Calling a Fascist a Fascist

One small way each of us can help slam the brakes on Trumpite fascism's high-speed degradation of American political discourse is to cease referring to America's fringe-right lunatics by their self-coined self-designations, "alt-right" and "white nationalist." In no other realm of American life do we unquestioningly accept the self-descriptions of the idiotic and/or insane. When a drunkenly swaying boozehound approaches us on the sidewalk and announces that he's the Emperor Napoleon XV, we do not immediately drop to our knees and respectfully request that he confer upon us the crown of Flanders. Similarly, when a shaven-headed white loser crawls out of his mom's basement, sieg heils everyone he meets, and proclaims himself a "white nationalist" member of the "alt-right," we should first ask ourselves whether these labels have any real meaning.


And the short answer to this not-exactly-difficult question is: they don't. Of course they don't. "Alt-right" and "white nationalist" are empty branding strategies adopted by fascists who realize, somewhere in their cobwebby unconsciouses, that calling oneself a 'fascist' or a 'Nazi' in America is not a great way to win friends--except, perhaps, in prison. Just as 'graphic novel' is a marketing strategy designed to sell comic books to people far too highbrow to read comic books, and 'erotica' is porn for people offended by the word 'pornography,' the phrases "alt-right" and "white nationalist" are marketing-friendly weasel words used by fascists too cowardly to call themselves fascists.


The 'alt-right' can only be considered 'alt' if the prefix is understood as the German word for 'old', because these are the same old fringe racist groups that have been parasitizing the right ass-cheek of American politics for generations. And as for 'white nationalism'... well, sorry to hafta tell ya this, Ricky the Racist, but there's no such thing. The first requirement for any nationalism is that it be focused upon some nation--no nation, no nationalism. And since there has never been nor will there ever be a 'white' nation--even the racists' beloved Confederacy was a site of rampant miscegenation--any such 'nationalism' is a logical absurdity. It's a racist concept built upon an unrealizable fantasy of past and/or future racial purity. (In order not to kill a fly with a howitzer, I'm purposely not mentioning the scientific discrediting of the whole notion of 'race'.) So let's stop pretending that these pathetic drunks are Napoleons; let's stop referring to lunatics by their preferred nicknames. From now on, let's call a fascist a fascist.