Biden used the F word in a speech. Well, sort of.
"What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy," Mr. Biden told donors at the fundraiser. "It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins the - I'm going to say something, it's like semi-fascism." . . . "I respect conservative Republicans," Mr. Biden said later. "I don't respect these MAGA Republicans."
Semi-fascism? The prefix semi means half. So . . . half-fascism. Is that a thing?
I understand Biden’s hesitation to use the F word. Fascism is a heavy word. It carries a weight, especially when Americans use it to refer to each other.
What comes to mind is the famous contretemps between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. In 1968, ABC News chose these prominent intellectuals—Vidal from the left and Buckley from the right—to provide commentary during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. At the peak of anti-Vietnam war protests, the main action of the convention was occurring outside the Amphitheater with the demonstrators, and not inside with the delegates. If political tensions were high in the streets, they weren’t any lower in the television studio. Gore Vidal’s sympathies lay with the anti-war protesters; Buckley was on the side of reaction.
Vidal: You must realize what some of the political issues are here. There are many people in the United States who happen to believe that the United States policy is wrong in Vietnam . . . . If [that idea] is a novelty in Chicago, that is too bad, but I assume that the point of the American democracy—
Buckley: —and some people were pro-Nazi—
Vidal: —is you can express any view you want—
Buckley: —and some people were pro-Nazi—
Vidal: Shut up a minute!
Buckley: No, I won’t. Some people were pro-Nazi and, and the answer is they were well treated by people who ostracized them. And I’m for ostracizing people who egg on other people to shoot American Marines and American soldiers. I know you don’t care—
Vidal: As far as I’m concerned, the only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that—
Moderator Howard K. Smith: Let’s, let’s not call names—
Vidal: Failing that, I can only say that—
Buckley: Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddam face, and you’ll stay plastered—
Smith: Gentlemen!
Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley a crypto-fascist and Buckley called him “you queer”—then threatened to punch him in the face. So much for genteel conservatism. And this happened on a live prime-time network news broadcast. That’s what people remember.
I acknowledge my own reticence about using the F word. Reviewing my Substack articles over the last half-year, I find my modifiers for Republican-based threats to democracy include: reactionary, right-wing extremist, and alt-right. In April, I started using Gore Vidal’s “crypto-fascist.”
Calling the MAGA Republicans “demi-fascist,” as Joe Biden did, now seems too tentative. OTOH, labeling the Trumpist Republicans an out-and-out fascist party assumes that the GOP has fully rejected democracy. This is rather strong. Granted, Republican leaders and their right-wing media substitute propaganda for facts, reject equality in favor of hierarchy, stoke fears instead of formulating policy, and embrace political violence rather than a peaceful process—but still. The MAGA Republicans just don’t have that world-dominating Nazi sense of style. MAGA might pair with Mussolini’s National Fascist Party. But GOP Nazis? Sounds weird. And it’s so . . . twentieth century.
I’m seeking an updated prefix. Proto-fascist, maybe? Dana Millbank is going there. Reporting on President Biden’s “demi-fascist” comment, Millbank says,
Good for [Joe Biden}. Those who cherish democracy need to call out the proto-fascist tendencies now seizing the Trump-occupied GOP.
What’s the difference between a crypto-fascist and a proto-fascist? Reddit has the answer.
The Reddit forum on political ideologies runs down the list. A proto-fascist is someone who acted like a fascist before fascism existed. A crypto-fascist is someone who’s a fascist in secret. Neo is new, so a neo-fascist is one who wasn’t in any of the original fascist movements. The Neos are attempting to bring fascism back in a new way. Neo-fascist it is! The Trumpists have made the old seem new again.
There was one writer willing to “go there” half a year before the 2016 election:
There is a simple formula for describing Donald Trump: a qualification, a hyphen, and the word “fascist.”
Commenting on the pussy-footing of his journalistic colleagues in the face of Trump’s lies and his manipulation of the media, Adam Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker:
This is the kind of desperate response to the rise of fascism one might expect to find in a decadent media culture. Neocons have made a fetish of 1938; in retrospect they would have done better looking hard at 1933. There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a hyphen, and the word “fascist.” The sum may be crypto-fascist, neo-fascist, latent fascist, proto-fascist, or American-variety fascist—one of that kind, all the same. Future political scientists will analyze . . . Trump’s “ideology.” But his personality and his program belong exclusively to the same dark strain of modern politics: an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing, democratically elected government . . . is in league with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and “success.”
Even those observers who accurately perceived Trump and the danger he posed were slow to realize that the unqualified reality TV celebrity-president was not the real issue. The insidious problem was a ground that had been plowed, fertilized, and seeded—since the 1980s—to grow just this kind of Republican leader.
The prescient observers like Gopnik thought the fascist was Donald J. Trump. As it turns out, the fascist parade had already begun and all Trump did was run to the front and grab the Dear Leader baton. When Trump’s (initial?) coup failed on January 6, the majority of Americans thought the country would return to normal. Those dismayed over the nastiness of the previous four years hoped that Democrats would clean up the mess and get the country back on track.
When he finally left DC, Trump’s exit was memorialized by Stephen Rodrick in “Farewell to a Fascist”:
Thank you, Donald Trump, for morphing our country into a hellscape of boldfaced lies, naked racism, and open rebellion so terrible that we must press back into action those skiing for free on the Super Senior discount.
Rodrick personally witnessed Trump’s graceless departure from the White House aboard Marine One on January 20, 2021, at 8:17 am.
And then you see it, refracted against a beautiful sunrise, a helicopter appears in the sky, rotors past the Washington Monument, past the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial, and is gone. There’s a moment of silence, like everyone can’t quite believe it. Then, an older white woman in an “Arrest Trump” sweatshirt starts shouting, “The fucker is gone, the fucker is gone!” She is immediately swallowed up by the media, but not before she and Smokey dance to Hussle. I go in to forearm-bump him and get spiked on the wrist, but I feel no pain. I ask him what he is going to do now. Stay here and keep up the fight?
He shakes his head and smiles.
“No, I’ve done my job. I’ve got to get home. I’ll come back, but right now I need some rest.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to get some rest?
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Notes:
CBS News, Biden slams “MAGA Republicans,” compares the philosophy to “semi-fascism”
Adam Gopnik, Going There with Donald Trump
Henrik Hertzberg, Buckley, Vidal and the “Queer” Question
Dana Millbank, Biden just used the f-word and he’s correct
Stephen Rodrick, Farewell to a Fascist: Biden, Washington, and America Pick Up the Pieces
Excellent article! I certainly need a rest!