“It Can’t CAN Happen Here.” “This Isn’t IS Who We Are.”
I never imagined American society would be where it is today, and I would love to say I saw it coming. I did not. The recent metamorphosis to Neoliberal Fascism (the case I will make in this commentary) is by far the most surprising and disturbing shift in my lifetime.
For decades, I kept bumping into reasons to loathe what Ronald Reagan and then George H. W. Bush had inflicted on America, champions of Neoliberalism as they were, along with Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, author of the TINA Principle, “There is no alternative.” Their way of thinking emphasized free markets, limited regulations, smaller government, and individualism on steroids—a John Wayne-type approach to the personal life and the public sector that I felt would be better served by Mother Theresa.
But I did not expect a Democrat, Bill Clinton, to help deepen and expand the malaise. Clinton executed a ghastly transformation of the Democratic Party that is only now being understood for what it did. Clinton moved the Democrats to the economic right while embracing social advances, albeit selectively. Emphasis shifted from focusing on “The People Left Behind” to the middle class, a shift that I (but not others at the time) found regrettable. Many people benefitted personally from economic gains experienced in the mid-to-late 1990s. Clinton was a star to them, befitting having his portrait hanging on the kitchen wall, which it often did, ala FDR and JFK decades earlier.
Yet, despite my uneasiness, I also felt a personal connection to what Clinton was doing. I was a Moderate Republican in my twenties (we called ourselves “Rockefeller Republicans” back then) and was proud of it. However, as I got older, I pulled more and more to a philosophy and approach that Francis Fukuyama, among others, describes as Classic Liberalism.
Classical Liberalism is the respect for the equal dignity of individuals through a rule of law that protects their rights and through constitutional checks on the state’s ability to interfere with those rights.
But what I didn’t want, and certainly didn’t expect, was how Clinton camped in the space vacated by Moderate Republicans while still wanting to be viewed as a Lyndon Johnson-style Democrat. In truth, he was neither, even though he and Hillary had a strategy to look like both—a blend of Progressive and Conservative politics called Progressive Neoliberalism, which is socially progressive in some respects but economically focused in ways that I could not square with my conviction that economics must serve the commonwealth. New Democrat, it was called back then.
I remember (and value to this day) Marian Wright Edelman’s public rebuke of Bill Clinton, written in a Washington Post op-ed, published on November 3, 1995, entitled, “Say No to This Welfare Reform.” Wright Edelman resigned from her position as a Clinton consultant over the policy dispute, and her husband Peter resigned from his post with the administration. I thought it was a courageous move along the lines (but certainly not as impactful) as Lyndon Johnson did in the 1960s by advancing civil rights legislation, predicting (as he accurately did) that his actions would turn the South from Blue to Red. Both Edelman’s said, “We’re Progressives, and this administration is not.” Touche!
Finding myself misaligned with the Democratic Party, I made another personal shift, this time as a Progressive Independent. Freedom came from not having to follow “the party line” and being able to focus on policy positions and candidates of choice. And while I’d love to say President Obama’s leadership brought me back to the Dems, it did not. I wanted more policies and pronouncements to suit my progressive taste, but I got neither, especially regarding economics or military/defense (Bush II was still in charge). President Biden was better in some ways, but it was too little, too late for me. There were too many hiccups in how the administration managed matters, most notably by selling arms to the Netanyahu regime, which made the U.S. complicit in the Gaza slaughter.
In between, Hillary Clinton was the Democratic 2016 nominee, and I did not vote on the presidential line that year. Progressive Neoliberalism was a big reason, but there was more. Beginning around 2013, I felt that my time and attention would be better served by combatting what I believed was the more significant issue: Neoliberalism in general, which had infected society in ways that I had a difficult time accepting. My focus was the impact of Neoliberalism on higher education.
I saw the impacts of Neoliberalism everywhere—in public talk, leadership circles, and across sectors. Too many people I knew had become Neoliberals, many without realizing it (some did not know it even existed), and very few people I knew self-referenced themselves as such. The crazy thing is that I witnessed Neoliberal rhetoric and actions oozing from people who were self-described Liberal Democrats!
How incredible, I thought, that they cannot see or are unwilling to admit dissonance. Clinton was right on at least one thing: “It is the economy, stupid!” The newbies progressed economically during that time; life was good, and… you get the rest of the story.
But what I’ve just described seems like ancient history, seemingly minor compared to what is happening today. I should have seen it coming (as Noam Chomsky and others did), but I didn’t. Through hindsight, I understand it this way. Just as physical viruses morph, so do sociocultural viruses, and the longer a virus is around, the more likely it is to become a force to be reckoned with. It hangs around, infects, and spreads … as in Trump. 2015 onward, with that initial public splash that Michael Kruse calls “The Elevator Ride that Changed America.”
One of Neoliberalism’s morphs is Neoliberal Fascism, and we saw its impact in the 2024 Election. A blended morph (Fascism to Neoliberalism and Neoliberalism to Fascism), it combines fascism’s strong preference for strong-man leadership/Nationalism with Neoliberalism’s conception of how/when/and for whom the economy works as it should. Ultimately, it screams (and that word choice is no exaggeration): THIS IS WHAT AMERICA SHOULD LOOK AND BE!
