I don’t get all my news from The New York Times but between it, the Washington Post, New Yorker, New York Magazine, NPR and CNN there is pretty fair coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric and plan for a second term. The inflamatory language he uses (“vermin”, “root out”, “traitor”, “executed”, etc.) is so crystal clear we do not require an Enigma machine to decode them. His demeanor is that of a demigod in search of a demimonde. Trumpism is on the fast track to become democrafacism.
In 2018 I wrote about dystopian fiction such as Sinclair Lewis’s famous 1935 bestselling novel It Can’t Happen Here, in which a ambitious demagogue, Democrat/populist Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip takes the nomination away from the incumbent FDR at the party convention and goes on to beat his Republican challenger. Upon taking office Windrip outlaws dissent; jails political enemies in internment camps, and recruits a paramilitary group of thugs called the Minute Men, who violently enforce the policies of the new “corporatist” state. The government curtails women’s and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. When It Can’t Happen Here was first published, America First, Christian Front and German Bund organizations were rapidly growing around the country, advocating revolution to “save the Constitution” from aliens, with many members of Congress supporting the cause.
It did not happen here then but America came perilously close to losing its democracy, replaced by the rising fascist tide that drowned Europe in hate and was growing in the U.S. too. We dodged the bullet. Yet not by much.
Rachel Maddow’s recent, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism (Crown) is a sobering (and horrifyingly timely) history of the rise of American hard right populism that Sinclair Lewis cautioned against. Maddow reveals many forgotten psuedo-patriotic power-seekers, anti-democratic organizations, and some infamous onerous figures, including Henry Ford, Father J. Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh, that held sway from coast to coast ruling over millions of followers — a well armed army of would-be insurrectionists who make January 6th’s mob seem like a garden party. They weren’t just fringe fanatics but politicians, business men, members of police, military, clergy and more belonging to illiberal cadres including the Black Legion and Silver Shirts (possibly the most militant gang of states rights white supremacists) poised to violently rebel.
Maddow’s title, Prequel, indicates that this widespread threat to democracy, which was thwarted by American journalists, public servants and private citizens, was just the first of many such attacks on the constitution leading to the current MAGAists. It is furthermore a wake-up call for those who, as Liz Chaney says, are “sleep-walking” into the abyss of an authoritarian United States. Just how strong a call to action depends on how many of us will wake-up on election day and do the right thing and reject the Trump-thing.
Authoritarianism in America relies on those in power preying on a wide array of citizens to sanction anti-democratic illegitimacy. The divide in America today is perhaps deeper than it was in the 30s and 40s, the period covered in Prequel, but millions of people were just as fervent about following a totalitarian leader. It is curiously similar to today’s “radicals” and the stakes are just as high. There is a clear choice: moderate liberalism versus rampant demagoguery.
What can a designer do? Campaign, advocate, support and vote. Cast ballots for freedom, liberty and American principles. Designing a poster is a nice gesture to show solidarity but is not going to defeat democrafascism. If there is no clear action to back it up, whatever that may be, the red, white and blue is doomed.
