Endnote 2: White Fascism

[Applause] [Music] foreign fascism is a term i've heard thrown around since i was a kid but most of the time idiomatically fascist is what you called your type a passive-aggressive roommate stop being such a fascist deborah through osmosis i knew its literal meaning was among a cluster of related words authoritarianism totalitarianism white supremacy nationalism dictatorship but for much of my life if you pressed me to define any of these words i could have only said you know nazis hitler the gestapo you know nazis this colloquializing of fascism and its association with the cultural shorthand for pure evil makes it very hard to discuss as an ideology because even using the word fascism sounds both hyperbolic and like a punch below the belt to call a person group or idea fascist is to exaggerate for the purpose of dragging them this counter-intuitively prevents us from criticizing fascist groups even though most everyone agrees fascism is terrible because saying it you sound ridiculous you're talking about indiana jones villains so i'm going to be using the word fascism kind of a lot in this video hoping that we can semantically satiate it just enough that it's connotative meanings irreverent sarcasm and the envisioning of stormtroopers are dulled to the point that we can talk about fascism as a system of beliefs and as a mode of political organizing and about who practices it today our work necessitates a conversation about fascism specifically white fascism fascism fascism fascism central to fascism is the belief that some people are more deserving of power than others and that society's appropriate structure is a hierarchy where increasingly smaller groups of bettors rule over the lessers this is not unique to fascism this is the organizing principle of many social systems the differences between systems is whom each hierarchy says should be at the top in a feudal monarchy that top is the king and his family and they get there by royal bloodline in a capitalist free market ahem people earn their place at the top by success in business in fascism the ones at the top should be us whomever us happens to be and they should get there by any means available the most succinct definition of fascism comes from roger griffin palin genetic ultranationalism a wonderful term because it fits a great many ideas into only two roots and a bunch of affixes and a terrible one because both words need definitions of their own so okay palingenesis is the idea of rebirth with some frankly biblical overtones the word palingenesis is used to refer to reincarnation or the remaking of the world after judgment day in terms of fascism it is the notion that we as a unified people are ancient that our former glory has waned and that we are due to rise again and the implication that this rebirth will come by purging the world in fire with boiling seas in a blood-red sky are not entirely accidental it is the granting of us with mythological importance nationalism is in the broadest sense thinking of oneself through the lens of national identity a single person holds a lot of identities white male gamer new englander cyclist sports racer and so on and so forth nationalism is the lens through which thinking of oneself as for instance american is distinct from being canadian liberian chilean and that putting stock in this distinction is desirable this can play out a lot of different ways nationalism can be a colonized people forming an identity distinct from the ruling class and arguing that this people should have its own state as in the american or haitian revolutions black nationalism has argued at times that black americans while co-existing with other americans should maintain a distinct identity rather than be assimilated into white culture and where black nationalism has also sometimes argued for the repatriation of black americans to african nations white nationalism typically argues that whites should have a nation of their own not by returning to europe but by removing non-whites from the u.s something native americans have opinions about this would be an example of ultranationalism the emphasizing of national identity as among the most if not the most important now these are not unique traits and i want to stress that it is not the presence but the confluence of them that gives fascism its character so palin genetic ultra-nationalism the belief that the nation is of the utmost importance that the people running the nation should be a narrowly defined us and that we should rule because it's more or less our destiny the religiosity of this framing is intentional most hierarchical systems will make some case for why society should be structured a certain way the king has been groomed for his role since birth steve jobs did real good at the business factory fascism suspends the need for explanation we belong at the top because we just do destiny when pressed fascists will offer pseudo-rational justifications for why they should be in charge which fall apart under the barest scrutiny but debunking these claims is largely ineffective because while they follow the cadences of a reasoned argument they're operating on the level of emotion faith and a sense of belonging there's a reason fascist regimes rely heavily on propaganda propaganda traffic's not in arguments but in symbols for the nazis it was the german soldier for the soviets it was the worker propaganda relies on inspiring imagery that evokes cherished aspects of the culture like the family or the countryside the babe in his cradle is closing his eyes the blossom embraces the bee and ties those images to fascist ideals but soon says a whisper arise arise tomorrow belongs to me all of this is meant to make one swell with pride in such a way that it's very hard to think about what is actually being said racist caricatures of black and jewish people or whomever is not us in any given system serve the same purpose by evoking hatred or fear of what might happen to us if they were in control jason stanley calls this effective override the moment where emotion shuts down critical thinking if you've ever had a conversation with a conservative about like healthcare or something and after a few exchanges they're chest-beating about how this is the nation of freedom and choice the greatest nation that ever was and i'm not going to let you take from me my god-given you've seen this in action fascism depends on this passionate fervor because it can't convincingly pretend to be rational the reason why one particular us should be at the top of the hierarchy or why