Why Are Americans Embracing Fascism?
Desperately seeking 'daddy'
To understand why people are embracing fascism in America, one must understand why certain groups are receptive to fascist ideals.
Bottom line: many Americans are disenfranchised.
While highlighted by hatred and control, fascism is ultimately a consequence of economic decline, often caused by resource scarcity. It's a form of collapse that has repeated throughout time as once-thriving empires slowly deteriorate.
Historical periods of economic collapse and the rise of fascism appear in different dress, but the causes and effects often repeat. Western society is experiencing this today.
Many Americans today feel left behind, as economic growth has become more unequal, often favoring coastal industries (e.g. finance) at the expense of others (e.g. manufacturing). Americans are aware of this growing divide, but the disenfranchised don't necessarily understand why it's happening. For this reason, they seek a father figure and cling to the easy-to-blame causes - outsiders, progressive policies, unseen enemies. But who or what is the real cause of their rising despair?
Throughout much of the 21st century, a convergence of changes are removing supports for a significant portion of the Western middle class.
Arguably, the middle class segment of a population is inherently unstable. It is an unnatural equilibrium enabled by unusual exogenous forces. Without these exogenous forces, the natural tendency is a form of feudalism, where power and wealth is consolidated.
During our feudalistic history, there were the owners of land and capital, and labor with few in-between. Often, "labor" took the form of indentured servitude or slavery. The vast majority lived a hand-to-mouth life.
The discovery of oil changed all that. Oil - an exogenous force - provided humanity a surplus of extremely inexpensive energy with endless use cases.
According to Nate Hagens, a barrel of oil represents 25,000 hours of human labor.
One barrel of oil has the same amount of energy of up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, which is 12.5 years of work. At $20 per hour, this is $500,000 of labor per barrel. The average American consumes over twenty-five barrels per year. So each of us has a huge subsidy of energy behind the scenes that we often take for granted.
So much wealth was created that societies could fund new social services (healthcare, welfare) and add an 'administrator' tranche to labor, which effectively helped create the middle class. Concurrently, blue collar labor required to build highly profitable oil-related products could now negotiate better terms for their inputs.
Essentially humanity received a massive shot of adrenaline from fossil fuels. Suddenly, we could achieve things otherwise impossible. Every innovation became a new way to inexpensively convert energy into goods or services.
With so much work equivalent available at such a low price, humanity was able to produce much more than it could under normal circumstances. This surplus meant more of everything to go around, including good jobs and money. Money means security during all phases of life. With more to go around - a bigger pie - the working class could be elevated into higher income brackets.
I'm oversimplifying our history, but this is the general narrative for many societies during the 20th century. Perhaps since the industrial revolution.
However, things have changed. Over the past couple decades oil has become increasingly difficult and costly to find and produce. The ROI of energy in both financial and physical (EROEI - Energy Return on Energy Invested) terms is declining.
Sarah Connor
The tide that once lifted all boats is now falling. None of this is visible to the naked eye, yet many have felt the effects. Just as it was a slow process to build the middle class, so too is the deterioration.
Couple this trend with offshoring of production and technological labor replacement and you're left with a growing hole where solid middle class jobs once existed.
Humans are unable to think on these timescales so often fail to thread together the seemingly unrelated patches. This makes us vulnerable to easy explanations and those in power take advantage of this. The average Middle-America blue collar worker feels the symptoms but doesn't recognize the cause, making them susceptible to classic forms fascist manipulation:
- Fear and uncertainty
- Nationalism
- Appeal of traditional values
- Chaos, disorder and division
- False promises
Why do politicians and corporations tell these lies? Why not tell the truth and just fix the problem?
First of all, people don't want to learn the details. People go through life not understanding what's going on with their health, finances, societies, etc. It's far easier to cling to a political soundbite they can easily repeat. Politicians are measured by election cycles - appealing soundbites win elections.
Second, the politicians and corporations are responsible for making the economic disparity worse. US labor was automated and shipped offshore in the name of profits. Shareholders gained at the expense of blue collar workers. Power has consolidating into the hands of the elites, so why would they do anything but exacerbate the trend? In doing so, they leverage the problems into a form of authoritarianism.
Unless you control the media, there isn't much that can be done to prevent the uninformed from soaking up misinformation, especially if it permits them to proudly wear their biases. Unfortunately for all, authoritarian societies tend to end poorly.
