A Newsletter With An Eye On Political Media from The American Prospect
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌


View this email in your browser
<[link removed]>

A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

On the Roots of Fascism

Is it belief in an ideology that creates fascists, or is it the
permission to become a thug?

**** Before January 6, 2021, liberals and historians argued about
whether it was appropriate to apply the label of "fascism" to
describe the MAGA movement. A number of factors led to many people's
reluctance. One was the promiscuous misuse of the term on the left in
past years to apply to phenomena as disparate as McCarthyism, the
Vietnam War, and instances of local police brutality. Another is that
most journalists don't like to think about anything beyond the story
they plan to report that day, or that week, and so are loath to imagine
the connections between them. A third is that it's not a nice thing to
call a person, and reporters may need to go back to their sources, that
person included, the next day for more quotes and "tick-tock," and
an accurate assessment of that person's views in this respect is
counterproductive. Then there's the apparently partisan nature of such
labeling. It's so much better to worry about "the polarization
problem" caused by "both sides." Finally, there is the problem
that the word conjures up Nazi rallies, Mussolini marches, and at least
a semi-coherent ideology.

It's this last problem that struck me recently while sitting in New
York's Film Forum to see a new 4K print of Bernardo Bertolucci's
1970 masterpiece The Conformist <[link removed]>.
It's not the ideology that attracts people to fascism. It's the
permission it offers to ordinary people to behave like thugs. The hero
of Bertolucci's film, Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant), has no
ideological beliefs. He deeply admires his old professor, a Communist,
whose murder he arranges simply because it's what needs to be done to
retain the position he's reached in life. He is followed by fellow
Fascists who don't trust him to do what he has promised to do, but
they could be goons of any stripe. No one in the movie, save the
Communist professor and his wife-who has affairs with both Marcello
and his wife-says anything of substance at all. Well, perhaps one
character does: the Fascist general who briefly appears to observe,
"Some people collaborate with us out of fear, some out of money, some
out of faith in fascism."

Yes, Bertolucci connects his hero's alienation to the fact that rather
than be raped as a young boy, he murdered the would-be rapist. At the
film's end, after Mussolini and the Fascists have fallen, he heads off
for what will presumably be a sexual encounter with a male street
urchin, having abandoned his beautiful but pea-brained wife and helped
to murder the two people he most loved and admired; in other words,
whatever works.

Think about it. Does Donald Trump believe in anything at all? Does Kevin
McCarthy? Do the lunatics who tortured McCarthy
<[link removed]>
through 15 ballots? Was their fight about political ideology
<[link removed]>?
Is it just a coincidence that prominent Republicans have recently
included in their ranks a child molester who was Speaker of the House,
people who traffic in underage girls, and serial adulterers
<[link removed]>
who preach Old Testament morality to the rest of us? And what about all
of the people who were either on the Trump 2016 campaign, or worked in
his administration, and also turned out to be criminals
<[link removed]>?
(I almost forgot this one
<[link removed]>.)
What about the newest and perhaps most appropriate symbol of the
Republican Party, George Santos
<[link removed]>?
Then there's Trump himself
<[link removed]>.
Need I say more?

These people don't believe in anything save satisfying their own
twisted needs and deploying whatever power available to them to
defenestrate the people who stand in their way. That's the essence of
American fascism, and you can see it on display literally every day at
the center of our political life, even if it's impolite to say so. You
don't need the folks at the Claremont Institute, the Heritage
Foundation, or National Review to come up with sophisticated ways to
justify it. Trump's followers get it. When will the mainstream media?

[link removed]

Speaking of Trumpism's contempt for the truth, Mark Edmundson has an
interesting argument to make about the role played by
pragmatism-especially as practiced by his late friend (and I am proud
to say mine as well) the great philosopher Richard Rorty-in paving its
path, in an essay he calls "Trump Takes a Vacation: Trumpism and the
American Philosophical Tradition
<[link removed]>,"
in this month's Harper's.

And Fintan O'Toole's forensic analysis of Trump's attempted coup
and its implications for the future in The New York Review
<[link removed]>
is the among the best I've seen.

Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner also have some interesting points to
make, and even if one disagrees, some useful data to offer, in their
essay entitled "Seven Theses on American Politics
<[link removed]>,"
in the current New Left Review.

And if you've not kept up with the Marxist academic hard left in
recent years, may I recommend this essay in the current issue of Monthly
Review entitled "Marx's Critique of Enlightenment Humanism: A
Revolutionary Ecological Perspective
<[link removed]>,"
by John Bellamy Foster. It's as interesting as it is demanding, which,
as both Bananarama and Fun Boy Three would say, "is really saying
something
<[link removed]>."
Next time you hear someone refer to Bernie Sanders or AOC-or, God
forbid, The New York Times-as "far left," remember what you read
here. (Both articles have really valuable footnotes by the way. If you
find yourself lost in the text, scroll to the end.)

