Why Some Long for a King to Rule Them

Body and Soul

In the middle of the Second World War, taking the idea from stickers affixed to American factory machines used to manufacture weapons, folk singer Woodie Guthrie wrote on his guitar “This machine kills fascists.” At the end of the war, it appeared fascism had been dealt a fatal blow, but like a phoenix it eats the fire of its own demise and resurrects from the ashes. A vampire can be undone by a stake through the heart, a werewolf via a silver bullet, and zombies need only a head shot. Alas, you cannot kill an idea, even a shitty one, because shitty people will always see fascism as a permanent temptation.

The world is rife with hierarchies motivated by status and greed; the rise of stable liberal democracies was a slow process as various players found a delicate balance of power that endeavors to keep autocracy at bay. Ancient hunter-gatherers, by and large, had the most equitable of societies, and liberal democracy is the closest thing humans have created to restore such equality, with an added benefit of not being limited to a life expectancy of less than thirty. Liberal democracy is fragile because it must overcome our inherently tribal nature, and because it acts as a check on power, thus those with influence to wield use it to undermine such controls. This mode of governance requires constant compromise, creating a somewhat functional and occasionally gridlocked equilibrium that focuses on short-termism, making it a constant challenge to get shit done. In limiting autocracy, it is forced to slow progress. It only prevails in some societies because it’s been shown most people want governments that respect their freedom and their rights and are willing to fight for such things. Liberal democracy survives despite it being permeated by consumerism and materialism, lack of community and shared purpose, faithlessness and restlessness, social unrest and political divisiveness, disenchantment and decadence.

Regardless of such brittleness, it does seem to work in that the freer a country, the more efficient it is at levying taxes and providing services. Democracy developed slowly not so much because peasants rebelled, but on account of elites gradually giving in, offering a slow trickle of privileges as the most logical path to maintain their own wealth and power. And while capitalism contributed to increasing freedoms in some states, capitalism and democracy are not allies. Rather, their natural state is to be at odds with each other. The lofty goal of democracy is to put people before profits, caring over corporations. An authoritarian government that doesn’t care over the needs of the populace can be a better ally for the unethical capitalist when the right to exploitation is only a bribe away. Free markets don’t necessarily equate to free people. The horrific crimes of the British and Dutch East India Companies provide ample evidence of what corporations are capable of when their home countries allow them to run amok. Robber barons of old have been replaced by billionaire technocrats seeking to destroy the guardrails of liberal democracies that prevent them from ravaging people and planet in the pursuit of ever more profit. The reason why billionaires get away with paying so few taxes is because they can. Having little use for it, they’d like to weaken democracy even further by creating a kind of corporate feudalism, a monarchy of the wealthy.

Wealthy liberal democracies tend to get along, being reluctant to make war against each other. They’re also less prone to internal rebellion. The same does not apply to poorer democracies, however, as the comforts of successful capitalism contain a powerful placating effect that discourage violence. Why fight when you can watch Netflix, eat KFC, and drive a V8 sport utility vehicle? Unless the fight is against the less developed to expand your consumption. The United States has a long history of violent foreign intervention for the sake of protecting its financial interests. Teddy Roosevelt encouraged overseas military adventures for the purpose of expanding markets, and the primary battles of the Cold War were fighting for control over the developing world. The United States wasn’t terribly interested in promoting liberal democracy around the world so much as it was willing to ally itself with anyone who wasn’t communist. As one example, in 1944 there was a popular uprising in Guatemala to overthrow the oppressive tyrant Jorge Ubico, replacing him with a democratically elected president who was a pretty decent guy. Ubico’s lips had been firmly affixed to the ass of the American-owned United Fruit Company, making him appealing to the United States despite his atrocities. Juan José Arévalo took power in a mostly free election. He wasn’t perfect, but he did fund healthcare and education, and improved labor conditions. In 1951 he was succeeded as president by Jacobo Árbenz who gave unused land to landless peasants, and America said that looks like some commie bullshit to us and sent in the CIA. Lobbying by United Fruit played an influential role in the decision to intervene. They were all these commie pricks are making it hard for us to exploit Guatemalans so we can get bananas for cheap. Go fuck them up. And President Eisenhower said yeah commies suck I shall fuck them up. Why was America willing to help United Fruit? Allen Dulles, who headed the CIA, and his brother John, who was Secretary of State, had been on United Fruit’s payroll for almost four decades, so that might have played a small role. And while the Árbenz government was far from being communist, plenty of Americans see anything to the left of hunting homeless for sport as Marxism incarnate. And so, they helped install the military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas via a coup d’état, and for decades Guatemala was ruled by a succession of brutal military governments that maintained control via genocide of their own people.

