My Mother Is A Fish

Lew Rockwell and the Roots of American Fascism

In 1994, the Republican right called for decentralization of power, a reduction in the role of government in its lives, and in general favored a program that called for peace and liberty. The so-called Republican Revolution, in which the party gained a majority in Congress populated in large part by young radicals, was hoped by the party base to effect these goals.
Ten years later, the Republicans hold all the levers of power; however, the program of the day is one of perpetual war abroad and, domestically, ever more centrally-directed regimentation of society, culture, and the economy. The Patriot Act and its successor of the same name have taken away many long-standing civil liberties; the No Child Left Behind Act has attempted to standardize schools across the country from Washington D.C.; the Department of Homeland Security represents one more major and egregious bureaucracy, started under Republican direction.
What happened? Why does the voting bloc representing the base of the Republican Party now favor warfare and statism? How did this evolution occur so rapidly? And most importantly, what can be done about it?
These are questions which every citizen concerned with the present state of American politics should try to understand. My college-age readers may live for many years with the destructive effects of the presently prevailing ideology and the political program its proponents have implemented and will continue to seek.
Fortunately, you have the opportunity to learn some of the answers. On LewRockwell.com, Lew Rockwell, president of the Auburn-based economic think-tank, the Mises Institute and editor of his own website of news and commentary, has published two essays over the last two months: “The Reality of Red-State Fascism” and “The Future of the Republicans”. The first article explores the profound shift in ideology of the Republicans in recent years, and offers simple yet elegant solutions to the problem at hand. The second looks briefly at the agenda of the Republicans for the next term in office and turns to examine the meaning of the Republicans' grabbing for power before noting three intellectual roots of the error he sees and delving into an overview of the history of the GOP.
I hope after reading this article you will be persuaded to read Rockwell's works. He has done a masterful job of studying the most important political shift of our time and in presenting it to his audience in a way that entices his readers to take an interest and even to take action. The points on which we will judge the effectiveness of the commentaries are several. First, I will look at how well does Rockwell gain the audience's attention and interest. Then, I will assess how sound his argument is. Next, we will judge how credible Rockwell seems as a commentator on the subject. Also, I should ask whether Rockwell makes good use of the historical record to cement his analysis in empirical fact. Finally, I will determine whether he proposes solutions that may bring us closer to the ideal political state. On all counts, Rockwell has succeeded.
Rockwell's credibility has been established by his deep involvement in the libertarian movement at least since 1980. (The libertarian movement seeks a particular implementation of liberty as the greatest political good. For present purposes, the term will be used broadly to include all who fit that description.) The Mises Institute (which Rockwell founded) holds frequent conferences designed to promote the education of the public on sound economics and on libertarian ideas, as well as to advance the state-of-the-art in research into these ideas. In bringing together many of the best minds in the libertarian and rightist traditions, Rockwell has observed the state of political ideology over the last two decades from an informed and experienced vantage point.
Rockwell established common ground with his readers. He addresses a “we” which comprises those people who are disheartened by the fact that the Republican Party of today “celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.” Rather than simply complaining, Rockwell suggests how we might extricate ourselves by facing “the reality of the current threat forthrightly.” He suggests that those who lament the recent losses of liberty are referred to as libertarians—a term which expresses a definite political position, to be sure, but one which, for the purpose of Rockwell's readers, may be broadly understood to refer to all who would rather see the Republicans turn from their celebration of power.
The litany of Republican abuses of power secures Rockwell's potential audience into trusting his authority to speak on the supposed problem. The reader seeks to know what the Bush administration has done to ill-effect. Besides the examples listed above, it has done the following: “Medicare drug benefits, the Transportation Safety Administration... two major wars that have cost hundreds of billions, and left only destruction and chaos in their wake. Government spending in Bush's first term soared more than 29%, twice Clinton's average.” The reader gains the impression that Rockwell knows what major events in American politics have had destructive effects, and accordingly he trusts that Rockwell makes sound assumptions about our political life.
In addition to beginning with an informed position, Rockwell uses rhetoric to arouse emotional response and excite interest in the topic. He cites Patrick M. Hughes, top official at Homeland Security, to the effect of leaving the reader understanding exactly how much is at stake: “We have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a judicial finding of probable cause.” If this is the plan of the Republicans, the reader should be concerned. This agenda, after all, marks a radical change in the values underlying our legal system—a change that at once appears alarming. Rockwell has engaged the reader's interest thoroughly.
