These Christmas ornaments were for sale at a gun show at the Louisville, Kentucky, Expo Center on the same day that an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

We are surrounded by that stuff – as some of the other illustrations below will confirm. And yet, for a variety of reasons, wishful thinking among them, we manage to deny how deeply fascist ideology is woven into the fabric of US life. A thoughtful analysis by Zoltan Grossman, a son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, explains why: (it really is worth to read the whole thing)

1. One form of Fascism Denial is to conflate far-right militancy with other forms of violence. Minorities are not random targets, exposed to crazy lone gun men, but targeted for isolation and fear.
2. They’re not your grandparents’ fascists.  They come in all guises beyond our traditional stereotypes of clans men and goose steppers.
3. The are more diverse than you’d think.  It’s not only about white supremacy. In the US we don’t just have one generic racist history, but three distinct racist histories rooted in slavery (for African American labor), genocide (for Native American land), and xenophobia (to justify foreign conquest and depict immigrants as a cultural threat).
4. A fourth form of Fascism Denial is to loosely use terminology so that it loses its real meaning. 
5. A fifth form of Fascism Denial is to chalk up far-right beliefs to generic “hatred” or “incivility” that can be overcome if we just discuss our differences, and equates fascist anger with anti-fascist anger. This tendency overlooks the main tool of fascist ideology, which is not anger, but cold, calculating conspiracy theories that totally explain a complex world to gullible followers
6. We can do something about it: below Grossman explains in clear and simple words what the necessary steps should look like.https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/30/fascism-denial-ignores-some-inconvenient-truths/

 

The following images are all from the last few months:

Here is one that appeared two days after the Pittsburgh massacre

.https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-state-sen-candidate-mailer-anti-semitic

Here is one that appeared on college campuses during the Kavanaugh debacle.

Here are cartoons depicting Soros as the billionaire Jew running the government,

and this one by ex presidential candidate Ron Paul using dogwhistle terms for international Jewry.

Ron Paul, former presidential candidate, tweets racist and anti-Semitic cartoon

 

This was found smeared on a Seattle Synagogue.

 

But also:

This was posted by the good guys in response to claims by Trump that the caravan of poor people approaching the US border will bring us small pox (eradicated in 1980 according to the WHO) and leprosy.

 

And this was posted by the Pittsburgh Ice Hockey Team:

And here is a link to a wonderful clip of Carl Reiners, 96-year old comedian:

96-year-old Carl Reiner hopes to live at least 2 more years to see a president who’s a ‘decent, moral, law-abiding citizen’