That was far from the only time the United States went to war against democratic socialism, which they feared more than actual Soviet or Chinese-style communism. Communism in those and other nations was well known for its oppressive and autocratic nature and poor living standards, but when countries like Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, and Chile started democratically favoring improving the lives of their citizens at the cost of big business, America could not abide such heresy and helped install their own murderous tyrants. This was partially about strategic Cold War alliances against other nuclear powers, but a lot of it had to do with protecting corporate interests around the world.

Not all ideas are good ones, which is why conservatism persists. Resistance to change is biologically ingrained from hunter-gatherer times because life was lived on the edge of survival. Those who tried new shit willy nilly, ignoring the traditions that kept their people alive for millennia often didn’t survive long enough to procreate. Tradition is more than taking orders from dead people; they persist because they served an evolutionary purpose. New ideas needed to go through a gauntlet of opposition to prove their validity for the band’s continuation, because stability is easier to destroy than construct. Hence, reverence for traditions and idealizing the past is genetically ingrained. Conservatives aren’t stupid, but fascists tend to be at least willfully ignorant, if not outright dumb as fuck. Those who prefer far right hierarchical governance fear ambiguity, eschew analysis in favor of gut instinct, and while they’re capable of using reason, they’re not overly motivated to do so. More liberal-minded folks value reason, fairness, freedom, and caring for others. The more conservative types defer to loyalty, authority, and tradition. In an episode of The Simpsons the evil Sideshow Bob pontificates that “deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king!” And Bob was right; some people are so terrified of uncertainty they will give themselves over body and spirit to what they deem heroic leadership, embracing their own oppression. Of course, such a leader must be male, a virile father figure who will look after them in return for their obedience. Christians who voted for Trump didn’t care that he has five kids with three women or that he cheated on all his wives or even the multiple accusations of sexual assault against him. For them, it only reinforces how manly he is, which is why they’ll waste money buying electronic images of Trump represented as a buff superhero. Sexism is rampant in fascism and used as a recruiting tactic for unsuspecting young men even today. Some hormonal teenage boy googles “How do I get a girlfriend” and gets exposed to seemingly innocuous self-improvement videos that slowly warp him with tales of the “problem” with modern women and how feminism is “toxic.” Once they’ve been taught to despise an entire gender, they can be taught to hate anyone. And having targets of bigotry is central to fascism. People hunger for meaning and want to feel they are descended from greatness. Racism and sexism are things that satisfies this by helping them feel superior.

I’ll be live with the Superior Being GOD on The God Pod podcast this Thursday, June 12, at 2:00pm eastern. Join His Substack here.

The word “totalitarian” was coined by Mussolini as a portmanteau of total and authoritarian to describe his fascist rule over Italy, even though his control was far from absolute. He was the first person to transform a democracy into a dictatorship, and oppression of women was integral to his reign because fascism values the concept of a traditional family and hierarchical male power. One brave woman, an Irish aristocrat named Violet Gibson, said fuck your male power and attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926. While the fascist dictator was walking among a crowd in the Italian capital, she fired a pistol at his face, but he moved at the precise moment and the bullet merely grazed his nose. The gun then misfired and she was mobbed and almost lynched. The British negotiated Gibson’s release then locked her away in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. Nazis were similar in their views of women, seeing them as baby-makers for the next generation of Aryan soldiers, hampering their war effort in the process while western women were working in weapons factories and excelling as spies, and Soviet women were racking up countless kills as snipers and bomber pilots in biplanes. The latter was so feared by German soldiers they called them the Nachthexen—Night Witches.

