Fair enough. However, fascism is not an outcome of an ideology (ideas by themselves cannot do jack shit, no matter how attractive or repulsive they are) but a certain constellation of material and organizational resources. Fascism requires, inter alia, and effective and centralized government control of most aspects of economic and political life in a country and that condition simply does not obtain here. Our political central nervous system is too weak to be an effective vehicle for fascism.
But that does not mean that fascist tendencies in this country's business elite and its Repug lackays do not exist. It is like tobacco smoking - smokers with a healthy immune system may not develop a full blown cancer, but it does not mean that smoking is not carcinogenic.
>The liberals' attempts to
> demonize Republican
> centrist candidates during the last election,
That statement alone indicates how far to the right the political spectrum in this country is skewed. By most international standards (e.g. Europe and Canada) Repugs are far to the right - but they pass for moderates here.
>and Bush who's the most
> pathetic right-winger I've seen, are just that-- paranoid
> demonizations based
> on emotion rather than logic, with the aim of raking in votes for the
> Democratic party, and defusing the remaining hold-out of
> labor/workers'
> interests in this country. The failure of this strategy,
> undertaken from the
> top of the DNC all the way down, hopefully shows that many
> folks don't buy
> it. Maybe that's a little too hopeful-- hard to tell.
You are probably right in your characterization of much of the so-called progressive discourse in this country - it looks like shamless vote/support grabbing by shallow emotional appeals rather than proposing a coherent weltanschauung and a political strategy.
But that is symptomatic of a significant social political shift that has taken place in this country - a diversification of social, political, and economic interest to the point that they do not fit the truly antiquated electoral system in this country (majoritarian bi-partisanship). Democrats are truly struggling with balancing the diverse intersts withing their own party, which weakens them politically. The Repugsmay be a bit better in maintaing party discipline, thanks to the enormous power of big business and authoritarian inclinations of many of their supporters - but they face a very similar problem - growing diversification of interests. And that problem will be getting even worse, not better.
Europeans have resolved this problem by proportional representation system. While this system is not perfect, and faces a serious legitimation crisis, thanks in part to the juggernaut of corporate power and influence, but it is much more flexible in represing diverse interests than the antiquated majoritarian bi-partisanship in the US. I think that the best hope for progressives is not resuscitation of the ailing Democratic party, but replacing the current system with PR. The current system may persist for a while, thanks mainly to the enormous power of big business which benefits from the status quo, but the Repugs will face the same representation crisis from their various constituencies as well, hence a hope for a change.
Although I am a strong institutionalist in my understand of social behavior - I think that the current institutional makeup of US politics is too much of the integument for effective political representation and sooner or later will burst asunder.
Wojtek