In Front of Our Noses: Fascism

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.

For previous entries, click here.

There continues to be a lot going on in contemporary politics, and while keeping up with the current crop of online commentators is not high on my priority list, this clip of Benny Johnson is worth highlighting.

In the clip below, Johnson defends the militarization of our streets, specifically those in DC. He makes clear us-versus-them claims that are explicitly racialized and tries to link crime to specific kinds of people (you know, the kinds that got “bused in” during the “Civil Rights period”). And that the solution to the problems that they create is their removal.

It is not engaging in hyperbole to state that he is specifically linking crime in DC to the presence of Black people, “What happened to DC, especially during the Civil Rights period, was that protestors that were bused up here stayed here. The city was burned to the ground.” And he is calling the possible need to ethnically cleanse parts of the city, “Washington needs to be swept clean.”

While there were riots after MLK’s assassination in 1968, the only time the city was burned to he ground in any appreciable way that I can think of is when the British did it in the War of 1812 (Spoiler Alert! The Brits are White Guys!).

By the way, he calls DC “The seat of western civilization,” which is a clear tell about his white nationalist perspective.

It is telling, by the way, that he speaks of DC as having been built by “your forefathers and mine.” I don’t think he is at all acknowledging the slave labor that went into its construction.

Just to make sure that the racial component is clear, he is upset that racial epithets were yelled at his family, “Because we were white people.” While I denounce the shouting of racial epithets, it is hard to afford too much sympathy to someone who wants to “empty” and “bulldoze” certain neighborhoods. He simply wants to be seen as a victim to justify his outrageous preferences.

This is white nationalism, racism, and has all the hallmarks of fascism (and even sounds more than a little Nazi-adjacent).

All of this takes me to the following passage from Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works, on page 110.

Fascist law-and-order rhetoric is explicitly meant to divide citizens into two classes: those of the chosen nation, who are lawful by nature, and those who are not, who are inherently lawless.

[…]

By describing black Americans as a threat to law and order, demagogues in the United States have been able to create a strong sense of white national identity that requires protection from the nonwhite “threat.”

This is exactly what Trump is doing with his deployment in DC, and Johnson is just helping amplify it (and, in turn, the White House is amplifying Johnson).

Johnson claims to have been the victim of arson while living in DC, and to have witnessed a multitude of crimes. I can find no corroboration of the arson story, but assuming that it did happen, that is both a terrible thing and also not a reason to promote ethnic cleansing of DC neighborhoods.

When it comes to assessing the credibility of Johnson, there are these additional facts.

Via Reuters (in 2014): BuzzFeed writer Benny Johnson fired for plagiarism.

The news and entertainment website BuzzFeed has fired the writer Benny Johnson after its editors said they found he plagiarized others’ work 41 times.

BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith in a note late on Friday called writer Benny Johnson “a creative force” at his best, but said a review of more than 500 posts revealed dozens of instances where he copied sentences and phrases verbatim from other websites.

Via the BBC: Right-wing US influencers say they were victims of alleged Russian plot.

Mr Johnson, who has 2.7 million followers on X, said on Wednesday that he was “disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme”.

He said that his company’s lawyers had “negotiated a standard, arms length deal” after they were approached by the media startup. He said that agreement was later terminated.

See, also, Wired: What Right-Wing Influencers Actually Said in Those Tenet Media Videos.