Plenty of room for examples

Letters submitted via email may contain a maximum of 400 words. Therefore, Alison Cameron can give specific examples of ordinary people who have been fired for “accusations of racism where none exist.” She can also cite specific examples of how “We’re living in a world where uttering the wrong syllables, even in a benign, educational manner, can get you fired on the spot.”

Per her fear of reelecting a “fascist dictator,” fascists have never assumed power merely through elections. Capitalist states in crisis have always given fascists power, i.e., Hindenburg handing power to Adolf Hitler through Germany’s Enabling Act.

Hitler’s ascendancy and the Enabling Act were not isolated incidents. They were direct responses to Germany’s dire economic depression and the capitalist class’ need to secure its power. This historical context is crucial to understanding how fascist dictatorships, like an iron hoop, hold capitalism together during financial crises.

In 2016, the US was far from the economic conditions that foster fascist dictatorships. Although propped up by quantitative easing, etc., the economy was strong. Furthermore, there was no significant socialist current to suppress. Therefore, there was no (material) impetus for the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, and there still isn’t.

Accordingly, although Donald Trump traffics in fascistic rhetoric, he couldn’t become a fascist dictator if reelected just because he would want to. Thinking otherwise is to succumb to Great Man Theory and the worthless idealism it entails.

History is driven by class conflict, and fascism is derived from capitalism. Moreover, fascism is conceivable because of liberal capitalism, not despite it. Both philosophically and historically, fascism is entrenched in the identical Western institution as liberalism, and it reappears because capitalism’s contradictions spawn its nucleus.

Bipartisan neoliberalism is the contradiction of capitalism driving Trumpism. Trump’s election was a result of neoliberal “reforms,” e.g., lowering trade barriers, eliminating price controls, privatization, the elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act and other protections, governmental fiscal austerity, etc.

Neoliberalism freed capitalists from their territorial and governmental confines and decimated the strength, influence, and income of workers. Although all of that manifested from capitalism, many workers were conditioned to believe socialism, immigration, gay liberation, feminism, “wokeism,” and other social factors were at fault, thereby pushing them toward Trumpism.

But a vote for Biden is also a vote for more neoliberalism and more fascism adjacency. The time is long past due for workers to reject both factions of the US “Capitalist Party.”( https://votesocialist2024.com)

Guy Marsh Lancaster