there should even be a hierarchy in the first place is arbitrary it's that way because a particular us wants it that way we usually associate fascism with the image of state violence be it the punishing of the other the policing of citizens or the conquering of other nations and while this is almost always the case fascism is not as a rule militant in practice fascists are not authoritarians or pacifists for that matter they're not capitalists or anti-capitalists they're not statists or anarchists they're not monarchists oligarchists or plutocrats they are whatever puts us in power ists for instance capitalism is a hierarchical system and so fascists will often try to influence policy such that the capitalist hierarchy starts to resemble the desired fascist one but only until the point that it stops suiting their needs the us of fascism is always defined by essential qualities like race or heritage qualities that don't change a poor person can become less poor but a black person can't become less black so no matter how biased and stratified capitalism becomes so long as it is still technically possible for someone from the lower classes to rise above their station there will come a time when fascists must leave capitalism behind in favor of a system fully without social mobility similarly if fascists have the ability to take governmental control through non-violent means they will often do so remember mussolini took power in a coup hitler was elected if democracy and non-violence can be put to fascist ends they will be but instituting a system that benefits the few while the many suffer and where by design no one's suffering is allowed to improve their situation might as well be writing ad copy for guillotines and that's how you get the ss so yes fascist power trends towards authoritarianism because on a long enough timeline it will be the only way fascism can maintain itself but also fascists and authoritarians think power brutality and subjugation are sexy in more or less identical ways so while not all authoritarians are fascists most fascists are authoritarians and state violence is often a way of getting people invested in a hierarchy that doesn't directly benefit them you may not be at the top but if you're somewhere around the middle we can employ you as military or police to keep the lower classes in line many people will relinquish their rights to fascists in exchange for being the arm of the law and the more powerful the state becomes the more vicarious power they get to wield so long as they're not at the bottom they have some investment in the system continuing as is because it authorizes them to [ __ ] people up the other way fascism justifies itself to the masses is to insist that the only alternative is death we are a great and noble people with an illustrious history and if we achieve our fated rebirth we will form the most glorious nation in all of history and take our rightful place as world leader and if we fail we will be eradicated there's no in between they are coming for us they are everywhere we can beat them but this is the only way race war is the usual go-to claiming black people are savages and raising our cities to the ground is their nature or that they want revenge for slavery which i mean sometimes they go with a jewish conspiracy as revenge for the holocaust or both at the same time right now islamophobia's in fashion each depends on downplaying slavery or the holocaust or the crusades as the horrific acts that they were insisting that the crimes have been greatly exaggerated by history because these are all pretty damning counter-arguments to us being the greatest people who have ever lived race is like gender and money it's real but only because we make it real but fascism necessitates the belief that whatever makes us us is not only extremely real in the biological and or spiritual sense but that people can be ranked by it and when stacking the hierarchy white fascists put themselves at the top so what is whiteness well the short answer is that whiteness is whatever it needs to be whiteness was created to differentiate one people from the people they were oppressing whiteness is a means to an end and the people most fixated with the definition of whiteness are racists but there is no anti-racist definition racists invented whiteness and all white people are folded into it and the way white people conceive of whiteness is fundamentally different from how they conceive of other races a common example of this phenomenon is barack obama obama had one black parent and one white parent but while he can call himself the first black president he could never call himself a white president or well he could call himself whatever he wanted but white people wouldn't agree and no one would treat him like a white president white people are only white if they're pure breeds or if non-whiteness is far enough back in their family tree that one can pretend it isn't there these rules of purity don't apply to other races when black and white people have children those children are allowed to be black or any number of often racist terms for mixed-race children but whatever they are they can't be white this frames interracial families as an increase of one race and a decrease in whites so by this logic where other races spread whiteness has to be maintained white people don't consider whiteness a race it is the absence of race the undiluted form of which all other races are deviations and if it goes it can't be brought back this is of course nonsense it's a bunch of made-up rules to justify white supremacy there's only so long fascists can insist if we don't strike first they're going to kill us all before people start to notice that the race war they've been promising for a century doesn't seem to be happening so then the terms have to be updated now the existential threat is a generational project now black people even existing near white people is the race war they're literally going to [ __ ] us out of existence and because whiteness is made up it can be endlessly redefined attention inherent to fascism is that rather a lot of people are required to bring it into existence but by design only a small number will run it once it exists so commonly the definition of us is broadened while building coalitions and gets progressively narrower the more fascist society becomes white fascists in the us and europe go back and forth on whether or not jewish people get to be white for a while it was kind of a soft yes and now it's tipping the other way as they gain influence ethnic groups formerly