George Bush, Apocalypse Sometime Soon, and the American Imperium

Abstract

Under the sign of the Stars and Stripes, the war against terrorism unchains the attack dogs of the New World Order in defense of civilization. In the pro- cess, the United States has crossed the threshold of militant authoritarianism and goose-stepped onto the global balcony of neofascism, befouling the Con- stitution along the way. As long as the nation keeps cheering, and Bush's impish jaw juts ever forward, the stench goes unnoticed. Among the Bush administration, there is a concerted effort to meld political rhetoric and apocalyptic discourse as part of a larger politics of fear and para- noia. Like a priest of the black arts, Bush has successfully disinterred the rem- nants of Ronald Reagan's millennarian rhetoric from the graveyard of chiliastic fantasies, appropriated it for his own interests, and played it in public like a charm. Self-fashioning one's image through the use of messianic and millenar- ian tropes works best on the intended audience (in this case, the American pub- lic) when the performance is disabused of shrillness, appears uncompromising, and remains unrestrained, confident, anagogic, and sometimes allegorical. Fas- cist plain speak is a discursive rendering that is straightforward and unapolo- getic and, like an iceberg, does most of the damage beneath the surface. Bush's handlers are masters of the fascist spin, and Bush is a perfect candidate because he hardly needs any ideological persuasion to get on board the fascist band- wagon. He is the perfect host for collapsing the distinction between religious authoritarianism and politics. Bush's defense of the war on terrorism works largely through archetypal association and operates in the crucible of the struc- tural unconscious. Bush may believe that Providence has assigned him the arduous yet glorious task of rescuing America from the satanic forces of evil, as if he, himself, were the embodiment of the generalized will and the unalloyed spirit of the American people. Evoking the role of the divine prophet who iden- tifies with the sword arm of divine retribution, Bush reveals the eschatological undertow to the war on terrorism, perhaps most evident in his totalizing and Manichean pronouncements where he likens bin Laden and his al Quaeda chthonic warriors to absolute evil and the United States to the apogee of free- dom and goodness.