In virulent form (and that is what bothers me most today), Neoliberal Fascism is a strident rejection of Classical Liberalism, full of Mafia-style cronyism, and slathered with dismissiveness and hate. It invites a swarm of cockroaches into living quarters and treats them like house pets.
Capitalist excesses and authoritarianism are fused, expressed through an abiding commitment to Racism, Patriarchy, White Nationalism, religious zealotry (Christian Nationalism is one), Misogyny, Xenophobia, and a rejection of various forms of diversity associated with the liberalization of America (e.g., same-sex marriage). Democracy, character, and ethics are distractions to be either endorsed or tossed aside, depending on whether one or more get in the way of achieving valued ends.
The State of Florida is a petri dish for Neoliberalism and Fascism, and Governor DeSantis and the state legislature are principal practitioners. Education is the enemy, as is the press—anything that enables people to learn and render independent judgment. History courses are refashioned in the image of America Exceptionalism. The Governor counters citizen activism by spending state money to increase the prospects that the people’s view will be defeated. And that is only part of it.
What about Trump and the millions of voters who supported him? This is the principal motivation behind writing this commentary. Something I have never seen before is happening.
There have always been isms and ists, morphs, and changes, but what America faces today is not simply more of past transitions. What has always been there—living on the margins—has seeped into mainstream culture, not just by a bit, but by a lot, such that America’s founding principles are threatened. How severely? America may not be America for much longer.
The most frightening thing is that neighbors, friends, co-workers, and even family members support a strongman approach to government and reject the tenets of classical liberalism. This sentiment is deeply felt and expressed everywhere, seen in what everyday people believe, say, and prefer. It is much too powerful and pervasive to ignore, and it took the outcome of Election 2024 to grab the public attention it deserves.
But sadly, some still do not see it, retreating as they are into stale Democratic Party-centered interpretations of why Harris lost and what needs to be done to fix what went wrong. Legions of other commentators are joining in on “The Blame Game,” including Conservative academics, and they are having a field day eviscerating K-12 education, higher education, and liberal/progressive scholars. For his part, Trump has vowed to rid education of its “wokeness.”
Point the finger all you want. But well beyond identifying the target of choice, the stark reality is this: whatever we are experiencing as a people happened because of a sociocultural phenomenon of epic proportions. Yes, the Democrats contributed, and so did the arrogant elite or any other person or group you care to name, including higher education. But come on! Add it all up, and you will still fall short of one hundred. AMERICA HAS CHANGED, AND IT HAS CHANGED BECAUSE AMERICANS HAVE CHANGED.
Clinton said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” I say, “It is the people, stupid!”
In times like this, civil society and activism must respond to herald the principles on which this country was founded, which (for the first time in my lifetime) occupy fragile territory. But what will it take to make that happen? Earlier this week, a colleague shared Rebecca Solnit’s commentary published November 9 in The Guardian, entitled, “Authoritarians like Trump love fear, defeatism, surrender. Do not give them what they want.” Solnit wrote: “The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything; everything we can save is worth saving. Let Julian Aguon have the last word: “No offering is too small. No stone unneeded … All of us, without exception, are qualified to participate in the rescue of the world.”
Is it hyperbolic to say, “rescue of the world”? I think not. That is because the 2020s are the new 1930s. Germans cheered Hitler, and–as a people–they endorsed and participated in an ugly regime full of dismissiveness and hate. Sound familiar? Today, Americans are cheering for Trump and his cronies. They endorsed an undemocratic, authoritarian leader, and they participated by voting to make it so. So, indeed, “the rescue of the world” (per Aguon) has begun.
Are you in, as in taking action, “in”?
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This commentary was carved out of a longer and somewhat different essay, “How Did America Get from Compassionate Conservatism to Neoliberal Fascism?” published in LA Progressive on November 14, 2024.
Cover graphic courtesy Progressive Issues blog, WordPress.com
Thanks for writing this, Frank. Really helpful for our process of making sense of the present moment, and what led up to it. I’d just make one comment, which unfortunately only adds to the trouble of the moment.
In my experience over the past several years, the “tenets of classical liberalism” that you name, the “principles on which this country was founded,” are being rejected most passionately by scholars and activists on the left. Theorists who have been engaged in BLM and the M4BL have singled out “liberalism” as a key if not the central culprit in the development and maintenence of settler-colonialism white supremacy. One of many places you can see this is in a book by Charlene Caruthers titled Unapologetic. Here’s a link: https://www.charlenecarruthers.com/unapologetic
I’ve assigned it in my classes, and what students always get from reading it is that “liberalism” is the enemy of justice, equity, and freedom. In my view we need to listen deeply and carefully to the critiques of liberalism that are being voiced by many contemporary scholars and activists. And we also need to be engaged with them in dialogue. The people and times they are a changing. On balance, that can be a good thing!