considered non-white like italians and the irish became white when white culture feared marginalized immigrants might ally with slaves in revolt bigotry is intersectional there aren't a lot of single-issue bigots people who hate mexicans but fight for everyone else's rights people generally don't apply this hierarchical thinking to just one aspect of their lives so commonly racism is comorbid with anti-semitism is comorbid with misogyny is comorbid with transphobia is comorbid with homophobia is comorbid with religious intolerance i mean just listen to a klansman talk about catholics sometime or better yet don't any marginalized group may be inducted into the tribe to consolidate against a common enemy but should that enemy be defeated the inductees become the new enemy we can see the history of social progress in the us as successively disenfranchised groups demanding and sometimes gaining their rights one by one with reactionaries trying to beat back the tide transphobia is recently rampant in fascist circles and conservative politics because with the legalization of same-sex marriage the battle against homosexuality is thought to be lost or at least at a ceasefire this gives some cause to welcome gay transphobes into the ranks but should they seize enough power to strip what few protections trans people have gained recently and the alliance is no longer useful their gaze refocuses and its last hired first fired for the homosexuals and then the african americans and then the women and on and on stripping rights from social groups in the order opposite to which they were gained like the plot of final destination 2. you might be thinking the end goal here is a nice homogeneous group of white men to sit at the top of the pyramid and white fascists would be thinking the same thing but in reality there is no end game it's not like if the fascists get their ethno state they're just gonna call it a day it's the flaw in obsessing over racial purity whiteness is defined by what it's not if it isn't contrasted with something else it ceases to be an identity so if the whites kick all the non-whites out of their country suddenly the irish and italians aren't white anymore and then maybe the albinos or the brunettes or the virginians it doesn't matter the rules are made up one way or another the pyramid grows thinner the authoritarian mindset is one that just likes stripping rights from people leave authoritarians no one to strip rights from and they start stripping them from each other and yes that's what the research says the other outlet for this restless energy is war invasion colonization deport all the mexicans and then follow them into mexico go seeking in other to define yourself against you've maybe noticed that these three drives the seeking out of conflict the need to subjugate more and more people and the shrinking of one's base of power is not a recipe for success most hierarchical systems seek equilibrium finding the point where the masses are just happy enough that they don't disembowel you but the trajectory of fascism is to make enemies cast out allies narrow the gene pool and stuff your ill-gotten wealth into the military until you're fully stalked with the kinds of weapons that ensure mutual destruction i'm not the first to say white fascism is a suicide cult the history of fascism is one of atrocity followed by failure followed by disgrace so modern fascists operate in a cycle of constant reinvention as they try to distance themselves from the movements that came before the ideology doesn't change but the rhetoric does primarily by stealing rhetoric from the left because it's flatly more popular white nationalists calling themselves identitarians is an appropriation of progressive identity politics the rhetoric of white power is an intentional bastardization of black power movements even the nazis while instituting a dictatorship knew to call themselves socialists and despite german anti-fascism being formed predominantly by socialists and the first death camp being originally built to throw communists in some people still believe this this appropriation of rhetoric is how each generation of fascists rebrands itself we're not like those fascists who got hanged for what they did we're young hip and successful come back baby it'll be different this time so with all this explanation of what fascists believe and how they operate i hope it's clear that there is no workable definition of fascism that does not include the alt-right they are to the letter a white fascist movement that's neither a dis nor an exaggeration it's a simple statement of fact so then to ask the trickier question is the current administration fascist and well that depends on where you draw the line between fascist and opportunist consider the evidence the administration has staffed a number of fascist figureheads it's repeated a number of fascist slogans it employs a nationalist thinking in which the nation should always get more out of any deal than the other participants it holds the hierarchical belief that the president need not follow the same laws as the citizens it relies on fear and demonization of a racial other and portrays their mere presence in society as an invasion it permits and makes justifications for violence against dissenters it threatens to strip rights from opponents and members of the press it relies on nostalgia for a mythologized past to sell a narrative of cultural rebirth and its followers are intersectionally bigoted against women the poor muslims black people trans people and queer people the only hesitance i feel around saying this is fascism centers around intent how much of what they do and say do they believe in and how much is just riding a wave of fascist sympathy to fuel a narcissistic lust for power and ram through policies that make them rich but ultimately while there is some tactical value in this distinction you have to deal with an opportunist differently from a true believer in most contexts the difference doesn't matter many will just tell you the correct term for nazi sympathizer is nazi but if you won't take that leap consider this even if they have no particular plan or aptitude for creating a fascist government anybody in power that uses fascist rhetoric lays the groundwork for future fascism and empowers fascist movements needs to be at least viewed through the lens of fascism whether or not they're fascists in their hearts is a question for historians whatever they are they are some percentage of the time doing fascism and for our purposes that's all we need to know [Music] you