Oh, and by the way, here
<[link removed]>
is an early strong entry for Worst NYT Headline of the Year: Focus on
the word "fixing." In this Times story
<[link removed]>,
meanwhile, we note that the New York state Senate "lurched" to the
left while its Court of Appeals has merely "shifted" to the right.
That doggone liberal media strikes again! (h/t Rob Rakove)

****

There's a lot to be alarmed about with regard to Israel's new
nightmare of a government
<[link removed]>.
Among its victims-albeit far from the most significant-may be a
jewel of Israeli (and world Jewish) culture, Israel's film industry.
Israel's new culture minister says "He Won't Fund the 'Enemy's
Narrative.'" For instance, Haaretz reports
<[link removed]>
that "Miki Zohar ordered his ministry on Tuesday to look into slashing
funding for the film 'Two Kids a Day," which deals with detention of
Palestinian minors in the West Bank, on the grounds that it
'tarnishes' Israel's image." (Note to Zohar: Maybe it's the
detention, and not the movie, that does the tarnishing ...) He promises
that under his leadership, "the government will not fund art that he
determines might harm Israel's good name
<[link removed]>
both in Israel and around the world." In other words, the culture
ministry is now the propaganda ministry. (I have always felt that one of
the many self-defeating aspects of the BDS movement has been its
insistence on boycotting the Israeli culture industry: the very people
who care most-together with its scholars-about the fate of the
Palestinians and are able to make their voices heard.)

This announcement comes, coincidentally, during the launch of the New
York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center
<[link removed]>.
Before writing this, I was able to see two films that were made in
Israel, in cooperation with other nations. America
<[link removed]> is a
collaboration with the film industries of Germany and the Czech
Republic. Written and directed by Ofir Raul Graizer, who made The
Cakemaker, it's a lovely, small story about how a group of people-a
fiancée, parents, a close-but-estranged friend-deal with the
complications that arise from a potentially life-threatening accident
that harms someone they all love. It's incredibly sensitive and
knowing and draws one-as did The Cakemaker-into a story that is
simultaneously Israeli and universal. It also contains a moment of
unguarded racism directed toward a Jewish Israeli woman of
color-something that under the new regime might cost it its funding. I
also saw June Zero, a marvelously offbeat and humanistic look at,
believe it or not, the 1961 imprisonment and killing of Adolf Eichmann.
Based on allegedly true but unproven accounts, it puts a 13-year-old
Jewish Libyan immigrant at the center of the story, together with
Eichmann's Moroccan prison guard, a Polish Holocaust survivor, and a
former Jewish terrorist who is looking forward to cremating him.

****

In We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel
<[link removed]>
news, here
<[link removed]>'s
an interview I did for the Puffin Foundation that aired last week, and
here
<[link removed]>
is a review by my interviewer, Joseph Chuman, posted by the New York
Society for Ethical Culture. He calls it "meticulously researched,
honestly presented, lucidly elaborated, and eminently readable."

Still nothing from a single U.S. newspaper or magazine, alas, save The
New Yorker <[link removed]>. Feel free to
post your favorite conspiracy theories. Lord knows, I have mine ...

Also, I will be talking to Professor David Kraemer of the Jewish
Theological Society on Tuesday, February 7, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Eastern about the book as part of its "Between the Lines: Author
Conversations from The Library of JTS" series. Feel free to join us by
signing up here
<[link removed]>.

Finally, here are a few songs I've been saving just to improve our
day.

* Dion doing "Runaround Sue <[link removed]>"

* The Righteous Brothers doing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin,'
<[link removed]>" and "Unchained Melody
<[link removed]>"

* John Fred & His Playboy Band doing (what else?) "Judy in Disguise
<[link removed]>"

* A 1965 medley <[link removed]>
from Marvin Gaye and Tina Turner from Shindig!

And finally, finally: My birthday is this coming Saturday and, as I do
every year, I've created a Facebook fundraiser. (This is one of the
few not-terrible things about Facebook.) This year, I chose the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society <[link removed]> (HIAS), and if you feel so
moved, you are more than welcome to contribute here
<[link removed]>.

See you next week.

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Become A Member of The American Prospect Today!
<[link removed]>

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 12 books, most
recently

**We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel** (Basic
Books, November 2022). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal
Media" column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman
<[link removed]>

CLICK TO SHARE THIS NEWSLETTER:

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe.

 

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here.

Copyright (c) 2023 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States