“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
– Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

CONECUH NATIONAL FOREST — Before I talk about the year and decade in review in this final column of this eventful year of 2019, I would like to put forward a proposal for the future in the form of a question: What if somehow Democrats could be as successful at making “fascism” a bad word in the American public dialogue as Republicans have been in making “liberal” and “socialism” bad words?

Then maybe we could have a truly two-sided argument in print, on television, the web and social media.

Since we still live and learn in many ways by narrative, sometimes by narratives we don’t fully understand like the song lyrics we hear but don’t fully grasp, let me tell a story that might shed some light on this debate.

I often think of this incident which dates back to 1989, about the time the partisan divide really began to crack and fracture us like the start of a crevice in the Arctic ice sheet.

At that time I was reporting and writing for a chain of newspapers along the Gulf Coast out of an office in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I had a friend who owned a dive shop right across from the beach. He was a Democrat who was considering running for the city council. I was visiting him in his shop one morning, and we saw a gentleman coming to the door who was known as one of those early Republicans in Baldwin County who was actively building that party to counter the Democrats, who still controlled all three branches of government in Alabama at that time.

I didn’t feel like talking to him that day, so I stepped in the back out of site and eavesdropped on their mostly political conversation. But I stepped out to interrupt at one point, when the gentleman made a historical snafu. He said we fought World War II to combat “communism.”

Now anyone who knows anything about history knows we fought the Nazis from Germany in WWII, who were engaged in fascism even while they called their government a “socialist Republic.” We also fought imperialism against the Japanese. Neither one of these governments were trying to spread “socialism,” which simply gives members of the public more involvement in and benefits from their government. In fact they were doing the opposite. Giving the state unlimited power to control the beliefs of citizens and the amount of wealth they are allowed to possess.

After WWII, we did fight a Cold War with the Soviet Union in a long battle between capitalism and socialism, which of course we seemed to win in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down.

But what did we actually win? Certainly not more rights for workers or social justice for the underclasses or minorities. The moneyed classes won the right to pay lower taxes and opt not to raise wages.

So how are the working classes and the Christian Right still so vulnerable to falling for a narrative that leaves them in relative poverty while allowing billionaires to become trillionaires?

Anyone who studies American history knows the story of how the first president, George Washington, was so popular that he could have taken upon himself the power of a king, like King George III who controlled England at the time of the Revolutionary War. Washington declined that power with great humility, even though he actually enjoyed the adoration of the people in the new United States.

Donald Trump will never enjoy the adoration of a majority of the people here, but he wants to amass the power of a king. He admires other fascist dictators around the world like Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Vladimir Putin of Russia, which is no longer a Communist or even a socialist country. It is a fascist, capitalist dictatorship basically run by a dictator and the Russian Mob.

Is that what we really want in this country?

Why won’t the top, famous people in the American news media come out and tell people this is our struggle? They don’t hesitate to tell people that Bernie Sanders is a socialist, and say it as if it was a bad word and an undesirable thing to have in government.

If they were truly interested in reporting “both sides” of the issue, they would point out that what Trump is engaged in is in fact fascism, the political opposite of socialism. If you don’t believe me, look it up.

A simple search turns up the definition. Fascism is a noun defined as “an authoritarian and nationalist right-wing system of government and social organization.” It is “oppressive” and promotes “intolerant views or practices.”

That is the exact definition of what could be called the “Trump doctrine.”

We may have a better chance of getting the votes in the Senate to remove Trump from power if and when the press and the media in this country would tell that side of the story. Maybe someone besides me and Noam Chomsky will tell people that during the general election in 2020 in time to prevent a Trump second term?

Now for the year and decade in review.

Year in Review

Let’s just say that 2019 has been a difficult year, which started with a Trump government shutdown and ended with the deaths of my good fiend and colleague David Underhill, my 93-year-old mother, and my loyal dog Jefferson. Here’s to hoping for a better year in 2020, but that may depend on the outcome of the impeachment trial in the Senate and/or the results of the 2020 election in November.

Decade in Review

The decade started with the largest and worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, the BP oil spill, and ended with the impeachment of the worst, most corrupt president in American history.

In between we managed to transition from a manual, html headline news web site into a Word Press magazine news site with a new name, New American Journal.

We now have 15 years of successful independent web publishing experience behind us, including five years with the new name.

While newspapers are still dying almost every day, we continue to expand our circulation and revenue base. The year 2020 portends to be a banner year in this regard, as we start the year with a new winter camp and newsroom north of Pensacola, Florida and a new office in Atmore, Alabama. Stay tuned for more information about that in the days and weeks ahead.