Further, the reader will wonder whether this topic has already been assessed thoroughly, or whether in fact, if not, he should then involve himself in the reading: “[The] huge shift [in the “red-state bourgeoisie”] has not been noticed among mainstream punditry, and hence there have been few attempts to explain it—much less have libertarians thought much about what it implies.” Rockwell goes on to clearly state his thesis, making sure that readers follow the argument: “My own take is this: the Republican takeover of the presidency combined with an unrelenting state of war, has supplied all the levers necessary to convert a burgeoning libertarian movement into a statist one.” Having power, the movement has been corrupted.
It is in the exposition of his thesis that Rockwell presents a sound argument. In brief, Rockwell's story, as pieced together from the two commentaries, runs as follows. To support his thesis, Rockwell offers an overview of the Republican Party's past. The Republican Party “was the party of big government from its founding in 1856 through the Hoover administration” and, in fact if not in rhetoric, beyond. The Republicans in 1994 came to power in repudiation of President Clinton and Leviathan itself, but, the revolution failed for reasons Rockwell excels in explaining, and soon enough the bourgeoisie itself refocused its anger from against the state to against leftism and dissidents of the state. The populist right now advocates nuclear holocaust abroad and statist intervention domestically in protection of bourgeois institutions. Rockwell's analysis culminates in the proposition that “what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism.”
Rockwell has compiled a new historiography of the Republican Party, and he has done so in a way that is appropriate, believable, consistent, and complete. His evidence ties in directly to his claims: he cites Rothbard on the pitfalls of revolution and Mises on the folly of a merely anti-leftist ideology, showing key pieces of the story; and he cites a litany of abuses, current and proposed, along with general trends, showing the present danger posed by the right and the way in which its ideology has changed.
The reader believes the evidence to be pertinent and generalizable. The litany lends itself to generalization easily. With proposed war in places like Syria and Iran, and two past wars in the last three years, we can assume it to be true that the Republicans embrace militarism, for example. With proposals for “a national ID, fingerprints on passports, more intrusions into bank accounts...” we can follow Rockwell in thinking that the Party wishes to control the country from the center and restrict liberties. In general, the evidence presented relates directly to the arguments made.
Furthermore, Rockwell makes a complete and consistent story. The reader will deem that not much more needs to be said of the recent history and current ideology of the GOP. One objection may be made that Rockwell fails to adequately address the opposition in that, in using the word fascism to describe the right's ideology, Rockwell ignores strong presumptions against the use of an extreme moniker. On the contrary, however, Rockwell explains how, like the fascism of old, Republicans celebrate political power as the central organizing principle of society, while, unlike socialism, they favor business and the bourgeois institutions of faith, family and flag in their ambitions.
A sound argument, however, can only go so far without using history to empirically validate the logic of the story. Rockwell might have been content merely to explain the logic of how a revolution may fail, of how an ideology may mutate under certain conditions, and so on. But he presents facts to ensure that the argument is grounded and illuminated. Though the examples given tend to be abstracted from descriptive detail—such as in citing the big-government ideals of the Republicans from Lincoln through Reagan—they still give a distinct impression that, despite the recent ideological change among the base, a major element of the problem—the ideology of the power-elites—has been around for many years. While it is true that sound theory precedes historical reading in assessing the problems found in the latter, a persuasive argument will appeal to the data of history to reflect the intuitions of its audience and ensure that the theory seems concrete. Rockwell does this.
It is the mark of an exemplary commentary that it not only analyzes the problem, but that it proposes credible solutions. In this, Rockwell may be faulted only for the decision to limit his remarks. But the proposals exist, and strike a chord. Namely, in explaining the intellectual errors underlying the lust for power, Rockwell sets up the solution that we must “completely secede from conventional thought and established institutions.” Furthermore, in telling a story in which love of liberty became replaced by hatred of leftism, Rockwell comes to his advocacy of “radical intellectual action on behalf of a third way that rejects the socialism of the left and the fascism of the right” and the extension of rhetorical tolerance more to the left than the right.
Rockwell has written commentaries that do the best that commentary can do. It may at worst be faulted for taking an abstract approach to the story, yet, this is more a matter of style than anything else. He has proved himself credible, written sound analysis, engaged the audience, used history well, and proposed credible solutions. For this, we should be thankful, and my readers should become his readers.