Ron DeSantis and the Third Wave of American Fascism

How DeSantis is the Evolution of American Fascism to a New Level of Hate and Violence

Image Credit: Carlos Barria

By now, if you’re a sane and thoughtful person, on the side of democracy, you’re probably a little worried. About a fellow called Ron DeSantis. He’s emerged as the GOP frontrunner for President, currently beating out even Trump, causing him to go into an enraged commotion. Why, exactly, is DeSantis so troubling, though? I’m going to suggest that he’s the spearhead of the Third Wave of American Fascism.

I’ll explain, after a bit of context. Some things DeSantis has done recently. Made it illegal to say the word “gay” to kids at school. Insinuated that teachers who do teach kids that, yes, there are LGTBQ people…are “groomers.” Criminalized teaching…Black history…to kids. Demanding detailed personal info about the sexual orientation and gender of kids…at universities. Signed bills so extreme that in response, counties are banning all the books in classrooms. Threatened teachers with criminal charges — making them felons — for crossing these new, perverse lines.

What’s going on here? The Third Wave of American Fascism. That’s why DeSantis is so troubling. He represents a new, sharper, more aggressive and potent approach than even Trump in his heyday. But I’ll come to that. First, the waves. The First Wave of American Fascism you can think of as the America that the Nazis studied intently, admiringly, to seek to learn how to subjugate and enslave and annihilate the Jews, and others they regarded as subhuman. Not coincidentally, including all the parties DeSantis seems to hate above. The Second Wave of American Fascism was Trumpism. And yes, you can argue that there was a wave in between — as Ken Burns’ excellent new America and the Holocaust documentary has, that America had its own groups on the side of the fascists even then. Still, for simplicity’s sake, let’s stick here to to the two most noticeable waves.

Trumpism was the Second Wave of American Fascism. All fascism consists of three elements. A) A stagnant economy, where middle and working classes are plunging into poverty. B) A series of Big Lies, which C) scapegoat already hated minorities, usually at the bottom of social ladders of power, for the woes of the pure and true. All that was true in America by the Trumpist years. America’s economy had stagnated, in real terms, in terms of average incomes, since the 1970s. Trump emerged, as if right on cue, exactly five years after the middle class became, for the first time in modern history, a minority.

His Big Lie was this: there was a “swamp” that was responsible for the woes of the “real” American. The real American, of course, was the one pure of blood and true of faith, out there in the heartland — not the despised, corrupt city-dweller. The swamp? It consisted of corrupt elites in Washington DC. Who’d given all kinds of unfair advantages to everyone who wasn’t a “real” American — immigrants, minorities, the LGBT, women championing their own rights, and so forth. Journalists were “biased” towards these hated groups, and so they were an “enemy of the people” too. Hence, the primary mission of the Trumpist years — and of Trumpism — was “draining the swamp.” Right down to Jan 6th, when his paramilitaries and lunatics stormed Congress, hoping to block the peaceful transfer of power, and we know now that he would’ve led them in person if he could have.

Now. I bring all that up for a reason. So that you can see the evolution of American fascism. DeSantis’s story is different. In crucial ways. 

“The swamp” was a numinous, vague target. What was it, exactly? Just a loose grouping of everything that ultra-conservatives have long hated, from government to “foreigners,” and it’s always taken new social groups a few generations to be accepted as “real” Americans. “The swamp” was effective for a time — but it fizzled, as a target, after Jan 6th, and you can see that explicitly, in Trump still railing against it…but his attacks no longer register. That is because “the swamp” might have been an effective target in the 2010s, vague, undefined, shadowy. But now?

DeSantis isn’t out there attacking “the swamp.” He’s found a whole new way to approach fascism, and that is why I suggest this is whole new wave of it. Think about his attacks — you don’t have to think very hard to see what they have in common. They take the old scapegoats, the ones of the Trump years, the LGBTQ, minorities, Black people — and focus them on a new target. Kids.

DeSantis Big Lie is that “real” American kids are under attack from all these forces. Black people, teaching and learning their difficult history in America. The LGBTQ, having finally won rights, after centuries of never having them. Governments, who want to teach kids that rights for these groups matters, even that these groups exist historically and socially and materially. Right down to books, words, and teachers.

That is a completely different line of attack than “the swamp.” How is it different? Well, for one thing, it’s much more focused. It targets a very specific group as the victims of the scapegoats — kids are the ones all these nefarious groups and forces are out to get. And that focus, combined with that target, is especially dangerous.