Bush, Fascism and Fear
New Book Identifies Fascism in American Political Talk Since 9/11
Do not confuse the word “fascist” the way some pundits throw it around, undefined and out of context, with the word “fascist” in the title of Colleen Elizabeth Kelley’s latest book. She first defines fascism, gives historical examples, creates a framework for study and then presents the study to readers.
Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric: A Study of Protofascist Discourse (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) examines the fascist characteristics present in the communication of the Bush administration. Kelley focuses on the time frame from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, up to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, and analyzes the administration’s speech using its own words.
Kelley, an associate professor of speech communication at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, has been analyzing political rhetoric for more than two decades. She has also authored The Rhetoric of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton: Crisis Management Discourse (Praeger, 2001), and served as an editor of Women Who Speak for Peace (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
She argues that the president and his staff relied on a set of particular strategies that coalesced into anti-democratic talk in order to take advantage of the post-9/11 situation and justify the 2003 war against Iraq.
“One does not have to be a fascist to use communication that primes a democracy for fascism,” Kelley said. “Fascism is opportunistic. Fascist discourse usually happens in free societies rather than totalitarian states, since the latter rarely tolerate freedom of expression.”
Public communication is presented as a firewall to guarantee that such speech-based behaviors, which are endorsed by willing publics and developed within democracies, fail to thrive and do not destroy the very systems that enabled them in the first place. “The good news is that because fascism is talk-based, talk is also the best weapon against fascism,” Kelley said.
“People aren’t aware of how much work it takes to keep a democracy healthy,” Kelley said. “When citizens react before thinking, critical assessment of the initial argument gets lost.”
Two dominant characteristics of fascism are a controlled mass media and an obsession with national security. Kelley presents evidence that, “the administration, aided by unrestricted media access, rhetorically mobilized the nation’s fears of another 9/11.”
Remaining fascist characteristics evident in the communication of the Bush administration, according to Kelley, are:
-- powerful nationalism,
-- disdain for human rights,
-- uniting against common enemies,
-- supremacy of the military,
-- rampant sexism,
-- lack of division between church and state,
-- protection of corporations’ power,
-- elimination of labor unions
-- obsession with crime and punishment,
-- disdain for intellectuals and the arts,
-- rampant cronyism and corruption, and
-- fraudulent elections.
According to Texas A&M Professor James Aune, Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric: A Study of Protofascist Discourse is a “powerful, careful, and refreshingly non-ideological case” that will appeal to “readers interested in making sense of the dangerous new world we have entered since 9/11.”
Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric: A Study of Protofascist Discourse is available for purchase at barnesandnoble.com or bordersstores.com online.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 32 baccalaureate, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,400 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend is the link that connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams, 19 intramural sports and modern facilities. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.