They call themselves separatists, chauvinists, by no means fascists. Isn't that so bad? The American extreme right is skyrocketing. What does that mean for Joe Biden’s inauguration as president?
Namely, the question of whether fascism will make its comeback in the American political landscape to the next level. At least five promising candidates for the elections have expressed themselves in a fascist, anti-Semitic and racist manner.
If Republican politicians are exposed as racists or fascists, moderate conservatives usually pillory the black sheep in their own ranks. But only if the evidence supporting their views is too clear to ignore.
A good example of this is Paul Nehlen, who lost the Republican primary in Wisconsin's 1st constituency. Nehlen was first supported by prominent conservative figures such as ex-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin or Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon - until journalists discovered that the candidate was campaigning for the white nationalist movement. Nehlen was a guest on the anti-Semitic podcast “Fash the Nation”, where he suggested that the Jewish editor-in-chief of a magazine should “deport himself” and “eat a bullet”.
Nehlen's supporters then dropped him. A few years ago that would not have been a stumbling block: The flag of the south from the civil war from 1861 to 1865 was considered a traditional symbol of southern pride. But it was gradually reinterpreted. Ever since the murder of black churchgoers in Charleston in June 2015 by a young racist and since the right-wing extremist demonstrations in Charlottesville in August 2017, it has been inextricably linked to racism and separatism.
Men like Paul Nehlen and Corey Stewart deny, of course, that they sympathize with fascism. Even after his appearance on a fascist audio podcast, Nehlen still attaches importance to the statement that he was not a fascist himself.
Many observers see it differently, for the men like him are at the forefront of a new American fascism. But before we take a closer look at it, we need to take a look at history.
The Roots of the American Fascists
In the 1930s, the German-American Bund - a National Socialist youth organization - had twenty training camps and seventy local branches in the United States. With the beginning of the Second World War, this union and other fascist groups were banned. But just 16 years after the end of the war, a certain George Lincoln Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party and thus ensured a revival of American fascism. Rockwell advocated a typical American tactic: races should not be exterminated, only separated.
When modern fascists like the alt-right ideologue Richard Spencer claim today that they are white separatists, not racists, they are walking in the footsteps of George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell was known, among other things, for supporting the militant black organization Nation of Islam financially and even performing at their events. He saw the organization as an ally in his struggle for racial segregation. In 1967 Rockwell was murdered by one of his own comrades-in-arms, after which the movement vegetated in the semi-darkness for decades.
How Modern Fascists Recruit Members?
In a chat about planning the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, activist Jason Kessler wrote: “The Confederate flag is THE BEST symbol because it is loved by southerners, who are about to become like us when we do can dissuade them from the attitude of 'tradition, not hate'. "
This is an example of "entryism", the attempt by fascists to win over normal conservatives to more extreme ideas. Far-right activists know that they are only a small minority in the United States. You can only achieve your goals if you attract as many new people as possible to your side. To do this, they mingle at rallies with normal Trump supporters and provoke left-wing counter-demonstrators from among them - so that they can be violent. The perception of violence from the left welds the right together.
Jason Kessler, already quoted, wrote in the Discord chat room: “You are all invited to come to Charlottesville for the Proud Boys event this weekend. We will trigger Antifa protests and force the Alt-Light to act. Just wear your MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats and mingle with the Proud Boys. That will be funny."
In another chat, he wrote: “Bring your MAGA hat if you have one. When the Antifa bully us, it looks like they are attacking average Trump supporters and Alt-Light. "
Outward perception is the key to these groupings. They realized early on that a position against the anti-fascists would bring them more than once for their ideology. Anyone who searches their chat logs will come across at least one activist who found fascism because he was actually interested in the Antifa.
Members of these chat forums regularly exchange ideas about what triggered their entry into the scene. It is strange that one of the most common entry-level drugs is “Kekistan”, an “ethnostate” invented by video gamers. "Kekistani" pose as members of an oppressed ethnic minority. The popular British Youtuber Carl Benjamin, who calls himself “Sargon of Akkad”, even tried to identify the Kekistani as an ethnic minority in the British census. The whole exercise turned into a gamer parody of the real refugee crisis.
So far I have found three activists in the Discord chats who have named Kekistan or Kekism as their gateway to American fascism. Jokes about refugees and racial identity seem to act as a catalyst for white nationalism. It should be mentioned that the flag of Kekistan is just a redesigned variant of the German Imperial War flag.
Flags of Kekistan, therefore, offer American fascists an effective means of making their ideology visible to others - and at the same time being able to distance themselves from it if necessary. Such flags appear frequently during protests by the extreme right. Such symbols can be found at "Unite the Right 2.0" in Washington DC. A protester with kek symbols also showed up during a Patriot Prayer march in Portland, Oregon.
.The fascism of the United States against the persecuted Muslims everywhere on earth, even in their own countries, has been accompanied by its brutality in the era of Trump. Muslims have been subjected to repeated attacks on their mosques and attacks on chaste veiled women. All of these crimes happen because of the hate speech that Western politicians adhere to. The solution to this problem is to fight hate speech and Islamophobia and build channels of the joint dialogue between all aspects of human society.
Written By - Khaled Jamal
Edited By - Kashish Chadha
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