By DAVE WESTER | Baraboo, Wis.
Bonito Mussolini brought fascism to Italy in the 1930s and later aligned it with Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Fascism involves a single dictator who makes all the important decisions and promotes a cult of personality. Law and order are maintained through an authoritarian state with total control over society.
ascism entails a corporatist economic system, with severe restrictions on labor. Unions, strikes and demonstrations are illegal. The goal is a good business climate and cheap labor.
Extreme nationalism is promoted. The nation’s dominant group, whether identified by race, religion, or other criteria, is considered superior to others. Dissent is stifled, and minority groups are persecuted.
Under fascism, a woman’s primary role is childbearing. Birth control, homosexuality — and certainly abortion — are condemned.
Mussolini was able to compromise the Pope and the Catholic religion to help win the support of the Italian people, a purpose for which religion has often been manipulated throughout history. It is one of the reasons that America’s founding fathers were adamant about the separation of church and state.
That separation is now forefront with Amy Coney Barrett, who has become the sixth Catholic U.S. Supreme Court justice. History and that bias may inspire a new imperative for separation of church and fascism.
White, evangelical Protestants have thrown their support behind the re-election of our fascist-leaning president. In light of that and the recent exposure of President Trump’s tax information, his MAGA hats may now be interpreted as “Make America Gasp Again.”
