On this day in 1967, the founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated. What I find interesting about him is that he was a conservative. I understand: there have been some liberal loons as well. But Rockwell worked for National Review. As I discussed early this month, The Fascism of National Review, the magazine has a long love affair with the vile movement. The magazine wasn’t pro-Nazi, of course. They weren’t idiots. But it was quite fond of the Italian and Spanish forms of fascism.
This is undoubtedly why Rockwell found the conservative movement wanting. It wasn’t willing to stand up for what he felt it really represented. And I have to say: I think Rockwell was right. I think that the conservative movement in the United States is fascist, and that the only reason it isn’t explicit about it is because of World War II. But if you look at what conservatives actually believe: the fetishizing of strength and hierarchy and purity, it’s all fascism.
Maybe if Donald Trump manages to win the Republican presidential nomination, the party can finally admit to what it is. And maybe they can create a George Lincoln Rockwell Day. Today would be a good day, because there aren’t any real holidays in August. And it would be a whole lot more honest for the Republicans to pay tribute to Rockwell than to Reagan.
I think you have hit on something important. Today’s Republican’s seem to be afraid of immigrants; legal or illegal as they don’t want the white race to be diluted. Also didn’t Mussolini define fascism as the merger of government and the corporations?
That certainly is what fascism is: institutionalized crony capitalism.