Rising Fascism in America by Anthony R. DiMaggio
Author:Anthony R. DiMaggio [DiMaggio, Anthony R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032056203
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-12-31T00:00:00+00:00
Anti-Intellectualism, Social Darwinism, and Pandemo-Fascism
The rise of anti-intellectualism makes individuals susceptible to extremist views that, while not based in solid evidence, are accepted because people defer to a charismatic leader. In Trumpâs America, militant anti-intellectualism fueled Social Darwinian notions that the president, not medical experts, was best suited to address the Covid-19 health crisis, and that Americans should disregard medical recommendations for social distancing, mask wearing, and against premature state reopenings. Trump supporters fell into a fanatical pandemo-fascistic discourse that celebrated, or at least tolerated, a survival of the fittest âherd immunityâ mentality and fueled a militant commitment to Covid-19 death cult politics.
Donald Trump acknowledged the fanaticism of his base when he claimed during the 2016 election season that he âcould stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebodyâ and he âwouldnât lose any voters.â123 This cult of personality was apparent via the admission of nearly two-thirds of Trumpâs supporters that there was nothing the president could do that would cause them to question their support for him.124 When Trump talked about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, he may as well have been talking about not losing voters despite his culpability in the deaths of hundreds of thousands (by early 2021) by downplaying the worst pandemic in a century. As Trump acknowledged, although he claimed that he recognized the gravity of Covid-19, he marginalized the significance of the threat because he did not âwant to create a panic.â125 Taking Trump at his word, we can conclude that in playing down the dangers, he fueled mass deaths by compelling his supporters to believe that Covid-19 was exaggerated and overblown. The counter-factual that fewer deaths would have resulted from Americans taking Covid-19 more seriously is reinforced by medical research, which estimated that 40 percent of the nearly 500,000 deaths that occurred by early 2021 were avoidable, if Americans had followed medical expertsâ guidelines on social distancing, mask wearing, school reopenings, and ensured adequate public access to PPE and testing in response to Covid-19, as other countries did.126
As discussed in Chapter 2, the effort to undermine expertise and professional knowledge was long-standing in rightwing media prior to Trumpâs rise to power. This anti-intellectualism continued under Trump. In attacking American schools and universities, Trump lamented the âradical left indoctrination, not educationâ from âtoo many universities and school systems,â announcing his Department of Treasury would be reviewing the tax-exempt status and federal funding of American universities, which he threatened would âbe taken awayâ if the âpropagandaâ continued.127 He promised to âstop radical indoctrination of our students and restore PATRIOTIC EDUCATION to our schoolsâ via the establishment of âthe 1776 commission,â which was tasked with developing a âpro-American curriculumâ for schools to follow, contrary to the âtwisted web of lies in our schools and our classroomsâ that was allegedly embraced by âcritical race theoryâ and âthe 1619 project,â which were âa form of child abuse.â Education, Trump demanded, must be driven by efforts to âteach our children to love our country, honor our history, and always respect our great American flag.
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