A Bitlerian Jihad
Dear FBI: Relax.
It’s a Word Play on Frank Herbert’s Book, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
“Jihad”: “a bitter strife or crusade undertaken in the spirit of a holy war” [emphasis added]
“Fascism”: “a: any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible suppression of opposition b: any tendency toward or actual exercise of severe autocratic or dictatorial control” [emphasis added]
(Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 2000).
(Author’s Note: Definitions are taken from the print version to avoid “woke” redefinition.)
[Perhaps I should watch for Marion-the-woke-librarian to foment
an FBI “non-raid” on my residence to seize my dictionary and the roughly 1,000 books near it.]
On August 25, Biden announced people who embrace Trump’s MAGA philosophy are “semi-fascist” (Rebecca Shabad, NBC News, “Biden blasts MAGA philosophy as ‘semi-fascism’,” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/biden-blasts-maga-philosophy-semi-fascism-rcna44953, accessed August 31, 2022). One wonders what myopic, oat-meal headed staffer put this in Josef’s teleprompter. “Fascism” entails more than nationalistic favoritism.
Did Josef just inaugurate a Democratic jihad against nearly half the U. S. population? Did Josef just condone (or perhaps even ordain) attacks on MAGA supporters? After all, it is holy and just for Democrats to bash MAGA supporters, verbally and physically.
And what did Josef mean by “semi-fascism”? Was he acknowledging “fascism” is defined not only by “severely nationalistic policies,” but other characteristics as well, and thereby granting that MAGA only partially met the definition of “fascism”? Probably not.
Naturally, he has an “out.” He could invoke innocence through “plausible deniability”: “I didn’t really mean it that way.”
It is important to note, however, that Josef’s opprobrium is neither novel nor ground-breaking. ANTIFA has been levying that charge at least since GF’s death. Conversely, it is significant that it came from the executive of the United States–not just any sycophantic acolyte, but from the person in whom the Constitution grants the executive power of the United States.
An Historical Analogue
While still in high school, I chose a book to read, not primarily because of its topic, but, perversely, because it was l-o-n-g: well in excess of 1,000 pages. That book was William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. And yes, I did finish it.
I recently started to read it, again. From roughly 1920 to 1936, and beyond, the titular head of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party employed “spiritual and physical terror” to prevent anything that would “distract the minds of [his] fellow countrymen” from his goal of creating an Aryan juggernaut on the European continent (Shirer 2011, 67).
Getting further into Shirer’s examination of the beerhall putsch and the contents of Mein Kampf, a reasonable conclusion is that Adolf was not nationalistic in the sense of “nation-state.” He used “National” and “German” as a ruse, a tool, a masquerade as it were to gain empathy from patriotic Germans, and as obfuscation for his racism. His book (not Shirer’s) reveals a man driven by a highly bigoted Aryan idealism, and who wanted to be the Aryan Caesar (Shirer, 122-124).
The problem is that from my perspective, and from the words that emanated from Josef’s mouth, he wants something similar. It seems that he wants a single party as our political paradigm, of which he would be the head, and from which he could obliterate through imprisonment, censorship, and fear all potential dissonant voices.
Whaa?! Did I Just See the 2022 Version of a Nuremberg Rally?
Really, Josef? Red lighting and flanking by our Marines? Where were the torches and the grand entrance march by your loyal lackeys?
The president just tagged half of the voting population of America as extremists who do not value the Constitution? I have a question. With which party did the rioters and looters of the summer of 2020, who burned American cities, identify? (HINT: It wasn’t MAGA people.)
Earlier in this piece, I suggested a hypothesis that Biden may have used “semi-fascist” as a tool for plausible deniability: “I really didn’t mean it that way.” His problem is that his Philadelphia diatribe event undercuts my hypothesis. He meant what he said.
Portents for 2022 Election?
Under the Patriot Act of 2001 anyone materially supporting domestic terrorists can be fined or imprisoned for up to 10 years, and have all of his or her assets seized. Just last year, our Ministry of Love (aka DOJ) labeled parents protesting at school board meetings “domestic terrorists.” Now we have the person who is the executive of the United States labeling citizens who want to return economic, energy, and manufacturing self-sufficiency to the United States as “semi-fascists” and as constitutional threats to “democracy” and the republic. By legal fiat and executive rhetoric, about half of the voting population of the United States now rests under the threat of fines, imprisonment, and asset seizure. The tin foil hat part of me worries this may be the beginning of real 2022 voter suppression upon conservatives who exercise the temerity of opposing Josef’s views.
Maybe the Democrats would promote voter ID–if it helped prevent MAGA voters from voting.
Shirer, William L. 2011. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: RosettaBooks.