America and the New Axis of Fascism

 America and the New Axis of Fascism

Why a New Axis of Fascism is Rising, and What You Need to Know About It

umair haque

In case you didn’t hear, Tucker Carlson broadcast his show last week from…Hungary. Why Hungary, you might ask? The reason should be obvious — though you might not be aware if you’re American.

Hungary might seem like an insignificant, minor nation. And in many respects, it is. Except one. It’s poised to become Europe’s first fascist dictatorship since the end of Franco’s Spain in the 1970s.

Viktor Orban ascended to power in 1998— and now pundits regularly refer to it is “Orban’s Hungary.” That’s not a coincidence. It’s very much his country — he’s emerging as its authoritarian dictator. And as would-be dictator, he’s refashioning Hungary into something very much like a fascist state.

In “Orban’s Hungary,” what Americans glibly call “human rights abuses” abound. Journalists are harassed and threatened and intimidated and even jailed. Higher education has been cracked down on and ideologically purified — any form of education that includes vaguely modern attitudes towards women, gay people, minorities has been removed and excised away. Repressive mechanisms of thought control like these operate in abundance, and Hungary is now a nation where open attitudes of bigotry and hate — from anti-Semitism to misogyny to homophobia — are preached and championed.

For example, Orban forced the famed Central European University to move to Vienna — after purging it of anyone vaguely opposed to Hungary being a regressive, fanatically right-wing ethnostate. Orban created a policy that prevents pro-LGBT children’s books to be sold. He amended the constitution’s definition of a family to exclude the LGBT. Asylum seekers are starved. Migrant children can be detained indefinitely.

To make all this happen, Orban has exercised an iron fist over government. He’s cracked apart Hungary’s institutions like twigs. The judiciary is his tool, the legislature his servants and the executive his weapon. He’s deadly serious about making Hungary the first European fascist dictatorship in half a century — and odds are, he’s about to be successful.

So why is Tucker Carlson heading there? There are four reasons, and they all add up to a new Axis of Fascism.

The first reason Carlson headed to Hungary is to study and learn. From Orban’s template. How do you collapse a democracy into a fascist state? One way to approach that question is to read books like Mein Kampf — Trump’s favourite one, not coincidentally. But another one is to sit at the feet of living dictators, and glean their knowledge. In today’s world, if you want to learn how to create a fascist society, there are few people who can tell you better than Viktor Orban. His model is one that American fascists like Carlson are already studying intently — openly.

The second reason Carlson headed to Hungary is to normalise fascism for his viewers. Carlson presented Hungary as a shining idea, a model to aspire to. The kind of country American should be. This is a way to normalise fascism — “Hey, look at those clever and wise people! We should be more like them!” To really grasp this, consider how nobody much in American circles of power heads to say, Canada, or Germany, and explains to your average American why those societies work so much better — how, for example, their healthcare or pensions systems function so well. instead, Fox News is now presenting societies arguably further along the downward spiral of social collapse for Americans to aspire to being.

The third reason that Carlson headed to Hungary, though, is the most sinister and the deepest. It’s about building a new Axis of Fascism. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s consider for a moment who Orban’s greatest sponsor and champion is. Take a wild guess. No, really — if you don’t know, guess.

It’s Russia, of course.

Now ask yourself: who do we now know literally installed Trump into the American Presidency? Russia, again.

Those dots aren’t unconnected. Russia would be overjoyed to build a new Axis of Fascism. Why? Just think of it as a new empire for Russia to control. Imagine an American President controlled by the Kremlin — as Trump obviously was. Now imagine a Europe under its thumb, too, one in which a fascist Hungary can thwart the wishes of an otherwise united Europe. That’s more or less game over for the West as a force of modernity and progress.

Orban, in turn, is only really following Putin’s model. Putin took a broken, weakened, devastated Russia, and used a cult of personality to turn it regressive, authoritarian, and prot-fascist. Russia’s a deeply violent and brutal place, and the brunt of that violence is borne by women, minorities, gays, and others who are considered hated subhumans. It’s a place of sham elections and an aggressive, bombastic, nationalism of ethnic purity and supremacy.

Orban took that model, and applied to Hungary. The results were spectacularly successful — because Putin’s model is a smart one. The ashes of neoliberalism leave behind them staggering inequality, a burning sense of resentment, and widespread economic stagnation. It’s all too easy to put the Putin model into operation: scapegoat minorities, tell the “real” people they’re the chosen ones, the sons of blood and soil, preach the virtues of violence and aggression, expound a vision of the world where the strong survive and the weak deserve to perish. Bang! It’s worked time and again.

That brings me to the fourth reason Carlson headed to Hungary. He wants to be the next Trump.

It’s an open ploy to curry favour with Russia. Russia, remember, really did install Trump as President — hacking the DNC, releasing Hillary’s emails, flooding Facebook with disinfo, and so on. If you want to be America’s President, there’s no better friend to have these days, sadly, than Russia.

Trump, meanwhile, is a something of a spent force as far as Russia’s concerned. Yes, he’s still a grave danger to America. But he’s been the useful idiot he was there to be. He’s too controversial and too radioactive now to be that much more use to Russia. If he wins another Presidency, then, yes. For now — it’s open season. Who’ll replace Trump as asset number one in Russia’s books? Who’ll be the Orban of the West?

Carlson knows that this is his chance. It’s a smart opportunity to take — at least if you don’t mind selling out your country. Russia will be all too happy to back Carlson, a fresh face and new entrant into the political arena, a man with widespread acceptance in America’s “heartland.” Trump will be yesterday’s news. That’s how this game is really played.

If that sounds even the slightest bit fantastical to you, think again. How improbable did you think it was in 2015 that Donald Trump would run for President — and win? How unlikely did you think it was in 2016 that Russia was the party who swung the election for him. Yet here we are.

It’s altogether too easy to imagine a President Carlson. One who regularly kibitzes with Orban. Does Russia’s bidding. Leads a new Axis of Fascism.

Either way, the point, really, is to understand that efforts are now underway to build a new Axis of Fascism. Trump’s improbable installation into the Oval Office showed Russia how easy it really was to hack a democracy. It’s pawns in Europe like Orban are showing how easy it is to thwart great and grand institutions like the EU. Together, they make up something Russia has longed for for decades — a new empire, all its own, one that protects and insulates from a decadent West.

Who’s on the list of candidates for the Axis of Fascism? There’s Modi in India, a nation now in the fever grip of a kind of violent, stupefying religious supremacism. There’s Duterte in the Philippines. Bolsonaro’s Brazil. And Trump’s — or Carlson’s — America. The Axis of Fascism now arising stretches from corner to corner of the globe.

In one sense, it’s a Russian creation. But only in a superficial one. Russia is only doing what nations do — protect themselves, as much as it hurts and damages other nations. What really drives the rise of a new Axis of Fascism is the failure of neoliberalism as a global economic model. The way it left middle class implosion, working class stagnation, hopelessness, despair, poverty, and ruin in its wake — while making a tiny, tiny class of billionaires ever richer. Those are classic, textbook precondition for fascism to explode all over again.

That is what’s really happening in the world of geopolitical power today. It’s a sad and grim reality. What happens next? Well, it’s probably going to give the 1930s deja vu.

Umair

August 2021