Mini-Theory Blog: Unspoken Agreements

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Unspoken Agreements

In analyzing why fascist political techniques are so effective in America and the larger Pig Empire it influences, it’s important to examine the preexisting ideological pathways fascist arguments travel along towards mainstream acceptance. Take for example the almost entirely bipartisan nativism inherent in American immigration policy and what has come to be known as the Industrial Migrant Detention Complex, but should probably just be called what it is; a concentration camp system. Although their rationale for participating and methodology differ slightly, this system is an ongoing product of both the American right, and the establishment center; with a powerless left largely on the sidelines.

Naturally, the ideological justification for building a racialized concentration camp system for migrants draws heavily from nativist, xenophobic, and white supremacist ideas freely percolated throughout the American right. By that same measure however, that justification is buttressed by decades of centrist acquiescence, even full-throated agreement that migrants are indeed a social problem, and a threat that requires policing. While traditionally the purpose of this agreement has been electoral, the result remains a mainstream political discourse pre-seeded with the idea of a racialized struggle between an us that must be defended, and a criminal them that must be controlled; which is of course a foundational pillar of outright fascist ideology.

Furthermore, while we can see that America’s objectively fascist migrant prison complex is the result of mixing two different political viewpoints into one racist brew, the actual form of this system is dictated by entirely bipartisan neoliberal ideology. The function of globalized capitalism under the neoliberal paradigm requires the free movement of goods and capital, while simultaneously demanding restrictions on the movement of labor; a requirement which in and of itself is the reason both sides agree migrants must be policed. This unspoken need then creates a social problem, to which neoliberalism applies a free market fundamentalist solution; for profit concentration camps run by private corporations.

Add it all up and you end up with a society already prepared to respond to a social threat from a criminalized other with brutal mass incarceration policies, so long as the right people can make a buck off the endeavor; which is just about as good a description of how the Holocaust happened in Nazi Germany as any historian worth her salt would offer you.