Clerical Fascism and Chicken-S**t Fascism vs. American Democracy

“It is certainly difficult to define with precision what is fascism; but we should remember that it is no easier to define democracy.” – S. J. Woolf, European Fascism, 1968

“Socrates was the only man in Athens who suffered death for his opinions. Three others were forced to leave the country. That is the entire list and to compare it with the endless list of those tortured and killed in Europe during even the last five hundred years is to see clearly what Athenian liberty was.” – Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way, 1930

“During our short history as a nation, a tradition has grown up that no criticism should ever be leveled against the courts…Privately most lawyers will pay their respect to a court in language that cannot be printed… A judge is merely a human being elected by the people to be a servant, and not their master. Whenever judges cease to be servants and assume the role of masters, they should not only be fearlessly criticized, but should be summarily removed from office by the vote of the people.” – Usher L. Burdick, Farmer-Labor Defender, Dunn Center, ND, 08/29/1934

“No one shall ever thus decree for me; I am a woman and I will make a grave, a burying for him… With my own hands! Courage! For I will find the power to act. Speak not to stay me.” – Æschylus (Antigone), Athens, 5^th Century B.C.

“Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with a crime. The abomination of homosexuality that they have, they should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death. They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head.” Pastor Dillon Awes. Stedfast Baptist Church,Watauga, TX, NBC News, June 9, 2022

“Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R), has proposed an extraordinary plan to create a state paramilitary unit that he, rather than the federal government, would control…to assist with ‘state-specific emergencies.’ This force of 200 selected volunteers would ‘not be encumbered by the federal government’, the governor said.” – Guardian, 12/03/21

“An extreme political party that makes it harder to vote and easier to die of gun violence is unfit to govern.” – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), May 28, 2022

“Nearly 70% of Republicans believe in the ‘Great Replacement’ theory—claiming that liberals are plotting to replace white Americans with brown immigrants, a belief that fueled the recent mass shooting in Buffalo–and even more of them believe that the 2020 election was “stolen.” – SPLC poll/Daily Kos, 06/02/22

Fascism is a 20^th Century European term that has between 50 shades of grey and 57 varieties of evil throughout history. It was coined by Benito Mussolini in the wake of World War I from the Imperial Roman symbol of State power (fasces) that can be found on American coinage.

Clerical Fascism is a term, also originating in Mussolini’s Italy, that best fits versions of oneparty-government where church leaders wield enormous political power by proxy or in person, worthy of 4^th Century A.D. Roman Emperor Constantine, founder of Christianity’s state sponsored anti-Semitism (“Christianity’s Racism”). In the 1930’s, and well afterwards, Clerical Fascism could be found worldwide: Austria [Fatherland Front – Dollfuss & Schuschnigg]; Belgium[Rexists – Leon Degrelle]; Brazil [Brazilian Integralist Action – Plinio Salgado]; Croatia [Ustase – Ante Pavelic´]; Finland [Lapua and IKL – Lutherans V. Kosola and V. Annala]; Germany [Christians (Protestants) of the Nazi Party – Ludwig Mueller]; Greece [Metaxism (Greek Orthodox) – Ioannis Metaxas]; Mexico [National Synarchist Union (Catholic) – José Antonio Urquiza]; Dominican Republic [Dominion Party (Catholic) – Rafael Trujillo]; Poland [National Radical Camp (Catholic) – Piasecki, Rossman, Glusinski and Mosdorf]; Portugal [National Union (Catholic) – Salazar and Caetano]; Romania [National-Christian Defense League/Iron Guard (Romanian Orthodox) – C.Z. Codreanu]; Serbia [Serbian Action (Serbian Orthodox)] – Czechoslovakia [Slovak People’s Party (Catholic) – Jozef Tiso]; Spain [FET y de las JONS (National Catholicism) – Francisco Franco]; and U.S.A. [Silver Legion of America – William Dudley Pelley; combining Protestantism with American white nationalism].

One of the hallmarks of Clerical Fascism is the marriage of church and state, rather than its separation, one of the goals of the American Revolution, enshrined in the 1^st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This foundational belief of our Founding Fathers has been shattered as of June 24, 2022, as 5 of 6 members of the U.S. Supreme Court, from the most reactionary corners of the Catholic faith, and one who was raised Catholic (Neil Gorsuch), have taken it upon themselves to assert state control over the bodily functions of every female in this country. These newly, self-ordained High Priests, by no means reflect the views of a majority of Catholic Americans, including President Joe Biden, but instead a dogmatic theme in the Catholic Church that can fairly be called “Clerical Fascism for the 21^st Century.” Dogma is no stranger to the Protestant faith either. It is an “equal opportunity evil.” In at least one Protestant ministry, the “outpouring of the heavenly spirit” towards God’s children who are LGBTQ Americans features bullets. MAGA pulpits for a MAGA GOP.

In the 1930’s and 40’s, the willingness of major Christian denominations to go along with Mussolini and Hitler was particularly disgusting, as has been the willingness of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church to go along with Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship of the past 20 years amidst his perpetration of “industrial strength mass murder” in Ukraine. A parallel development has occurred in the U.S. with the quasi-religious cult of gun worship replacing God’s Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not murder”) with a distorted interpretation of the Founding Fathers’ 2^nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “High Priests” in the National Rifle Association have wedded secular zealotry to religious fanaticism, and thus enabled “free enterprise mass murder.”

