Fringe, Fascism, and the Future

Guest Opinion

Over 10 years ago, I quietly attended an event called something to the effect of “The Michigan Tea Party Powwow” at a casino in Mount Pleasant. I remember it was cold outside, and inside I threw a few bucks in the slots when the event was over, which took place in an unmemorable conference area off the main floor. But lately, I’ve been remembering that event more for what it foretold about the political reality we’d find ourselves in today.

This was during the Rick Snyder years and after the Tea Party wave that swept the country.

The event was organized by ex-Republican State Representatives Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser. Remember them? If not, Google with caution. The lineup featured speakers like then-Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema, who at the time was facing calls from both sides of the political aisle for his ouster for racist remarks.

Chunks of the event featured typical Republican anti-tax and anti-government rhetoric, but the major hits came in the form of demonization of Muslims, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community.

I feel pretty confident saying that—at the time—this type of event was still considered somewhat “fringe” by Republican standards. Outright bigotry and denouncements of an inclusive democracy were often met with condemnation by other Republican office holders and talking heads at the time.

But you could tell that something bad was on the rise and not enough was being done to confront it.

Compare that event, which was a relatively closed-door gathering of activists and politicians in a casino conference room, to today. Just this last week, I saw multiple young white men proudly proclaim themselves as fascists and white nationalists on the YouTube channel Jubilee, a debate show that generates millions of views on its own and hundreds of millions of more through clips that make the rounds on social media.

It used to be that those sorts of sentiments were hidden away in the dark corners of the internet or chanted by hooded Klansmen behind barricaded demonstrations. Now we have young men unafraid to align themselves with political forces the Greatest Generation fought a world war against.

We have ICE agents rounding up and locking up immigrants regardless of their citizenship status while Republicans hawk T-shirts to manufacture consent for a concentration camp in the Florida Everglades. And to further show how far we’ve slid into the territory of hate, we have Stephen Miller in the White House dictating national policy to Donald Trump, which impacts every state in the country.

This is a problem, and Michigan is not immune. We even have current state representatives like Josh Schriver spewing white nationalist talking points online, only to be rewarded with coveted committee roles by Republican House Speaker Matt Hall.

The right-wing authoritarianism problem, the fascism problem, whatever you want to call it, has reached an inflection point, and there’s plenty of blame to go around for how we got here.

Democrats have all too often abandoned their own platforms and sampled from bogus Republican narratives that stoke fear of immigration with the hopes of winning over a few swing voters. Media outlets and talking heads have treated the erosion of the human rights and civil liberties of marginalized groups as some sort of topic worthy of reasonable debate for clicks and views. And Republicans have completely hitched their political fates to campaigns centered on anger, fear, and othering as a means to reach power while ensuring no one ever blames the wealthy CEOs who are making their healthcare and groceries unaffordable.

And that does not even begin to touch on the deeply flawed and all too often ignored history of this nation, but my word count is limited.

This is a problem that should not be everyone’s responsibility to fix—too often marginalized groups under fire are expected to be on the frontlines fighting the problems created by or ignored by the privileged—but it is a problem that will inevitably be shared by us all.

Because the same people now proudly flying their flags of fascism before audiences of millions online are the same ones who are behind the wheel of the machine that is driving us toward a climate disaster, a housing crisis, a massive wealth gap, and the erosion of a government that is controlled by the people.

Things are dark and will likely get worse, but I am far from hopeless.

The only way we get out of an authoritarian future is through a multi-racial, diverse, working class movement rooted in solidarity that can confront the forces of greed that wield racism and fear as means to power while making the basics of life better for everyone.

Together, we can build a future of inclusion where everyone can thrive and fascists are forced back to the fringes. (Or maybe, at a minimum, a casino conference room where the sounds of the slot machines drown out their rhetoric from the outside world.)

Sam Inglot is the executive director of Progress Michigan, a nonprofit communications advocacy and government watchdog group.

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