Channel: Innuendo Studios

Views: 952,581

Rating: 4.7089171 out of 5

Keywords: alt-right playbook, video essay, innuendo studios, ian danskin, alt-right, conservatism, fascism, authoritarianism, racism, politics, nazis, nazism, totalitarianism, propaganda

Id: 5Luu1Beb8ng

Length: 22min 44sec (1364 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/kadmij]

Holy crap is this good

[u/Notsomebeans]

Just got taken down for "hate speech"

great fucking job youtube, you did it again

[u/TheCrimsonChair]

"it's real, but only because we make it real." Amazing straightforward video, subscribed

[u/SpaceChimera]

Any mirrors? Fashtube reported this one into oblivion

[u/[deleted]]

This is insanely good. What a BRETT.

[u/Dioxy]

Removed for hate speech?

[u/SunsetBestSet]

"This video has been removed for violating YouTube's terms of service" f

[u/djaeke]

Wow, this is fantastic. Imo his best video since the "Why Are You So Angry" series. This is definitely going in my bookmarks to help explain fascism to people and I am definitely gonna be rewatching this a few times. The bit about whiteness and how it's the absence of race, how mixed people can be black but not white, all stuff I believed but hadn't ever heard articulated so well. I'll be referring back to this a lot.

[u/ThisGuyLikesMovies]

Innuendo Studios does great work.