An American Fascism?

Abstract

At a moment when the Barack Obama presidency has raised popular hopes for democratic renewal and social change in the United States, it might be worth consulting deeper historical trends that point toward more sober assessments. Looking at the ever-growing concentration of government, corporate, military, and media power in American society—the focus of previous chapters—a pressing question arises: can any political leadership or social force, however noble its intentions, provide a counterweight to the immense variety of antidemocratic trends at work? Put differently, are conditions favoring an authoritarian outcome now so daunting as to be irreversible, at least within parameters of the existing system? In a political order shaped by thriving democratic participation, such questions would seem meaningless since popular mandates for change would presumably be taken seriously. But in a far less vibrant and open system, with citizen involvement episodic and generally limited, these concerns take on a sense of immediacy, all the more so in the wake of Obama’s historic rise to the White House. If so, then time-honored assumptions at the center of American public discourse—beginning with “democracy” and “free markets”—ought to be critically engaged, as I have done in this book.