Capitalism was integral to the explosion of slavery as an economic force in the last few centuries, giving rise to racism as a method of justification. In so doing, capitalism gave eventual birth to fascism, because corporations don’t give a shit about people, only profits, and fascist rulers are more inclined to be bought off to reduce regulations for their operations. And while fascism can appear good for the economy, it doesn’t often translate into an improved standard of living. In Nazi Germany unemployment was reduced, but the focus was on building tools of destruction rather than products for consumption, which didn’t make the average person’s life any better. Speaking of Nazis, to this day brainless invertebrates with an internet connection will proclaim them as socialist because “It’s right there in the name!” The reality is the name “National Socialism” was a marketing gimmick Hitler used to gain power by any means necessary, which included pretending to be socialist. Once his power was assured, he went about purging anyone not a dedicated fascist from the party.

The desire to belong is powerful, and fascism delivers. It remains dangerous to this day because it inspires and mobilizes, offsetting its inefficiencies resulting from fascism’s nepotism, partisanship, and lack of accountability. The leader is above the law because his followers feel he needs such unquestioned power to be able to properly protect them, a feeling he creates by filling them with fear of the other. That’s why so many MAGAts were thrilled when multiple-convicted felon Donald Trump posted shortly after beginning his second term: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Belonging is also created via such othering. If that group is inferior, it means you’re superior. People become mesmerized by the pomp and showmanship used to instill and amplify hatred. This is led by a perceived “strongman,” an allegedly masculine every man who is also considered an exceptional man. He appeals to a subset of people based on race, religion, conservative values, and misogyny. He represents himself as a “man of the people,” but only some people, and anyone who criticizes him is therefore an “enemy of the people.” Many of his followers offer their obedience in advance, even anticipating ways in which the leader would wish to dominate and thus teaching him what he can get away with. I think Dear Leader would appreciate me storming the Capitol Building and tasing my balls in the process. Sycophants and supporters are indentured to him via a combination of favoritism, complicity, and threats. He is unafraid of using violence against enemy and friend alike. Minority groups and the free press are maligned and terrorized, whereas the privileged ingroup is presented as the true victim, a group yearning for payback because life didn’t give them a pony. Education, expertise, and science are derided in favor of a return to “common sense.” Although a secular ideology, fascism can take on a religious tone via its rituals, messaging, and demanding people believe the unbelievable. Mass propaganda is easily swallowed and repeated. Facts no longer matter, only belief in the leader. In 1940 Germany’s pathologically antisemitic Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels created a ridiculously unbelievable film demonizing Jewish people called The Eternal Jew. It was so preposterous in its claims it baffles the mind how anyone could accept such nonsense. The thing is most didn’t believe it. That’s not the purpose of such propaganda. Rather, it acts as a loyalty test, and a signal. When you repeat the implausible, you announce to the group that you’re one of them, you can be trusted. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs.” Echoing bullshit is a badge of commitment to the cause, to the leader. Alas, these people cannot fathom dear leader cares not for them, but only himself. The nation becomes the ruler’s personal plaything; his desires are all that matter. Cowed by fear, elites sacrifice the masses to the authoritarian’s whims in exchange for retaining their privileges. Many fascist leaders come to power via military means, but several are elected by a cult-like following. The police and the faithful alike are weaponized against those who dare oppose the cult. The old are more likely to participate in fascism or remain compliant; they can become enamored with the leader’s glorification of the past, unduly nostalgic over the time of their vigorous youth. The young become the core of the resistance, having the most to lose as they see the strongman destroy their futures. And resistance is critical, because rarely do fascists voluntarily step down from power, instead needing to be forced out.

Back in 1940, science fiction author Robert Heinlein predicted America would elect a dictator in the early twenty-first century with his novella If This Goes On—. In it he explained the unifying power of shared hatreds, writing “You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Anyone can be captivated by the cult of a fascist ruler—forty per cent of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021 were business owners or white-collar workers—and a nation need not have a weak democracy to fall to a strongman bent on destroying it. Recent elections in the United States, Brazil, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, India, the Philippines, and Israel all resulted in fascists attaining power via divisive rhetoric that capitalized upon ethnic and racial grievances, real or imagined.

And yet, there is hope. In the wake of seeing Trump 2.0 immediately begin the destruction of American democracy, other nations such as Canada, Australia, and Romania, which had been leaning very conservative, all experienced liberal upsets in their elections as mass fuck you to the idea of Trump-style fascism invading their countries.

Those who cannot remember the past … need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.

And don’t forget about me being live on The God Pod podcast this Thursday, June 12, at 2pm eastern.