — by a full order of magnitude — than did Goebbels and the RNPV when the Reichstag burned. Rupert Murdoch also has a full bullpen of willing shills to take Hannity’s place if he needs to be sacrificed to the cause. Hell, now that I think of it, that’s probably under consideration in the executive suite this afternoon: Toss Hannity to the wolves, and make him a martyr for the cause, blame the Lügenpresse, then replace him at the 9 pm hour with someone even more excited about loading you, and me, and those we love onto boxcars and disappeared from the world.
You know they are there. You know this might happen. It is happening right now, in real-time, live-to-audience every single night. The melding of Fox and State is a horrifying step into the long, dark night — at least now it is out in the open.
We are so very close to the edge.
Onward.
