8 ACUMEN • SPRING 2024 centers on reactionary socio-cultural values and white supremacy. They also document how white supremacist values are central to the Trump base defending the Jan. 6 insurrection, despite academics, journalists and political officials in both major parties largely ignoring the threat of rising white nationalism. Their research details how people accept extremist ideology without seeing themselves as extremists. When surveyed, DiMaggio notes that the large majority of Republicans self-identify as conservatives, not as fascists or white nationalists, despite members of the party embracing Trump’s extremism. The culture of fascism has become a model embraced by MAGA politicians, and it does so in the name of American patriotism, DiMaggio says. This is more than a cause for alarm; it is a moment in which democracy, in its most fragile state, may be eliminated. An educated public is crucial to countering this movement. It speaks to people in ways that enable them to recognize themselves, recognize the issues being addressed and place the privatization of their troubles in a broader systemic context. Otherwise, there will be no shift in the far right’s use of violence, its language of dehumanization and its use of the state as an agent of force, indoctrination and conquest. POLITICAL SCIENCE FASCISM ON TRIAL For decades, American politics has become increasingly polarized. The Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault and the House select committee investigating that event cause some scholars to consider the future of American democracy. Political scientist Anthony DiMaggio has been analyzing research data and finds that white supremacist politics were a significant factor in fueling the Jan. 6 insurrection and are a sign of rising fascism in America. In his latest book, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy, DiMaggio, professor of political science, and co-author Henry Giroux, of McMaster University, examine the major aspects of fascism that increasingly permeate American politics relative to authoritarianism, the rise of anti-intellectualism and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and mass paranoia, the glorification of political street violence and state violence, rising white supremacy and the militarization of U.S. political discourse, led predominantly by Donald Trump and many of his supporters. The authors argue that fascism should be seen as a series of patterns that can be examined throughout American history. “This is a social movement that’s been building for decades because of not just Trump, but right-wing media— people like the late Rush Limbaugh and, to a lesser extent, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson,” DiMaggio says. “These people were normalizing his politics before Trump was doing this nationally. In the 2010s, they were normalizing right-wing bigotry, making it popular again, making it acceptable, and then Trump comes along and is really sort of the inheritor of that stuff.” DiMaggio and Giroux’s research challenges commonly held beliefs that Trumpism is primarily a function of economic insecurity within his base. Their studies document how support for the former president predominantly GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO BRIEFS Supporters of President Donald Trump storm the U.S. Capitol. Rush Limbaugh
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