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symploke 14.1/2 (2006) 98-151

The Emerging Authoritarianism in the United States:
PolItical Culture Under the Bush/Chaney Administration
Henry A. Giroux

Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.

—Bob Herbert (2006, A25)

Introduction

How can we explain the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 despite the flagrant lies about why the United States invaded Iraq, the passing of tax reform policies that reward the ultra rich at the expense of the middle and lower classes, and the grandstanding over foreign policy decisions largely equated with bullying by the rest of the world? What is one to make of Bush's winning popular support for his reelection in light of his record of letting millions of young people slide into unemployment or underemployment, poverty, and hopelessness; his refusal to protect public health and the environment; and his promulgation of a culture of fear that is gutting the most cherished of American civil liberties? The reelection of George W. Bush makes clear what dominant intellectuals on the Left and Right have refused to acknowledge, though fiction writers such as Philip Roth (2004) seem to have a more prescient grasp of America's move towards author-itarianism. The United States is not simply governed by a center-right party supported by the majority of the populace, it is a country that is moving rapidly towards a form of authoritarianism that undermines any claim to being a liberal democracy. For those who cling to the illusion of democracy, even in its damaged forms, the issues that appear [End Page 98] the most harmful to democracy are the war in Iraq, the record trade deficit, a soaring budget deficit, the attack on immigrants and people of color, the assault on civil liberties, and the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and elite corporations. While seen as posing a threat to democracy, these issues are generally discounted as not being comparable to establishing the foundation for a new emerging authoritarianism.

Oppositional critics such as George Soros, respected philanthropist and multi-billionaire, believe "The Republican Party has been captured by a bunch of extremists" (2004b). Liberal apologists such as James Traub, a feature writer for the New York Times, puts a different spin on the authoritarian direction in which the United States is moving. For Traub, any comparison between the Bush administration and fascism "constitutes a gross trivialization of the worst event in modern history" (11). According to Traub, fascism is a term that was abused by the Left in the 1960s and is being used recklessly once again by those criticizing the Bush regime. His argument suggests that fascism is a historically specific movement whose ideology cannot be applied to contexts outside of the conditions in which it emerged. In short, Traub implies that any suggestion that the United States is becoming a fascist state is simply preposterous. Traub, like Soros, believes that whatever problems the United States faces have nothing to do with a growing authoritarianism. On the contrary, according to this view, we are simply witnessing the seizure of power by some extremists, who not only represent a form of political exceptionalism and an annoying growth on the body politic but also have little to do with the real values that constitute the meaning of American democracy and national identity. Traub, in particular, like most of the dominant media in the United States, has no sense of either degrees and gradations of authoritarianism or fascism as an ideology that can always reconstitute itself in different ideas, practices, and arguments. Instead, he clings to both a reductive understanding of fascism and a simplistic binary logic that strictly categorizes a country...

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