How Fascism Came to America

“The American system of government is in jeopardy if we don’t do something about it.”

This is the constant moan, the constant bellyaching issuing from various shades of the political spectrum.

The moaning and bellyaching of the right side of the political divide intensifies when the left side of the political divide runs things — and vice versa.

But perhaps they are both mistaken. Perhaps the American system of government has already passed the point of salvation.

It is not what it was… or at least not what it was constructed to be.

In 1938 journalist Garet Garrett (1878–1954) authored an obscure masterwork, “The Revolution Was by title.

1938 was years into the New Deal. Yet many at the time put out the identical moaning and bellyaching we hear today:

“The American system of government is in jeopardy if we don’t do something about it.”

The American system of government had already changed. Yet the change passed beneath their awareness.

Garrett:

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.

The revolution was… fascism.

This was not the berserker and genocidal fascism of Adolf Hitler most people associate with the term.

It was rather the “trains running on time” economic fascism of Italy’s Benito Mussolini.

This fascism infiltrated American waters under cover of night.

Once ashore it was bottled, stamped with the smiling face of Uncle Sam and wholesaled nationwide to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

It sang “songs to freedom.”

It represented democracy in action. Yet fascism it was — despite its songs and its sly coos.

Former Army Brig. Gen. Hugh “Iron Pants” Johnson directed the National Recovery Administration (NRA).

Whose portrait hung from his wall? Washington’s?

No. It was the portrait of the Italian fascist himself — Mr. Mussolini.

The American people had embraced his fascism with both hands… yet did not realize it.

They were singing “songs to freedom.”

What if the thing had been labeled fascism? What if it bore an accurate label?

Swords would have come leaping from their scabbards. Peasants would have grabbed the pitchforks.

The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution would have seized their muskets.

But repackage fascism as freedom itself? Tart it up in red, white and blue? Sing songs to freedom?

Now you have won yourself a crowd. You have turned a thing into its opposite.

The outward form of American life remained to a very significant extent — sparklers still burned on Independence Day.

Yet the substance within was changed.

The most successful revolutions leave the buildings standing — as a very wise fellow once said.

The New Deal left the buildings standing.

The present year is 2023 of course. The sand is long out of the hourglass.

The administrative state — christened during the New Deal — has grown into a morbidly obese and aged thing.

And the nation is presently sunk $31.5 trillion in arrears. Yet it still writes checks it promised many decades distant.

Meantime, another behemoth has since been heaped atop the administrative state. That is of course the surveillance state.

Not one sparrow falls in these United States — as it was once known — that escapes the watchful eye of Uncle Samuel.

This is the nation we inhabit. It is the fearful mixture of administration and surveillance.

It is not Washington’s nation. It is not Jefferson’s nation. It is not even Hoover’s nation.

It is Wilson’s nation, it is Roosevelt’s nation, it is Johnson’s nation, it is Reagan’s nation, it is Bush’s nation, it is Obama’s nation, it is Trump’s nation, it is Biden’s nation.

Yet we sob:

“The American system of government is in jeopardy if we don’t do something about it”…

As we sing songs to freedom…