Playing the fascist card

I’m sure it has come up in a political conversation you’ve had recently; often it rears its ugly head when alcohol is involved, or introductory classrooms full of overzealous students. But it can happen anywhere.

The all-too-common occurrence of which I speak is that moment when, after heated debate, someone plays the ‘fascist’ card. You know, when they want to trump the conversation by equating either what you’re saying or what you both are talking about with fascism.

Example: Well, in fascist Germany, many of the Nazi leaders were vegetarian. Ergo, vegetarians-equal-Nazis-equal-evil, end of conversation.

The fascist card is right up there with calling something ‘Orwellian’ as a phrase used so often, and for far too many contradictory subjects, that it becomes virtually meaningless—which is unfortunate for a number of reasons, not least of which because fascism is a particular horror of social, political and economic organization. It is also, for obvious reasons, emotional subject matter that should not be waded into lightly.

But this catch-all use of fascism, so prevalent in day-to-day and major media discourse these days, is troubling for another major reasons as well: it’s use, particularly by the self-ascribed ‘right’ in America, distorts its meaning beyond comprehension.

For example, did you know President Obama is, for all intents and purposes, a de facto fascist (at least when he and his administration are not, in a rare feat, communist/Marxist/socialist)?

The problem with much of this is that the fascist label is too often flung without providing context (or in many cases even justification) as to why one believes a particular person, group, act, or government direction should be called as such.

In fact, much of the time, ‘fascist’ is used in a self-justifying way, as though to question someone after they have called something fascist is to be in favour of it. Completely irresponsible use of a very powerful, and in many cases harmful, term.

And whomever it is that erroneously plays the fascist card, the fact remains that they are doing a great and troubling verbal disservice to all of what fascism represents.

When Woody Guthrie wrote ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS’ on his guitar, there was a power and poignant protest to the act, a meaning to it.

When a drunk acquaintance calls your views on the economy ‘fascist,’ one simply has to pity how pathetic it is.