Chickens**t Fascism is a phenomenon unique to the United States. It originated in the Republican Party’s adoption of traditional Confederate States’ racism as a mechanism towards power, once such historical abuse of peoples of color was abandoned by Democrats and President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s’ Civil Rights Laws. It metastasized, overtly under Presidents Reagan and both Bushes, and covertly due to weak pushback by President Clinton.

Only Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) matched deeds with words against racism.

With the election of Democrat Barack Obama, an African American in 2008, Chickens**t Fascism found a true home in the Republican Party, first as an insurrection in Congress led by so-called Tea Party leaders in 2010, and then through executive power, with President Donald Trump (2017-2021). Trump set about destroying as many rule-of-law and democratic norms as his nihilistic, but spineless, nature would allow, and did such a bang-up job of it that imitators, like Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are continuing Trump’s quest to destroy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the many, for the sake of the few – like themselves. Deeply concerned that the Chickens**t Fascists currently running the Republican Party might actually win the House and Senate in 2022 and the Presidency in 2024, I consulted my KGB animal gurus.

High Plains Reader: Dear Friends — So-called pro-life, clerical fascists in pulpits and a majority of them on SCOTUS, and other chicken-s**t fascists in public office are aiding and abetting sociopaths and psychopaths in killing any creature that walks, talks, crawls or breathes on this planet, not to mention whatever progress the American Democracy has made by the year 2022. Only sperm cells seem to be safe. The NRA may provide assault weapons; lax corporations and government agencies may provide air and water pollution; but it is our political and spiritual leaders who have provided permission for such evil to be done. Was this country always that depraved, or is it a recent development in a Republican Party gone off the rails?

Mr. Swamp Fox: Congratulations on your discovery that people hate change even if they benefit from it! Real Liberals who care about progress, and real Conservatives who care about order, have actually succeeded in bringing about a more diverse and tolerant body social and economic than at any other time in American history. Why shouldn’t bigots be petrified over such good news? Violent acts and violent language are forms of despair: Harry Potter’s Dementors in action.

Lena: However, with the reinstatement of a sane Presidency on January 20, 2021 with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Democrats have defended and expanded past progressive achievements, despite a whiney main stream press that manages to make even positive accomplishments seem inadequate. It’s easier for lazy editorialists and cartoonists to fault those who try to make things better for not achieving the “perfect”; rather than GOP reactionaries who prefer to tear everything down, if they can’t own it, exploit it, or just plain hate it.

Madame Inspector Chen: As the House Bi-partisan January 6^th Committee continues with substantive and indictable evidence of Trump’s Big Lies, Big Rip Off, and Big Treason, the confluence of Clerical Fascism and Chickens**t Fascism is being revealed.

Ms. Recovering Republican Lap Dog: Only bad and bloody news gets saturation coverage. The body politic is hurting, of course, but there are signs that traditional anti-bodies of civic mindedness are still at work locally and nationally to fight infections of tyranny. Conservatives and Liberals are working in concert, not just in Washington, D.C., but all over the country against a common enemy that once infected Democrats (especially men) and today corrodes the Republican Party and those who can’t distinguish Conservatives from Reactionaries.

Becky Badger: You still have rights to speak out; to organize; to get your supporters of sanity registered to vote, re-registered if stricken from polling lists, and finally to the polling place by one means or another. It’s just hard work. Stop whining!

Chicago Dog: It was traditional organizing of voters that ended the political career in 1972 of the man who carried out summary executions of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969, Cook County States Attorney Ed Hanrahan. Hanrahan didn’t go to jail for his crime, but he was put out to political pasture, a fate worse than death for the power hungry – as Trump is finding out.

HPR: But “voter suppression” is so rampant! And there is so much violence.

Torquemada: Since when has voter suppression NOT been rampant in American History, and Americans NOT been a violent people? As long as money and power tend to corrupt, there will be those who seek office to represent themselves and their buddies, not their fellow citizens.

Shickelgruber: The “replacement theory” that the MAGA GOP fears the most is the proven theory of “Elections” – the kind they can’t rig – free, fair, and accessible; backed up by competent, honest government officials at every level, and modern technology; not lunatic sycophants using an empty vessel like Trump to fill the holes in their souls.

Prudence Possum: Deep down, Americans who hate challenges to their illusions of superiority are Chickens**t Fascists, content to let Clerical Fascists and violent fascists do their dirty work for them, until it is too late even for them to enjoy daily freedoms that braver souls have earned for their country. One of our swamp creatures found the musings of a Trump staffer who wasn’t important enough to warrant a subpoena, but who was scared that his fears and loathing of diversity and tolerance might deserve one. He set his hang-ups to paper. We added the title:

Lament of the “Closet” Chickens**t Fascist…………………………..Headless Horseman
“Assault weapons for spines” are not the thing
That sets me up for dignity I crave.
I’ll bear some guilt, of course, unto the grave;
But fear too much what future change will bring.

I thought the “White Man’s Burden” was enough
To countenance oppression of such breeds –
I deem inferior. I know my needs
To feel “on top;” as if: — I’m sterner stuff!

But all those babies shredded up like meat!?!
It has to be the fault of someone – like:
Those Democrats; Or Gays; and Pot Heads too!
Are we still human? Must I now retreat;
Before I’m outed, judged; and have to strike
A mirrored pose; and forced: my face to view?