Mark G. E. Kelly’s “Is Fascism the Main Danger Today? Trump and Techno-Neoliberalism” appears in Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power. Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.
In this article, I argue against the prevalent tendency, both in popular and scholarly discourse, to understand the Trump presidency as representing an incipient American fascism. I point out that Trump’s actual administration has shown no features distinctive of fascism, and that all alleged fascist policies of Trump are deeply in continuity with the pattern of liberal U.S. politics. I further argue that the most extraordinary aspect of Trump’s presidency, his strident rhetoric, while representing a deviation from U.S. politics as usual, is nonetheless not distinctively fascist. Lastly, I point out that, while Trump’s rhetoric and policies have drawn him support from literal fascists, he has little real connection with them and has largely disappointed rather than encouraged them. Instead, I suggest that Trump’s presidency represents the opposite of robust use of state power we associate with fascism, namely, a further decline in federal executive power in favor of the power of corporations. I conclude by suggesting that the increase of the censorious power of Big Tech in particular represents a far greater threat to democracy than Trump, and that the left’s monomaniacal focus on opposing Trump has allowed this tendency to go unchecked.
Way back, in the summer of 1991, Telos ran an article on the “Myth of the Totally Administered
Society,” however there have been significant technological changes since then, including a dramatic acceleration of digitization which makes such a myth much more questionable.
You state that there now appears to have been a decline in Federal Executive power in favor of Big corporations (especially Big Tech). Your analysis seems to leave out the cartel-like linkages between the monopolistic Silicon Valley firms and our intelligence agencies, especially the NSA.
Barton Gellman, in his recent book “Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State,” traces the relatively recent creation by the NSA of a type of analytical tool (MAINWAY) which Gellman labels a surveillance time machine. Having collected all of our call records, MAINWAY can now create a relationship graph through the touch of a button for any citizen in the United States–if requested.
This type of powerful instrument could never have been created in an analog world, But NSA presently has our metadata in sufficient volume to pull this off.
This tool has no awareness of law or norms or of the nature of abuse. It is capable of computing the contact chains and making diagrams of our relationships in an ever updating map. It simply obeys its instructions embedded in code–whatever these instructions say or ever might say.
In my opinion the 22 top individuals within the NSA who have the authority to order a contact chain to be built from phone record data in MAINWAY are now some of the most powerful unelected officials in the world.
Telos needs a new debate/discussion on the present nature of our Totally Administered Society.
It may no longer by a “Myth”
I think your assessment is spot on. Trump is not a fascist, but ironically the goals of the “global reset are VERY fascist.
This is DIRECTLY from the Global Reset Website.. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/?fbclid=IwAR3SpXJbws3yVwAarbnNywRct5l8fWI2MzCliNFPhthQnNKhIraush80_S4
The Great Reset agenda would have three main components. The first would steer the market toward fairer outcomes. To this end, governments should improve coordination (for example, in tax, regulatory, and fiscal policy), upgrade trade arrangements, and create the conditions for a “stakeholder economy.” At a time of diminishing tax bases and soaring public debt, governments have a powerful incentive to pursue such action.
Moreover, governments should implement long-overdue reforms that promote more equitable outcomes. Depending on the country, these may include changes to wealth taxes, the withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies, and new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition.
The second component of a Great Reset agenda would ensure that investments advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability. Here, the large-scale spending programs that many governments are implementing represent a major opportunity for progress. The European Commission, for one, has unveiled plans for a €750 billion ($826 billion) recovery fund. The US, China, and Japan also have ambitious economic-stimulus plans.
Rather than using these funds, as well as investments from private entities and pension funds, to fill cracks in the old system, we should use them to create a new one that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long run. This means, for example, building “green” urban infrastructure and creating incentives for industries to improve their track record on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.
The third and final priority of a Great Reset agenda is to harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges. During the COVID-19 crisis, companies, universities, and others have joined forces to develop diagnostics, therapeutics, and possible vaccines; establish testing centers; create mechanisms for tracing infections; and deliver telemedicine. Imagine what could be possible if similar concerted efforts were made in every sector.
I’m not sure about you, but I take this stated 4 phase goal to = a fascist super state that will closely guide business and steer outcomes. This is flat out fascism, all under the guise of sustainability and equality, and participation by the USA seems to have been orchestrated by Biden and others before the election. At least, that’s what all the Chinese news stations are reporting.
Don’t think the project of the WEC is “fascist” at all, and is another example of the abuse of the term that will render it practically useless as a description of anything.
The WEC “World Reset” looks to be the latest in a line of descent from the League of Nations world order schemes hatched by sectors of the British ruling class at the end of WW1 as they saw the beginning of the end of their Empire – think Keynes, et al. Only now that banner is upheld by a sector of the German bourgeoisie at the head of the weakest of the big 3 superstates (US, EU, China), as the British are now sidelined (by their own hand!) and irrelevant.
The big nasty fly in that ointment is of course, the United States. And that brings us to Kelly’s article, which is on the right track. But the role of “Silicon Valley” in the disruption of the traditional US political regime is more profound and goes beyond the issue of censorship. It can be summed up as “authoritarian libertarianism”, and if that sounds like a contradictory oxymoron, that’s the point. As characters such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk reveal, it is profoundly antidemocratic, and in the US this converges – for the moment – with the Republican Party’s need to suppress the vote to continue to be a competitive party.
Anybody who has ever worked in the “tech” sector will understand what I am speaking to, with respect to the profound socio-pathology of the leaders of this sector, with no respect for no one nowhere no how. They are an industrial sector that has yet to receive a significant historical bloody nose in class struggle.