It Wasn’t the Economy, Stupid
Published at 09:17 on 19 November 2024
One reason conspicuously absent from my postmortem is the economy. This is not an oversight. I do not believe the economy to be a significant root cause.
Oh, it’s a proximate cause, all right. Many voters cited the economy as a reason for voting for fascism.
However, if you look at the economic statistics, it becomes clear that the economy really isn’t all that bad by US historical or world comparative standards. Sure, it could be better for the working class. It always could be. But abnormally bad? Let’s-give-fascism-a-whirl bad? No, not by global historical standards.
The USA is actually doing better economically post-COVID than pretty much all of the rest of the developed world, yet it stands alone as undergoing a transition to fascism in that time.
Compare the USA with other countries that have historically gone fascist, and the comparison is even more stark. There is none of the extreme economic distress that preceded fascism in Germany, Italy, Spain, or Chile. An inflation rate that peaks at 8% per year? Try inflation in the thousands or millions or billions percent per month. Unemployment of 4%? That’s nothing. Try an unemployment rate of 25% or worse.
To reiterate, things could certainly be better in the USA. It’s a terribly inegalitarian society. Yet Trump was saying basically nothing about economic inequality. It was all about fear-mongering and grievance-stoking.
The USA stands alone, in a tiny circle of exceptional shame containing but a single nation, in going fascist after experiencing such minor economic issues.
The USA also stands in a slightly larger but still very small circle of shame in having gone fascist via popular vote: Hitler never got more than about ⅓ the vote in Germany and was appointed to the post of chancellor by the president, Mussolini likewise was appointed and not elected, Franco staged a coup and the Spaniards then fought a civil war to try and prevent their transition, Pinochet also got in via a coup, etc. Russia and Hungary have, in more recent times, gone fascist via popular vote, but again, their economies were significantly worse off.
The economy simply can’t explain it. What can help explain it is a morally compromised political culture, one compromised enough to be so accepting of fascist values that fascism seemed like a reasonable answer to what are, by any reasonable comparative standards, some relatively minor issues.
Which is why my postmortem mentions moral decline and not the economy.