A Dumb Thing Walter Said

What a pleasant day I was having until an ugly thought wormed its way back to my mind.

I was working on some fiction, a badly-needed makeover of my next novel. I took in stride the bad news about our cracked chimney, grateful for the daredevil who cleaned our gutters and spotted the fissures. I got in a solid run on this windy fall day. Even voting for the Virginia governor proved a joy: good company, no line, and an overwhelming desire to thank all the candidates for their courage to run rather than denigrate those I oppose.

It can’t be easy, identifying with a party that genuflects to authority.

And there it was, that creeping word, with brothers and sisters like fascism and authoritarianism, the words that brought the worms of yesterday back to mind.

I couldn’t address the issue then because I was out for a run, capping another beautiful fall afternoon and lunch with friends in DC, thanks to Chef Jose Andres for honoring federal workers and retirees with discounted meals while the workforce suffers without pay during this ever-lengthening government shut-down.*

America This Week

During the run I listened to Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn on America This Week. If you check out the podcast, don’t believe everything you hear. For instance, the worm:

Kirn correctly points out the annoying tendency of left-leaning protestors to sing-song their viewpoint as a chant. Meanwhile fascist-leaning protestors, he suggests, sing grand-sounding, Fatherland songs, imitating perhaps Horst Wessel Lied.

Of fascist protests Taibbi says, “I haven’t seen enough of those, I guess. I’m so used to the “This is what democracy looks like,” variety.” Kirn agrees.

Matt, you’re right when you said I don’t know what a fascist or right-wing protest sounds like. Because there are so few and not in this country at least, and they’re so few and far between that their cliches and tropes are hard to identify.

-Walter Kirn

He continues: The last real spate of them I remember was pre-COVID in other countries, like the yellow vests in France or you know they’ve now had a few anti-immigration protests in England but it has yet to come to America in any mass form. They have rallies for their politicians or for the late Charlie Kirk or whatever it might be, but streaming through the streets is not something see them do a lot.

I guess old Walter’s forgotten the indelible images of January 6, 2021. I guess he doesn’t remember the Unite the Right movement and tiki-torch march in Charlottesville in August 2017, when hundreds of extremists on the right protested the planned removal of a statue of secessionist Robert E. Lee.

The hallmark of these events, the cliches and tropes? Racist, antisemitic rhetoric. Violent and deadly clashes with counter-protestors. Violence against law enforcement. Death, destruction of national property, arrests and trials and convictions. And, of course–pardons.

Pardons, which reinforce guilt rather than exonerate it.

I guess Walter is correct on one point: these events are few and far between. That’s probably because most Americans hate and oppose fascists and fascism. So the fascists know well enough to lurk and troll online rather than march through the streets.

And when they do, they wear masks and vests while hunting the huddled and disenfranchised. Including American citizens.

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*I plan to seek a refund come April 15^th, and so should you.