Recommended Reading: Stakes on the Ground

NinaIllingworth November 7, 2022November 17, 2022 Amerikan Musik, anti-trans pogrom, antifascism, antisemitism, blog, Chuck Idelson, Civil Rights, conspiracy theories, Crime, Democratic Party, democratic rights, Donald Trump, FA1, fascism, GOP, Great Replacement Theory, homophobia, Jim Crow fascism, Justice, Media, MP6, National Nurses United, Nina Illingworth, NNU, police state, political violence, Politics, Pork Reich, Rec Reads, Recommended Reading, Republicans, SCOTUS, Social Justice, stochastic terrorism, The Big Lie, trans rights, Trumpism, US midterms, voter intimidation, voter suppression, Voting, warning, Weimar America, white nationalist

Editor’s note: featuring links to left-wing articles and off the cuff analysis, Recommended Reading appears weekdays on NIDC and our Facebook Page. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve examined numerous structural reasons why it’s impossibly difficult to get Americans to take the fascist threat to their democratic rights very seriously. Between a media establishment directly owned by reactionary billionaires who’d prefer fascism to sharing, a Democratic Party that refuses to arrest or impede powerful fascists in politics, and a hyper-reactionary Supreme Court working overtime to render the concept of elections fairly moot anyway, it’s hard for many folks to even understand what they’re fighting to protect. All of which is also pre-supposing that your vote will count; something that seems hardly guaranteed and could indeed come with consequences, in areas already under Republican control.

This feeling of powerlessness is very real, and has been exploited by reactionaries and their minions to enforce a general sense of apathy and mockery towards the idea that a fascist takeover is really happening. To hear much of the “neutral centrist” corporate media and right wing propagandists tell it, American fascism is something senile President Ichabod Crane and the Democratic Party are making up to scare you into voting for them. This is of course preposterous for all sorts of reasons; not the least of which is that leftists like myself have been writing about the American fascist creep for years now, and I personally wouldn’t give Joe Biden a free bucket of hot piss if he were literally on fire in the Nevada desert.

In today’s Recommended Reading then, I’d like to take a look at this shockingly blunt summary of the facts on the ground, by Chuck Idelson, the Communications Senior Strategist for National Nurses United:

History Has Told Us Where This Could Lead

While much of what Idelson is writing here will be familiar to readers of my recent writing, this is still quite frankly an extraordinary document. We’re talking about the spokesman for a national labor union that represents 175,000 registered nurses in America, warning that the country stands on the absolute verge of a nightmare very much akin to the rise of Nazism in interwar Germany. This isn’t a guy being paid to offer his personal opinions on American politics, and he is absolutely not speaking alone:

“National Nurses United was among those warning “the alarming rise of antisemitic and racist hate speech and attacks on our democratic system are jeopardizing the safety and security of many Americans, and ripping apart the social fabric of our nation,” as NNU president Deborah Burger, RN put it.

Burger cited “dangerous threats that expose political leaders, election workers, and minority communities—including Jews, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants—to harassment, intimidation, and violence are a stark warning sign of the erosion of our democracy, into an atmosphere that puts everyone at risk.”

Listing incidents of right wing stochastic terrorism, voter intimidation, election denial conspiracy theories, blatant racism in campaign language, fearmongering about crime, the “great replacement theory” conspiracy, the demonization of trans people, and blatant anti-Semitism, Chuck draws the obvious conclusion; yes, this is real as f*ck fascism folks. Furthermore, and as Idelson demonstrates, the ten-bell alarm is being sounded by folks who understand fascism across a very broad swathe of society; it’s certainly not a pet campaign issue for Democrats focused on blaming inflation and the left for a possible loss of democratic rights in America.

Look folks, I promised you a long time ago that I wasn’t going to tell you who to vote for, and I’ve repeatedly articulated the idea that you can’t stop fascism permanently at the ballot box. Frankly however, there’s much more at stake than one election when we’re talking about hip cynicism towards real as penitentiary steel American fascism. Vote, don’t vote, it’s really none of my business; but when folks on your TV are telling you not to care about fascists stripping all of your democratic rights and openly rigging elections, you can bet your bottom dollar that they don’t have your best interests at heart.

PS: Wondering why you’re reading this on NIDC? Check out our winter website update notice for more information.