President Biden’s reckless, unfounded, and hypocritical declaration that the majority of the Republican Party are “semi-fascists” leaves me wondering whether he understands what fascism entails. It would behoove Biden to cease making these assertions, considering his regime embodies fascism to a greater extent than any administration in living memory; he certainly looked the part during his September 1 speech outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
Despite what many on the political left believe, fascism and socialism share substantial commonality, uniting around centralized economic planning, collectivism over individual rights, and totalitarian ideological control over society. Essentially, fascism can be considered a more effective and advanced form of socialism. Giovanni Gentile, the true author of the original fascist experiment in Italy who ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini, directly stated, “Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form.”
Fascism’s socialist roots are impossible to deny, with nearly every fascist leader hailing from a socialist background or drawing from socialist principles. While it may seem hyperbolic to some, we are closer to fascism in America than ever before. Despite exhortations to the contrary, it is the Biden administration that has led us to fascism’s doorstep, by embracing fascism’s fundamental components of state-managed corporatism and totalitarian subversion of all socio-political institutions.
Economically, the federal government has suborned or intervened upon the vast majority of private enterprise and free market competition. Through endless subsidies, regulations, preferential taxes and contracts, vastly increased government spending and welfare initiatives, unprecedented synergies between the White House and Wall Street financiers, and the consortium of public and private elites attempting to impose environmental, social, and governance scores over the entirety of our economic system, free market capitalism is under siege. If the Biden administration’s recent executive order intending to lay the groundwork for the issuance of a national central bank digital currency comes to fruition—which is likely to happen soon—economic freedom for every American citizen will be fundamentally altered, and eventually eradicated altogether.
Politically, the situation is equally dire. Though the judicial branch remains largely independent and maintains the only true check upon executive power—despite the Biden administration’s direct and indirect attempts to undermine its legitimacy—Congress has become, for all intents and purposes, a rubber-stamp entity for policies developed and pushed by the executive branch. Biden’s unilateral edicts have circumvented democratic processes at every juncture, using a vast array of bureaucratic regulatory authorities and executive actions to push green energy initiatives, hamper domestic energy production, encourage illegal immigration, enhance access to abortion, impose vaccine mandates, pause evictions, provide widespread student loan relief to wealthy households, and even ban menthol cigarettes, among many other policies. And, let us not forget his propagation of what may be the worst foreign policy nightmare in American history, in which Biden acted completely alone to hand Afghanistan back to the Taliban on a silver platter.
Moreover, ostensibly “independent” government institutions have been weaponized by the state. Few better examples exist than Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department, in which the FBI has transformed into the Stasi overnight. Though the FBI has never been a paragon of actual justice, it has gone off the rails under the Biden administration, with activities including the politically-motivated raid on Mar-a-Lago, the subpoenaing and arrests of Trump allies, the classification of parents protesting their children’s educational indoctrination as domestic terrorists, and the recently unearthed evidence that the FBI conducted approximately 3.4 million warrantless data searches on American citizens, to name only a few instances.
As for civil institutions, nearly all have become instruments or enablers of the state.
Our public schools have evolved into vehicles for progressive indoctrination of our nation’s children. Elementary school officials have intentionally hired teachers who push liberal ideas and transform children into Democratic voters. Students are being taught critical race theory and social and emotional learning, which often replaces basic curriculum staples such as math or science. Before reaching puberty, students are encouraged to examine their sexuality and change their gender identity; drag queens are being paraded in front of kindergartners. All of this is being pushed by school boards, teachers’ unions, and the top of the Democratic Party. The Biden administration is currently working to redefine “sex” in the Title IX rules to include “gender identity,” providing a precedent for the state—rather than parents—to become the primary caretakers of children. And, if parents express their displeasure and/or seek to simply understand what their children are being taught, they are labeled as domestic terrorists by the FBI.
Though the mainstream media (MSM) apparatus has long been a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, it has completely abandoned its journalistic responsibility and become a propaganda machine for the left. The Biden administration has reportedly held secret meetings with representatives from major news outlets to “reshape coverage” on deteriorating economic conditions, has worked with MSM to redevelop the traditional definition of a recession, and has paid “mainstream media companies to promote vaccines and suppress stories that could increase vaccine hesitancy.” Moreover, MSM has even ceased providing basic fact-checks on Biden administration officials.
Perhaps most concerning are the recent revelations of the Biden administration’s synergistic relationship with Big Tech. In August, Facebook (now Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerburg admitted on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that the FBI had pressured Facebook to suppress any information related to Hunter Biden’s business dealings with a Chinese energy conglomerate, which has substantial ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Considering polls suggest that approximately one in six Biden voters would have abstained from voting for Biden had they been privy to this information, and considering 45 percent of Biden voters had never once heard of the Hunter Biden laptop debacle, it is highly likely the FBI’s actions helped secure the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.
Following Zuckerberg’s revelation, the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri launched a wide-ranging investigation into the relationship between Biden’s administration and Big Tech. Their initial findings have been extraordinary. In addition to at least 32 federal officials identified by Meta, 45 federal officials hailing from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, State Department, Treasury Department, U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Food and Drug Administration, FBI, U.S. Census Bureau, and even the White House itself, directly colluded with Big Tech executives to censor what they unilaterally deemed to be misinformation.
It’s time to wake up and face the facts. Though America has been creeping towards authoritarianism for decades as executive power has consistently expanded—with no administration blameless—it is the Biden administration that presents the most clear and present danger to free markets, the distinction between public and private enterprise, the rule of law, freedom of expression, individual liberties, and our institutionalized democratic traditions. It is Biden, rather than a majority of Republican voters, who is spearheading a uniquely American brand of fascism.
(Lightly edited from original publication in the Washington Times)
Jack McPherrin ([email protected]) is a managing editor of StoppingSocialism.com, research editor for The Heartland Institute, and a research fellow for Heartland's Socialism Research Center. He holds an MA in International Affairs from Loyola University-Chicago, and a dual BA in Economics and History from Boston College.
