A perspective often overlooked is how the widespread denial of the Gaza genocide, dominant in both liberal and conservative mainstream politics, seamlessly dovetails into the post-truth discursive landscape of the far right. Drawing from my observations on how fascists disguise their ideology to appear palatable through the use of targeted obscurantism, the actions of those advocating for genocide, including liberals, bear striking resemblance to fascist tactics.

Obfuscation of fascism has long been a method employed by fascists to normalize their values. By promoting inane and contradictory views that mystify the nature of fascism and its core principles, they seek to confuse and deceive.

Let it be clear: fascism is palingenetic ultranationalism, an aggressive form of nationalism that yearns and strives toward a return to a mythic past in which all of the traditionalist values of the culture in question triumph over the “degeneracy” they believe to be corrupting their formerly perfect world. A violent “national rebirth.”

While there exist numerous permutations, such as Collapsist neo-Nazi accelerationists, white supremacist Back to the Landers, or mass-based populism, fascism remains a specific far-right political ideology. At its core is a cruel desire to constrict social care by shrinking it to be confined to arbitrary collectivist abstractions such as the nation, the family, the community, race, and so on. It seeks to deepen traditional social hierarchies and relations of domination, including patriarchy, compelled cisheteronormativity, and white supremacy, while striving to naturalize these systems. It aims to Otherize and attack all who threaten or complicate this paradigm.

Fascism is the ultimate ideology of power. The belief in a zero-sum world of winners and losers where personal strength is fetishized and weakness is derided.

The parallels between the denialism of genocide in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza by both liberals and conservatives and the tactics of fascists to obscure and normalize fascism are striking. 

“What even defines genocide anymore? The term is thrown around so casually.” / “They label anyone they disagree with as fascists!”

“Hamas are the ones deserving of anger; they’re terrorists.” / “Antifascists are the real fascists!”

This includes attempts to blur the distinct and well-defined parameters that delineate genocide and fascism.

Much like Fascism, genocide is a specific thing.

From the legal definition:

“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

What’s crucial is the intent behind these acts and the occurrence of at least one of them; the scope of genocide extends beyond Nazi Germany’s death camps and the Holocaust.

Numerous genocide scholars and experts in humanitarian law worldwide have been asserting for months that Israel’s actions in Palestine are a textbook case of genocide. If you’re questioning intent, consider viewing this video:
https://youtu.be/NZXxYc4lWQU?si=rOFtf41NqjB2KRbe

To bring it all home, the denial of genocide by the liberal establishment at large, coupled with the pressure from some on the liberal-left to unequivocally support Biden in the upcoming election or be deemed as supporting Trump, is indicative of a substantial shift to the political right.

In my view, the Democratic party appears to be embracing elements of populist right-wing authoritarianism, albeit masked in co-opted bastardizations of social justice theory (“Blue MAGA”), while the GOP steadily moves closer to embodying actual fascism.

How can one honestly consider refusing to vote for a war criminal (Biden) is equivalent to a vote for Trump yet simultaneously believe their vote for Biden is not a vote for genocide?

The cognitive dissonance among electoralist ideologues, who fervently believe in the power of the vote to combat rising fascism, seems to be forcing the politics-as-usual crowd toward peering into the shadowy corners where the brutal nature of this political system lingers; for one to gain a glimpse of this reality only to hurriedly compartmentalize away the barbarousness and carry on as usual is tantamount to embracing its cruelty.

The social and political tension we now see and feel ripping through the fabric of polite society is the direct result of long-standing hypocrisies and contradictions in values being laid bare. Fascism beckons, advocating the embrace of cruelty, while the neoliberal political establishment enables it, urging us to turn a blind eye. Yet, one need not acquiesce to these ethically reprehensible options; alternatives exist.