When I was an undergraduate in college, my best friend and I took a long automobile trip one summer. We decided to drive as far north as we could, from Massachusetts. While in the middle of nowhere around Hudson Bay, a hill appeared out of the fog. It had a dusty road leading up to the top, so we decided to explore it. To do so we had to pass through a tall chain-link fence, but the gate was open, and no one was around.
We got about 500 feet up the road when a loudspeaker sounded: “Halt and turn around. Entry is forbidden. Soldiers now have you in their gunsights” (or words to that effect). Well, needless to say my friend, who was driving, turned around, and we hightailed out of that place.
What exactly it was I never did find out, but I always thought it might have been an outpost of the Distant Early Warning Line. This was a series of radar stations across Northern Canada designed to alert the U.S. to incoming Soviet missiles, during the Cold War. If you know your enemy is coming, you’re more likely to win a confrontation than if he sneaks up on you.
Consider this post a distant early warning for Oakland. I’ve written about this before, but it’s necessary to do it again.
There’s a strange and pernicious form of fascism brewing in our town. It’s unlike other forms we understand from the left and the right. What makes this form of fascism so dangerous is that it blends both the rightwing form, of which Donald Trump is a prime example, and the leftwing form that is so popular in woke Oakland. Extremists on both sides can therefore find something to like about it.
Fascism needs, of course, a charismatic demagogue: Germany had Hitler, Italy had Mussolini, Hungary has Viktor Orban, and we in America have Trump. Fascist leaders have several traits in common. Chief among their tactics are:
Lies
Personal attacks
Insults
Playing on the public’s fears and resentments
Threats
Anger
Establishing victims, e.g. Jews, socialists, trans people
Strongman approach
Populism
Grandiosity & narcissism
Gaslighting
A fascination with guns
A habit of discarding and attacking former allies when their usefulness ends
Suing political enemies
Mediacentrism
By the latter, I mean that fascist leaders need the media to give them “earned,” i.e. unpaid media coverage, and they know how to attract it through brashness, belligerence, and outlandish behavior and appearance, often featuring their hair. It can be almost too easy to caricature such figures, but as we learned from both Hitler and Trump, to do so may seriously underestimate their appeal to certain unstable segments of the public.
In the case of Oakland, it’s getting easier to identify the fascists. They know how to play on the public’s fears and resentments, and how to keep their followers amused. Their use of social media is skilled. Their ugly insults and personal attacks on their “enemies” is a feature, not a bug. They’re probably sociopaths. They have no actual solutions for the problems they cite, but they know that their angry followers enjoy their insults and putdowns and will support them over blander political opponents. These people are not yet a clear and present danger, but they deserve to be watched carefully. That’s exactly what I’m doing.
Steve Heimoff